Draft SAGE Code of Ethics

[halm@cse.ogi.edu (Hal Miller)]

REQUEST FOR COMMENT  --  Draft SAGE Code of Ethics

Fellow SAGE members,

After more than two years of discussion and debate, the SAGE Code of Ethics
is about ready to go.  A draft of it is available for review at URL:

    http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~halm/

Some 100 people have had fairly significant input to this document.  It
appears to be very tight.  Certainly, we could argue about it for decades,
but that would be less than productive.  What we would like now is for
the membership at large to look this over for anything glaringly wrong with
it.  I will accept comments (directly to me: halm@usenix.org) until Friday
the 15th of November, at which time I will put it into final form for the
Board of Directors to pass upon.  I will try to respond to comments (again,
directly as opposed to over mailing lists), but if the volume gets too
large, I reserve the right to beg your indulgence.  I will most definitely
consider fully any comments I receive.

For those wondering about the Ethics Working Group, you may be aware that
all of the Working Groups were acknowledged by the Board to be defunct
about a year ago.  There had been no activity (despite repeated attempts
by most Board members) on any of them, including this one, for nearly
a year at that point.  I collected a few of the formerly-active members
of the Ethics Working Group and hammered this draft out.

For those non-USA members of SAGE, it is my hope that this Code will be
the basis, along with the SAGE-AU Code, of a soon-to-be internationally
accepted version.  This one reflects much of the SAGE-AU work, plus
direct input from at least one (in addition to myself) member of the
original SAGE-AU working group.

I will be writing an article for ;login: on the purpose of this Code.  It,
and the Final Version, should appear in the issue after this coming one,
at which time the Code becomes "official".  I've often been asked what that
would mean, and want to assure all that it is not a piece of legislation.
This Code should be considered "advisory" at this point, meaning we have
no punitive or enforcing procedures in place or even contemplated.  The Code
represents what we as a community believe sysadmins should strive for as a
matter of professional ethics.  It should represent to our customer base,
to our vendors, and to the computing community at large, the standard of
professional conduct they can expect of us.  It is one more step along the
road of making our vocation a "profession" in the eyes of the world (as well
as in our own eyes).

Given these comments, I now solicit your comments.  Please email me
directly rather than clutter up thousands of mailboxes around the world.
I would also be happy to entertain your comments on what "official" and
"advisory" might mean to you, plus what you think a good future plan
might be.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and participation.
-- 
| Hal Miller     halm@cse.ogi.edu  | Computing Facilities Mgr  (HAM10) |
| Oregon Graduate Institute        | PO Box 91000, Portland 97291      |
| 20000 NW Walker Road             | voice: +1 503 690-1350            |
| Beaverton, Oregon 97006 USA      | fax:   +1 503 690-1548            |