The vast majority of the time, the GCC community is a very civil, cooperative space. On the rare occasions that it isn’t, it’s helpful to have something to point to to remind people of our expectations. It’s also good for newcomers to have something to refer to, for both how they are expected to conduct themselves and how they can expect to be treated.
More importantly, if there is offensive behavior that isn’t corrected immediately, it’s important for there to be a way to report that to the project leadership so that we can intervene.
At this time the CoC is preliminary: the code itself should be considered active, but the CoC committee (and so the reporting and response procedures) are not yet in place.
