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Godot Engine continues advancing Vulkan support, adopts new Code of Conduct

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The team behind the free and open source game engine, Godot Engine, have another progress report to share on Vulkan support coming to Godot Engine 4.0. Plus, they have a new Code of Conduct.

With the 4.0 update that brings in Vulkan, it's also going to give developers a much more powerful Global Illumination system. Godot's support for it landed in the 3.0 release but they said it was quite limited, so they've reworked it. The new system offers much better performance, 100% real-time lighting, voxel ambient occlusion, support for dynamic objects, multiple bounce lighting and more to come.

Thanks to all of this, Godot Engine 4.0 will include "a fast and complete solution for real-time global illumination, in an easy to use package" which certainly will help those making 3D games. A very exciting advancement for the open source game engine.

As for the Code of Conduct, it all sounds pretty sane. They expect contributors to remain polite and be welcoming to all regardless of race, ethnicity, language proficiency, age and so on.

See more on the official Godot Engine website.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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TMM Nov 5, 2019
Someone who is part of the Godot community should never, as part of the community, have to defend their right to exist to another community member. Ideally this would never be necessary but our CoC can only do so much. This type of conversation is indeed simply not tolerated. It is unfair to expect any Godot contributor to possibly have to defend their identity to someone who questions it. This adds a barrier to entry that we simply do not want to exist.

Quoting: PatolaWhy do you think there are so many checkboxes to expel anyone from the community? Because it increases the odds of seeming reasonable. "level of experience, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, language proficiency, age, political orientation, nationality, religion, or other similar characteristics..." -- anything can be shoehorned into being "harassment" when being so broad, and there is even a broadening clause in the end to ensure that.

It is not possible to make a strict set of rules about human behavior. Trying to do so would be foolish. The guidelines are examples of things that are not acceptable and can be referred to by moderators as reason for removal from the community. The thing you seem to be asking for: A stricter set of rules, is not actually achievable.

Quoting: PatolaAnd that person might be expelled for doing it elsewhere ("...either publicly or privately.")? Holy cow. One twitter freak with which you argued who tags you as any of the labels would be enough to condemn you for life.

The rules are applied by real humans, as we state in our CoC. The scenario you describe won't happen. However if someone uses Twitter DMs to harass another Godot contributor they may get removed from Godot community platforms.

If you have a party at your house and after the party some friend of friend finds the Facebook page of a friend of yours. This person then proceeds to harass your friend over Facebook, would you invite them back to your house only because the harassment didn't happen in your house?

Quoting: PatolaRemember Brendan Eich, who was expelled from Mozilla for not even arguing but for a personal private donation he made to a cause people there did not agree with.

Brendan was removed from a leadership position because his private donations were to causes that directly tried to negatively impact a large number of Mozilla employees. This is an extraordinary situation and not a very useful example in the context of the Godot Code of Conduct.
Eike Nov 5, 2019
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Quoting: slapinReally you have the right to insult people - yes, you will get reaction you deserve, but that right is protected.

In my country, it is actually forbidden by law to insult people. (I'd recommend to double-check this for yours...) So in the generality you're stating it, that's wrong.


Last edited by Eike on 5 November 2019 at 8:01 am UTC
Samsai Nov 5, 2019
The thing I don't understand here is that some seem to think that the set of rules in the CoC is too broad and can be used to suppress their free speech (which they do not have in private spaces such as web forums or chat rooms or Git repos etc) but "Don't be a jerk" is just perfect.

When your only rule is "Don't be a jerk", any decision made by the moderators is 100% arbitrary and dependent on who is doing the moderating. The moderator could be using the same set of criteria as the CoC to determine who is a jerk and who is not or they could be using a significantly longer list of criteria. Or they could define a jerk as a person who they just don't like.

Also, I think people are overreacting to this whole thing simply because it's called a Code of Conduct. I think if the GOL Posting Rules were called the GOL Code of Conduct the same people would begin complaining about that too.
TheSHEEEP Nov 5, 2019
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Quoting: Eike
Quoting: slapinReally you have the right to insult people - yes, you will get reaction you deserve, but that right is protected.

In my country, it is actually forbidden by law to insult people. (I'd recommend to double-check this for yours...) So in the generality you're stating it, that's wrong.
I doubt very much that such a thing exists in any country.

What are you gonna do, fine people who call someone else an a**hole or idiot? That's impossible to enforce.
You are likely confusing just an insult with actual slander, which can indeed be punishable by law in many countries.
Eike Nov 5, 2019
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Quoting: TheSHEEEP
Quoting: EikeIn my country, it is actually forbidden by law to insult people. (I'd recommend to double-check this for yours...) So in the generality you're stating it, that's wrong.
I doubt very much that such a thing exists in any country.

What are you gonna do, fine people who call someone else an a**hole or idiot? That's impossible to enforce.
You are likely confusing just an insult with actual slander, which can indeed be punishable by law in many countries.

Yes, and I actually did that once for a person who... well, let's say he insisted on it.
He was charged 1000€ (*) for writing what translates well to "Piss off, Eike!" on the net.
You can look up the actual law here.
I don't know how usual this is internationally, but I really recommend to look it up before insulting anybody (instead of relying on "impossible" and "likely").
And I really recommend not insulting anybody, of course.

(*) going to some good cause neither of mine nor of his choice


Last edited by Eike on 5 November 2019 at 10:32 am UTC
TheSHEEEP Nov 5, 2019
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Quoting: EikeYes, and I actually did that once for a person who... well, let's say he insisted on it.
He was charged 1000€ (*) for writing what translates well to "Piss off, Eike!" on the net.
You sued someone for telling you to piss off somewhere on the net? I'm not buying it.
There is way more context to this than you are letting on (the "insisting on it" could make something serious enough).

I mean, seriously, I'm German, too and read a lot of comments on various sites from Spiegel to Facebook (oh boy, FB comments, that's some sludge right there...) , etc. and if anyone who said something that harmless about someone else (piss off isn't even an insult, it's telling someone to leave) somewhere on the net was sued/suable, the German courts would be blocked for eternity and the law probably abolished.


Quoting: KimyrielleThat's utter nonsense. There is a certain group of toxic people that resent that their toxic statements are no longer left standing without receiving dissent for them.
Dissent isn't the problem, it's what makes life interesting. The spice in the soup.
The problem is that some people are calling for outright banning, blocking, locking up, etc. of anything not stricly adhering to their own opinions and views. We've had this here, too, with topics being locked once the admins saw people were not agreeing with their own views and so any further discussion was locked under the guise of "preventing trolling" (aka "people posting stuff I don't agree with and rubbing it in my face") or something like that.
I don't doubt this topic will have the same potential outcome...

Not that admins don't have the right to do pretty much whatever on their own sites. They sure do, and they are making their standpoint clear by doing it.
And same goes for the Godot devs. If they want to exclude people who openly disagree with them about certain topics, they can do that. I don't care either way, while I do develop some stuff (modules) for Godot, I have no intention of contributing to the core engine. For different reasons than this topic here, though I have to agree it doesn't help, even if I'm not fitting any of their "bad person" checkmarks as far as I can see.

However, it should be clear to everyone that what this does is create a divide, and how that is going to benefit any project, I don't know.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 5 November 2019 at 11:51 am UTC
Eike Nov 5, 2019
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPI mean, seriously, I'm German, too and read a lot of comments on various sites from Spiegel to Facebook (oh boy, FB comments, that's some sludge right there...) , etc. and if anyone who said something that harmless about someone else (piss off isn't even an insult, it's telling someone to leave) somewhere on the net was sued/suable, the German courts would be blocked for eternity and the law probably abolished.

[Switching to German to avoid missunderstandings]

Mir hat jemand auf einer großen Website "Verpiss dich, Eike!" geschrieben. Da derjenige sich aus meiner Sicht öfter gegenüber verschiedenen Leuten denebenbenommen hatte, habe ich Anzeige erstattet und Strafantrag gestellt. Er hatte das anonym unter einer IP-Adresse getan, die für die Strafverfolgung auf seine Person zurückgeführt wurde. Die genauen juristischen Fachbegriffe muss ich dir schuldig bleiben, ich glaube, "das Verfahren wurde gegen Zahlung eines Bußgelds eingestellt" oder so ähnlich. Fakt ist, er musste 1000€ (Zahl der Tagessätze weiß ich nicht mehr) an irgendeinen Jagdverein bezahlen.


People don't often file charges for insults on the internet, though, for sure.

PS: Isn't it irconic that you didn't want to believe there's a country forbiding insults by law - just to find out you're living in one... ;)


Last edited by Eike on 5 November 2019 at 12:02 pm UTC
devland Nov 5, 2019
Quoting: psyminIf someone is mean to someone else in a realm that isn't related to linux, gaming or godot, that shouldn't have any impact on their ability to contribute.

It does have an impact.

If you start calling someone names, regardless if you do it offline or online on another platform, then you can't possibly expect that the other person will be willing to continue to work with you.

You also need to consider the fact that calling coworkers names reflects negatively upon the entire organization. People will think twice before joining and/or contributing.
chr Nov 5, 2019
Everyone is biased. Every AI we would make would inherit any biases of the pre-existing programmer/company/society/culture.

I think in general there are some valid good-faith (honest intentions) fears and arguments that stem from them on both sides (I'm not saying that both sides are equal and the Truth lies exactly in the middle). The problem arises from the fact that there are probably some bad-faith (malicious intentions) actors mixed in. People who pretend to fight for valid, honest reasons, but actually just want to harm or destroy the other side. And we need to speak out about those who on our side of the argument step out of line. Who seem to fight to harm others, rather than for fairness. Because as we know full well from US politics, this behavior - of excusing any behavior as long as it is on your side and condemning any slightest misstep on the other side - will take us nowhere.

Quoting: PatolaToxic is not an informative world. Usually it is just meant to convey "bad" but is lacks any descriptive power. What is toxic? Histrionic words? Extreme points of view? Right-in-your face insults like "idiot"? Acid sarcasm? Left-wing views? Right-wing views? Victorian moralism? I've seen this word used with all these diverse meanings. Which depends heavily on the reader. So in fairness you should not use that word as a criteria to exclude people.

I would say perhaps:
Toxic - One who is (assumed to intentionally be) uncaring and hurtful towards others without any provocation or justification.
Privilege - A speck of (additional) personal power and prestige and identity transferred to a person due to their background (perceived ethnicity, perceived gender, perceived sexuality). A source of ever so tiny benefits from natural biases of others stemming from our shared cultural background.
Trolling - Bad-faith discussion disguised as good-faith discussion. Not actually engaging the other person, but pretending to for the sake of personal amusement at the expense of that other person.

I think people with some privilege are unintentionally blind to how much harm they might do to others who have a more fragile position and identity in the world than others (Giorgio Armani probably has more power than any straight white males here). Also generally anyone with any smidgen of power will want to keep it. It is always a problem maintaining power calls for attacks on others. Some white people (metaphorically) punching down on the (statistically speaking) relatively powerless ethnic minorities might often be doing this to protect their advantageous position in society. To defend the "natural order of things". Those who happen to be on the top are assumed to be there because of merit not because of historical happenstance. Since this defends one's own position as the rightful ruling class. Practically anyone would have that bias in such a situation.

And some people on the right are legitimately offended that people step out to defend these minorities from attacks on their identity and personhood while some of the same "privileged" people also suffer in poverty and e.g. poor mental health.

But some people on the left feel this doesn't invalidate neither the suffering or marginalized people of color nor marginalized people who are white. Both suffer. Statistically speaking marginalized people of color probably have some extra suffering sprinkled on top due to the cultural biases against them. In any case, all marginalized people should be defended, not attacked.

[not patronizing!] I think again, the solution (for all of us) is remembering to breathe deeply and slowly to be less fearful (whether the reason for fear is takeover of society and retribution by toxic persons who care about social justice or by toxic persons who are reacting to the persons who care about social justice), since fear shuts down higher thinking. Also if we were to have a culture of consideration of the other person's viewpoint and their personhood, then I believe hate crimes, doxxing and trolling become impossible for the majority of people. Cultivate the culture you wish for.

Quoting: Baemir
Quoting: slapinWell, there is very big difference between receiving negative comments and being banned - when people have a chance to talk out of the problem they eventually solve it or agree to disagree, but when one side is constantly banned for what they say you remove all the discussion and all chances for a problem to be resolved.

Oh, the problem is definitely resolved on their end. I call it the Genghis Khan method.

There are people who intentionally abuse this right to discussion. People who pretend to be discussing the problem, whilst actually sneaking in more personal attacks like with a trojan horse. It is because of such people that we cannot have nice things. Very similar process can also happen unintentionally, but does not change much. If the person is unintentionally hurting others, but fails to communicate within a limited time frame (or to a moderator later) how their intentions were good, but they actually have social ineptitude. You generally turn to CoC when people are way out of line. When normal talking no longer works.


Also on the topic of the effects of proper CoC vs DBAJ ("Don't be a jerk"). I would argue that a CoC is less useful for blanket bans. Implied or real DBAJ meanwhile will allow moderators to ban people based on political preferences or attractiveness of their face or the naming scheme of their commits - they don't need to give a reason or justify their ban. With CoC there is some oversight. And there is always some trust needed.
TheSHEEEP Nov 5, 2019
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Spoiler, click me
Quoting: Eike[Switching to German to avoid missunderstandings]

Mir hat jemand auf einer großen Website "Verpiss dich, Eike!" geschrieben. Da derjenige sich aus meiner Sicht öfter gegenüber verschiedenen Leuten denebenbenommen hatte, habe ich Anzeige erstattet und Strafantrag gestellt. Er hatte das anonym unter einer IP-Adresse getan, die für die Strafverfolgung auf seine Person zurückgeführt wurde. Die genauen juristischen Fachbegriffe muss ich dir schuldig bleiben, ich glaube, "das Verfahren wurde gegen Zahlung eines Bußgelds eingestellt" oder so ähnlich. Fakt ist, er musste 1000€ (Zahl der Tagessätze weiß ich nicht mehr) an irgendeinen Jagdverein bezahlen.
Hätte nicht gedacht, dass es diese dünnhäutigen "Anzeige ist raus!"-Personen wirklich gibt. Dachte, das wär nur Parodie auf YouTube...
Hab' ich doch wieder mal was gelernt.

Wenn das Verfahren eingestellt wurde, heißt das nur, dass da jemand lieber zahlt als sich auf ein Verfahren einzulassen (was seinerseits Geld und Zeit kostet). Keine Ahnung, was der Kerl sonst noch so geäußert hat (wohl genug, um lieber zu zahlen?), aber ich habe keinerlei Zweifel, dass ein "verpiss dich" allein auf irgend ner Seite unter keinem Umstand ausreichend beleidigend ist, um tatsächlich zu einer Verurteilung zu führen.


Quoting: EikePS: Isn't it irconic that you didn't want to believe there's a country forbiding insults by law - just to find out you're living in one... ;)
Well, I'd gladly take anyone to court whose special feelings couldn't take some opposing opinion and felt insulted.
PS: I'm not living in Germany.
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