Don't require affiliates to subscribe to GFRC #481
Conversation
To be clear, neither GHCUp nor the CLC are obliged to subscribe to the GFRC per se. They are independent bodies, welcome to affiliate with HF or not as they see fit. If they choose to affiliate, then they are required to subscribe to the GFRC. Personally, I think it's quite unlikely that the HF will choose to remove the requirement to subscribe to the GFRC to become affiliated. On the other hand, I think it's plausible the guidelines will be amended, for example following the discussion in #463. In any case, I consider it impossible that the decision to remove the requirement to subscribe to the guidelines will be taken in a PR to the website. |
How many affiliates do you think are even aware of this? My guess is none. It does strike me as improper... back when it happened, I asked several times about what the affiliation entails and I was initially rather reluctant. It was explained to me that it's a signal of aligning goals and visions. But it was not very precise. Maybe the HF needs to rethink the affiliation program. |
That would be very unfortunate. If the HF reaches out to organizations to request they become affiliated then they should make it clear what affiliation entails. I haven't been involved in any such discussions, neither as a representative of the HF nor as a representative of a candidate for affiliation, so I don't personally have any insight into what happened. However, I think it's unlikely that no affiliate is aware of this particular condition, and I don't think it's reasonable to describe it as an attempt to "backdoor a CoC". The only two documents that I am aware of that explain what affiliation means are the two pages on the HF website, both prominently announcing that GFRC acceptance is required for affiliation. That's very much "front door"! If any affiliate organizations have any concerns about what exactly they have subscribed to by becoming affiliates, I would certainly encourage them to reach out to the HF. |
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I did a bit of digging. The requirement that affiliates follow the GFRC goes all the way back to the creation of the page on affiliates, in Nov 2020: GHCup was noted as an affiliate in Oct 2021 (although there are no further details): The CLC was noted as an affiliate in Sep 2021, when the new website was created: 7d21737#diff-9a9e833841388bcf25e5b113e8832202697a013881640e563c343d1c1f896f46 but as far as I can tell the old website did not ever say they were affiliated: So perhaps this was a transcription error? |
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I agree that it would be unfortunate if this wasn't known by the affiliate projects. And we have evidence here (via GHCUp) that at least one was not aware. I'll do some poking and try to get some context from folks that were around when this was all set up. |
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FWIW I'd just scrap the affiliates program altogether, it's been dysfunctional for years and I don't think it serves any real purpose now. |
Both the GHCup project and the CLC were apparently not informed that they are obliged to subscribe to the GFRC. The GFRC has several problems, which also made the CLC reluctant to adopt it explicitly. I'm trying to address those concerns here: #480
Even in case the above is fixed, requiring affiliates to subscribe to it is against the GFRC text itself, isn't it?
I think it's better that we collaborate on the text and then make clear it is opt-in.
If an affiliate acts wildly in dissonance with the GFRC, then I think it's in the HFs best interest to remove them from their affiliation program. I just think it's odd to try to "backdoor" a CoC into other projects.