As humans, I think it’s important that we provide work places that foster healthy communication where contributors can focus on improving the project in an harrasment free environment. I think code of conduct is a tool that is in the right direction for providing this kind of environment, although it’s limited.

It is a guiding light, nothing more. It’s up to the maintainers to stay faitful to that guiding light. Ultimately, what determines the experience of the people in the community is maintainers’ determination in upholding the values listed in the code of conduct.

One of the most successfull open source projects of all time, Linux, adopts Contributor Covenant, however, it is a known fact that the creator and the so called “benevolent” dictator of the project, Linus Torvalds, often breach it, the most recent one being last week.

Therefore, I think observing actual communication styles of the leaders is more important that the code of conduct itself. Whether Linus’ commincation style is justifiable is a discussion on it’s own, however, it is clear that it doesn’t uphold the values stated. So, as in the case of Linux, if the leaders of the community don’t really value the code of conduct, it reduces to bunch of words written in a text document, nothing more.

For a given project, I think it’s a positive if they have a well written code of conduct, however lack thereof wouldn’t deter me from contributing right away. I’d rather observe the public communications towards newcomers as well as the communcation styles of the leaders.