In September 2018, the Linux-community was presented with a Code of Conduct (CoC) - a set of rules governing interpersonal relations between employees and aimed at preventing conflicts on the basis of disagreements during the work process. Although the document seemed quite controversial to the public, its immediate changes were not expected until the release of the stable version of the Linux kernel 4.19. Greg Kroa-Hartman, the accompanying Linux kernel developer, based on the feedback and complaints of his employees, combined them and outlined the most important ideas for changing the CoC.

One of the main proposals was the development of a document explaining some details of the CoC. Innovations also require employees in the event of a controversial situation to apply now to the Code of Conduct Committee, rather than to the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board.

Another important update is the emergence of a mediator in Linux kernel conflicts. SFLC’s legal director, Misha Chowdhary, was appointed to this position.

The remaining changes can be viewed in the archive of developers of the Linux kernel. It is expected that the innovations will be implemented with the release of the stable Linux kernel version 4.19.0. The developers also created a CoC webpage.

CoC is designed to establish the rules and boundaries of relationships between developers of Linux. Linus Torvalds established the Code of Conduct and explained the decision by the fact that it is impossible to objectively reach a common decision in the discussion on norms of behavior.