ASF publishes Code of Conduct

ASF publishes long-overdue Code Of Conduct

We pride ourselves at the Apache Software Foundation on our principles of "community 
over code" and "don't be a jerk", but, alas, we've been slow to codify some of these 
things in public. Part of this, I'm sure, is that we all *just know* how we're 
supposed to treat people, and so you shouldn't have to say, right?

But, of course, you do have to say. In part because some people don't know. In 
part because everyone needs to know that we consider it important enough to stand 
up and talk about it.

I was approached at ApacheCon by someone who had noted that we referenced a Code of 
Conduct on the Apache.org website, but that no such document actually existed 
anywhere on our site. This person was from the CouchDB community, who have devoted 
hundreds of hours and email messages over the last few months crafting their Code of 
Conduct - http://couchdb.apache.org/conduct.html - which addresses everything from 
what's acceptable on mailing lists to what do do if someone is being a jerk. This 
seemed like a great starting point for conversation, and the ASF has adopted this 
as our initial Code of Conduct, with minor edits removing the CouchDB-specific language.

No doubt, we'll get criticism for being so slow to do this, and we're ready to admit 
that. But it's never too late to take steps in the right direction, and we feel that 
this is an important one.

You are encouraged to join the conversation on the Community Development mailing 
list - http://www.apache.org/foundation/mailinglists.html#foundation-community - 
if you have changes you'd like to see in that document, or if you'd like to 
discuss any other aspect of the Apache community. For example, we've already 
have someone bring up the subject of punitive measures for infractions, which 
can be a rather contentious issue. We'd love to hear your perspective on this, 
and help us continue to move in the right direction.