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saellaven
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gwr
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 Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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I find it difficult to take this seriously when the lead in reads, "... and the parties involved are, to put it as a summary, being jerks."
Nobody likes trolls and assholes, but who gets to decide what a troll or asshole is? |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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I don't see it as stricter, only clarification of the existing CoC.
Of course, different readers will apply their own cultural norms, thus I understand the stricter point of view too.
While it may be useful to clarify these things, in the end, it still comes down to the judgement of those doing the enforcing, which will be based on their own cultural norms.
A CoC is only useful if its self policed. That didn't happen in Gentoo. Nor was CoC enforcement supported by the council when it was put to the test. Instead the body created to do the enforcing was dissolved, so the CoC and the ideal of enforcing it equally on the community got off to a shaky start.
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tld
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| steveL wrote: | Indeed; that's what constructive criticism is all about.
Torvalds may begin with "WTF is this shit?" but he goes on to describe exactly how to do it right. |
This whole CoC thing gives me the same impression as does most of the use of the term "haters", which didn't even exist a few years ago. It's always seemed to me that when it gets used, 99% of they time it's to describe someone who's been give a really really good reason to want to kick the living snot out of someone else  .
EDIT: Since this got split to the topic on the Gentoo Council I wanted to clarify that the above was more in the context of the kernel dev CoC and the kdbus folks.
Last edited by tld on Fri May 01, 2015 12:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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Split off of The Politics of systemd
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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gwr
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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I like Patrick Lauer's reply:
| Quote: | This is needlessly fuzzy and will motivate the lawyer-type to find ways to
either frustrate you by staying within the limits, or claim to be offended by
your actions, thus applying this rule to you and forcing you to be removed.
It's a bit like defining obscenity ("I'll know it when I see it") ...
I'm confused how this is going to actually fix any issues that we can't
already fix. |
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miket
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| Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 6:23 am Post subject: |
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Oh my. That discussion is *way* beyond tedious. I could take only so much of it.
The Gentoo community is not some kind of political party or religious organization; we are not a government. It's not even common that any two of us would even be in the same place together. The proposal gets quite hung up in naming particular ways we should not offend one another because of belonging to some class of people; others in the discussion get worried about whether someone had commited some kind of crime and whether we should associate with that person.
If we were go that way, we should demand that reiserfs be dropped from the kernel.
Please! All of that is way beyond our scope. Whatever happened to that wonderful formuation "rough consensus and running code"? We are not sociologists. We are not the police of anyone's convictions.
If someone is a fugitive from justice, we really ought not hang out with that person. On the other hand, if someone has been acquitted in court or has served his or her time, why should that matter? Our mission lies with the betterment of Gentoo and in mutual support. People make mistakes, some big and some small. When anyone is trying to do better, we should be happy.
This is not to say that life is always pleasant and that our discussions are always civil. That's the reason for the Code of Conduct. In the blowups I've ever seen in Gentoo, however, the rare thing has been the kind of name-calling that the Robin Johnson, the proposer, would like to proscribe. So here's the thing: yes, there is a problem, but the proposal does not address it. One could be long winded, whiny, and thick-headed, but as long as you don't call someone names, that would seem to be OK by the proposed language.
This should be more of the thrust of what we want: "The Gentoo community includes people from all parts of the world. Anyone, regardless of condition, opinions, or beliefs is welcome so long as he or she participates constructively in the community. Our concern is with the development and use of the Gentoo distribution. Please be considerate of all the other members of the community and strive to make your interactions helpful and welcoming. When disagreeing with others, please be considerate: focus your comments on the technical matters at hand and refrain from needless repetition, discussion of irrelevant matters, demeaning language, or personal attacks. Jon Postel's famous rule, "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send" applies also to our interactions with one another. If we can all be slow to take offense and slow to offend, our community is much the better for it."
There. One paragraph and no lawyer language. |
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steveL
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| Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 10:33 am Post subject: |
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miket: absolutely brilliant.
The balancing objective (as against courtesy) is to avoid this. |
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krinn
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| Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 10:49 am Post subject: |
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| Funny, i think his rule 2.1 is breaking his rule 3.2 |
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steveL
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| Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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| robbat wrote: | I've been a developer in Gentoo a very long time. I've seen a lot of good behavior, but I've also seen a lot of arguments and nasty behavior:
- when tempers flared over Zynot and later, Exherbo
- when we had some epic-length thread on the mailing lists,
- when some developers took objected to each other on a basis of various stereotypes.
- More recently, infra staff have received some vitriol by anonymous parties unhappy with progress. |
Well if we leave the latter aside for a moment, as a recent event, and look at the problems over the years, it strikes me that:
they are related to developer media, not users.
..which is why the Council CoC disciplinary procedures only apply to developers, not users.
The Community CoC would have applied to users too, but only because it specified Proctors as its central plank, based on the forums moderators, and IRC operators, who'd clearly been doing a great job.
The only issue was developers, and their media, which were simply toxic at that point.
The real concern was never again needing to take 5 years to get rid of a developer like McCreesh.
And indeed being able to mute him, or others, once flamewars had got out of hand. (since no-one wanted to ban him, now a user, from the dev ml.)
Frankly I'm tired of developer poison being used as an excuse to browbeat, intimidate, and harrass users.
Put your own house in order, and stop taking out your issues on us.
We are not your punchbags. We are the reason Gentoo exists, and the people who do all the QA.
The recent events sound like something that can be dealt with under existing procedures.
No-one is going to bat an eyelid at infra banning someone who's spamming them.
So in policy (procedural) terms, I don't see the need for any modifications, while politically I might agree with the broader definitions.
So long as we're clear that it's developers who are being held to this standard, since users already behave well in the main, and the moderators for their channels are clearly capable of maintaining much higher standards already. |
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krinn
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| Posted: Fri May 01, 2015 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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| steveL wrote: |
The real concern was never again needing to take 5 years to get rid of a developer like McCreesh.
And indeed being able to mute him, or others, once flamewars had got out of hand. (since no-one wanted to ban him, now a user, from the dev ml.)
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Well, it looks logic that some devs are not willing to do any actions against other devs...
Without going into a vote for ban (don't ask users if they want someone ban, with such a power, they might all votes yes without real reason), you can still ask a vote for action to users.
And querying all users about dev X against dev Y may gives you legitimacy on action against one or the other (or both!).
So if dev X & Y goes into a rampage, a poll on users with : action against X, action against Y, both guilty or no action would gave "who ever is in charge of action" legitimacy that the majority of users have put blame on X or Y (or both or none).
That would be even fairer, even if the action result itself may still be bias (as "who ever is in charge of the action" may not be fair and might still takes a great sanction against you base on his bias relationship with you and the other dev), still your acts have drive you in front of the action. So if you don't want face any actions, be kind and/or professional and users will not blame you, safe keeping yourself from any action as the community is behind you (because even the community is made of devs & users, we have of course more users than devs).
And it would endup all the bitching devs likes to do, and it will do it, faster than lightspeed.
This will still bug users, but not for nothing this time.
(i'm unsure if it's the good term, but it's like making the community the procecutor role). |
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truekaiser
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| Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 1:42 am Post subject: |
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Christopher hitchens basicly says my feelings on the matter better than I can.
http://i.imgur.com/MUYhFT4.jpg |
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khayyam
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| Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 2:41 pm Post subject: |
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| krinn wrote: | | (i'm unsure if it's the good term, but it's like making the community the procecutor role). |
krinn ... well, no. A prosecutor is charged with presenting the case against the defendant. Possibly the term your looking for is adjudicator.
On the question of the proposed amendment to the CoC, specifically point 3.2 "Harassing & Discrimination", the following case should be made in opposition to such a provision (as its currently presented):
I have spent a great deal of time in the past 15 years opposing, and campaigning against, the UNCHR resolution on the defamation of religion so when I read "offensive" I must immediately ask "offensive to whom?" The principle involved here is that for freedom of expression to be granted we necessarily must accept the potential to be "offended" by the (ab)use of that freedom. I may not like what you say, but I would defend the principle involved in your being able to express it. This principle does not impose upon me a requirement to provide you a platform, or to assist you in any way in promulgating your views ... at the same time as my defending your right to freedom of expression I can actively campaign to deny you a platform on which to express it. No one is obliged to support another in an activity which they oppose, they have the ethical/moral obligation to counter such activity, the difference here is that no attempt is made to legislate "offence".
The wording of the amendment is such as to attempt exactly this, we need to ask ourselves: what would the criteria for, say, "offensive comments in relation to [...] religion" be? Am I, as a non-theologically inclined spinozist "offensive" in stating that revealed religion is hokum? How could this not be offensive to a religion who central tenant is that god has revealed himself to man in the form of his son, the prophets, etc? Well, you say, none of us take offence at that, we simply object to christians being referred to as "f**king christians" ... but still, does this provide us a criteria for what constitutes offence? I would say categorically, no.
Some of you may remember my report ... turned OTW pigswill on this very subject. No "moderation" came of this ... not because there was no rule in place against such "offence" but because there is in fact no political will within the community to act ... that is, it is of so little consequence to peoples sensibilities that they feel absolutely no inclination to oppose such crap. A change in the CoC will make absolutely no difference in that regard, it will simply confuse the real issue.
I personally find it offensive to read "f**king muzzies" on a forum of which I am providing my support, and as such I'm prepared to put myself on the line, make my objection known, and to raise it a moderation issue ... that IMO is the best way such things can be handled ... an amendment to the CoC will not provide the basis for moderators to take such things seriously, only the community can do that. As it didn't, and it be turned to pigswill, doesn't provide good grounds for an ill advised amendment to the CoC ... because the standards expected should be commensurate with those that the community holds.
My stance is basically game theoretic ... using the agreement I have with the community as a bargaining chip. In Does Game Theory Work? The Bargaining Challenge (MIT Press), Ken Binmore states the following:
| Ken Binmore wrote: | The folk theorem of repeated game theory says that any contract that rational players might sign on how to play a one-shot game is sustainable as an equilibrium outcome when the game is played repeatedly by patient players with no secrets from each other. Cooperative agreements that can only be sustained in one-shot situations with the assistance of an external enforcement agency can therefore survive as self-policing social norms in a repeated environment.
The mechanism that sustains self-policing cooperative agreements in repeated games is reciprocity. People sometimes register their understanding of how such self-policing agreements work by saying, "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine." But such a promise wouldn’t be effective without the implied threat that I'll stop scratching your back (or worse) if you stop scratching mine. That is to say, what keeps the cooperative arrangement on track is that everybody recognizes that they will suffer some punishment if they don't honor the implicit deal. |
It is such "reciprocity" which should be looked to as the means by which we can effect the "moderation of behaviour" that we find offensive. A disruptive individual, or group, can be brought to heel by pressure, or exclusion, by the community ... but it must have the political will to act in such a way as to make such "offence" unacceptable without resorting to the vagueness implicit in the proposed amendment.
best ... khay |
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steveL
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| Posted: Sun May 03, 2015 10:53 am Post subject: |
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| steveL wrote: | The Community CoC would have applied to users too, but only because it specified Proctors as its central plank, based on the forums moderators, and IRC operators, who'd clearly been doing a great job.
The only issue was developers, and their media, which were simply toxic at that point.
The real concern was never again needing to take 5 years to get rid of a developer like McCreesh.
And indeed being able to mute him, or others, once flamewars had got out of hand. (since no-one wanted to ban him, now a user, from the dev ml.)
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| krinn wrote: | Well, it looks logic that some devs are not willing to do any actions against other devs...
Without going into a vote for ban (don't ask users if they want someone ban, with such a power, they might all votes yes without real reason), you can still ask a vote for action to users.
And querying all users about dev X against dev Y may gives you legitimacy on action against one or the other (or both!). |
Thing is, that's not the area that needs work. No one has an issue with those being developer-judged, and appealed up to the Council, since that is effectively a jury of one's peers.
The problem is when developers beat up on users, and worse when they abuse their position and contacts to effect actions that have no grounds, which they would never stand for in relation to themselves.
I can give you examples I've seen and gone through myself; what concerns me is that if such abuses are being concocted against me, they are more than likely being used against other users as well. More commonly it's simply bitchiness handwaved away with "if you want us to engage, treat us special." (Try that at work sometime.)
Indeed, I've been contacted privately by several users stating exactly that.
| Quote: | And it would endup all the bitching devs likes to do, and it will do it, faster than lightspeed.
This will still bug users, but not for nothing this time.
(i'm unsure if it's the good term, but it's like making the community the procecutor role). |
Really you're talking about a jury role.
Though I feel like we're exploring the same ground as 7 years ago, that (after 9 months or so of cross-community work arriving at a consensus) led to the original Community CoC, with Proctors.
On that note, I don't think we're really at the stage of a judicial system.
Quite apart from anything else, the developers haven't even begun to understood the basics, of fundamentals such as Conflict of Interest.
Which would be sweet and all, if only they didn't also lay claim to socio-political expertise for a clique appointed solely on "technical merit".
In any event, I don't think we need trials etc; we just need an acknowledgement from the developer collective that they are developers, not moderators.
A bit of a no-brainer, one might think. |
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yngwin
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| Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 8:13 am Post subject: |
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| steveL wrote: | Frankly I'm tired of developer poison being used as an excuse to browbeat, intimidate, and harrass users.
Put your own house in order, and stop taking out your issues on us.
We are not your punchbags. [...]
So long as we're clear that it's developers who are being held to this standard, since users already behave well in the main, and the moderators for their channels are clearly capable of maintaining much higher standards already. |
Please stop your crusade against developers. It's not helping. It's not an us-vs-them issue. We are one community, and we have members (both devs and non-dev users) who misbehave.
The real problem I see with the CoC (whether the existing one or a reformulation) is that it is not being enforced.
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Free Culture | Defective by Design | EFF |
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steveL
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| Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 11:40 am Post subject: |
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If only you didn't proclaim the right for developers to special treatment in terms of moderation and behaviour, your protestations of "one community" might have some credibility, yngwin.
In fact, as pointed out, it's developers who don't even manage to behave as well as users overall, leave alone set a higher standard.
Or the CoC would never have come about.
Thanks for not quibbling with the fact that the Council CoC disciplinary procedures only apply to developers.
Or are you just pretending it never got said?
Point being, users who "misbehave" as you put it, have always been kept in line by the forums mods and IRC ops.
The "user" who "misbehaved" and brought about the Community CoC process, was ofc an ex-developer, whom none of your apparently strong-willed and "individual" developers could eject from their midst for over 4 years.
So again, I state clearly: it's the developer culture that needs to change, not the user one, which is what keeps so many people with Gentoo, and always has done. |
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davidm
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| Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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| You know, you'd think 99% of it could be handled by saying "don't be a jerk" and if three or more people say you are being a jerk, you probably are. |
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hasufell
Retired Dev
Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 429
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 1:14 am Post subject: |
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| yngwin wrote: | | The real problem I see with the CoC (whether the existing one or a reformulation) is that it is not being enforced. |
I agree.
Of the 10 times I wrote ComRel I got probably one answer.
No one is moderating mailing lists actively, nor bug reports.
And more importantly: no one is able to improve communication between developers... if there is REALLY an issue (e.g. a dev/team ignoring mails, requests or bug reports from other devs) it usually has to go right up to the council before something happens. And there are a few examples of this happening not so long ago.
And no, I'm not volunteering for the job. |
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steveL
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 8:52 am Post subject: |
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| hasufell wrote: | | No one is moderating mailing lists actively, nor bug reports. |
Moderation is a non-technical skill.
Emotionally-skilled moderators who also understand IT are rare, in the overall scheme of things, just as skilled bug-wranglers (on jakub's level) are rare.
When the developers finally reached out to the rest of the community and sought consensus on how to address exactly these issues, the wisdom of the crowd (and 8 months of discussion) came up with using the same skilled moderators who already make Gentoo work across other media.
So on the one hand it appears we are exploring that same ground (again), where one should be cognizant of history and what the Community Consensus was a priori.
On the other, one has to acknowledge that how the Proctors had the ground cut out from them, by the Council as then-constituted, before they'd even got started, set the whole situation back several years. Since, as a result we have instead had the situation you describe, as well as users being bashed with the developer CoC, and developers thinking "we should be treated specially" means "we can get away with what we like" instead of actually being held to the higher standard Gentoo rightly expects from them (as per their CoC).
| Quote: | | And more importantly: no one is able to improve communication between developers... if there is REALLY an issue (e.g. a dev/team ignoring mails, requests or bug reports from other devs) it usually has to go right up to the council before something happens. And there are a few examples of this happening not so long ago. |
Yeah, well, that developers think people appointed on technical merit only, to the exclusion of all else, should have any sort of aptitude for social moderation, perhaps the most non-technical area I can think of in distro development, is truly flabbergasting.
Another meme y'all might want to let go of, at least if you want to make any sort of progress with the areas you outline, and the subject of this thread. |
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idella4
Retired Dev
Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 1600
Location: Australia, Perth
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 11:06 am Post subject: |
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| hasufell wrote: |
Of the 10 times I wrote ComRel I got probably one answer.
No one is moderating mailing lists actively, nor bug reports. |
That kind of suggests it had something to do with both the product and the packaging. A complaint delivered with over zealous saber rattling tends to make the complainant appear as much a part of the problem as the accused within the complaint. I know from doing similar, once an 'issues' hits comrel, they examine it closely by their inhouse due process and, if it it starts crossing boxes, they simply refrain from pursuit of the issue. Yes this yields false negatives, however, the moment a complaint tips into subjective judgements mixed with strong abstract opinion, it loses inherent credibility and loses serious consideration by the members. 10 is more than enough for something to go wrong in the delivered product. Whether comrel is overly too quick to assess in this style I would not like to pass either comment nor judgement.
No, devs of comrel are still primarily devs and still primarily orgaize stabilizing and bumps and bug fixes of the packages of the herds to which they are attached. No surprises here.
| hasufell wrote: |
And more importantly: no one is able to improve communication between developers... |
Well it was tried once and failed dismally. Sadly there is too much evidence suggesting devs shield and protect themselves from being affronted not only by users but by one another by self serving rules of protocol. The mindset itself ensures self perpetuation. Attempts to break through are under vague discussion again, however until developers themselves have the courage to be challenged without hiding behind shields of inhouse process, the evidence suggests their defences are stronger than the attacking critique. In short, they are their own worst enemies.
Sure communication can be improved between developers. After all it's like the light bulb.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 1. But the light bulb has to really want to change
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hasufell
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Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 429
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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| idella4 wrote: | That kind of suggests it had something to do with both the product and the packaging. A complaint delivered with over zealous saber rattling tends to make the complainant appear as much a part of the problem as the accused within the complaint. I know from doing similar, once an 'issues' hits comrel, they examine it closely by their inhouse due process and, if it it starts crossing boxes, they simply refrain from pursuit of the issue. Yes this yields false negatives, however, the moment a complaint tips into subjective judgements mixed with strong abstract opinion, it loses inherent credibility and loses serious consideration by the members. 10 is more than enough for something to go wrong in the delivered product. Whether comrel is over too quick to assess in this style I would not like to pass either comment not judgement.
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You seem to make a few assumptions. But I will not go into detail, because I don't think it makes any sense to lay them out.
Generally speaking, a problem is that people think of ComRel only as some sort of "last resort" to escalate things badly and some ComRel members seem to even agree. And if not, no one really asks ComRel to help jump into a discussion BEFORE it derails, maybe because well... you don't get any answer? The "complaint" will just go through some procedure. Ok.
| idella4 wrote: |
Well it was tried once and failed dismally. Sadly there is too much evidence suggesting devs shield and protect themselves from being affronted not only by users but by one another by self serving rules of protocol. The mindset itself ensures self perpetuation. Attempts to break through are under vague discussion again, however until developers themselves have the courage to be challenged without hiding behind shields of inhouse process, the evidence suggests their defences are stronger than the attacking critique. In short, they are their own worst enemies.
Sure communication can be improved between developers. After all it's like the light bulb.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 1. But the light bulb has to really want to change |
Honestly speaking, I don't think it can be changed. So I'm not trying to blame ComRel too much. I am merely pointing out that the ComRel concept has failed as well, IMO.
The only way a change could happen, IMO, would be to start from scratch, not only in technical terms, but also in social terms (including: who is actually part of the dev community, probably decreasing that number drastically and moving to a better collaboration model). Because these problems are not just things that occur because of one or another dev. It comes from the very core (which is too big) and no one really knows how to emancipate oneself from that except by increasing distance.
But whenever I speak about starting from scratch, I may eventually get private mails/PMs from people telling me to stop spreading FUD. Oh well. Let's just pretend everything is ok. |
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idella4
Retired Dev
Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 1600
Location: Australia, Perth
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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| hasufell wrote: |
Generally speaking, a problem is that people think of ComRel only as some sort of "last resort" to escalate things badly and some ComRel members seem to even agree. And if not, no one really asks ComRel to help jump into a discussion BEFORE it derails, maybe because well... you don't get any answer? The "complaint" will just go through some procedure. Ok. |
Ofcourse no-one asks comrel to jump in before. comrel by its design was always intended as a body to respond post event. To suggest a pre-emptive strike is merely pie in the sky.
| hasufell wrote: | | The only way a change could happen, IMO, would be to start from scratch, not only in technical terms, but also in social terms (including: who is actually part of the dev community, probably decreasing that number drastically and moving to a better collaboration model). |
You're going against the grain here. All we ever hear about is we need more man power and the arch teams are over worked and need more man power. And you are suggesting an internal down sizing??? This kind of contribution to the topic does not help your cause.
| hasufell wrote: | | Because these problems are not just things that occur because of one or another dev. It comes from the very core (which is too big) and no one really knows how to emancipate oneself from that except by increasing distance. |
Otherwise termed avoidance. But yes, this is the current option.
| hasufell wrote: | | But whenever I speak about starting from scratch, I may eventually get private mails/PMs from people telling me to stop spreading FUD. Oh well. Let's just pretend everything is ok. |
This is merely an expression of cynicism, or sarcasm, or both, nevertheless pertinent. It is known and accepted by at least a few that everything is not ok. One termed it internal anarchy.
I don't want to write an essay here, most of it will never be read and the other part likely torn apart by objectionable defensive devs who insist they are worthy and survive on their history of technical contribution. I dunno what FUD is but it sounds awful. For now, I can only comment that I think comrel as it exists has outlived its effectiveness in dealing with aberrant behaviour. To put it another way, Gentoo developer Community has outgrown what comrel is charged to deal with. The aberrant behaviours have expanded in number and in nature. Gentoo Community basically needs a Justice Department. OH, a project, with its wiki page.
My reference to the light bulb still stands. Currently the chief protagonists have no belief they need change because they are just fine the way they are. What will they say when someone taps them on the shoulder and tells them they're actually not?
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 1. But the light bulb has to really want to change
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hasufell
Retired Dev
Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 429
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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| idella4 wrote: | | hasufell wrote: |
Generally speaking, a problem is that people think of ComRel only as some sort of "last resort" to escalate things badly and some ComRel members seem to even agree. And if not, no one really asks ComRel to help jump into a discussion BEFORE it derails, maybe because well... you don't get any answer? The "complaint" will just go through some procedure. Ok. |
Ofcourse no-one asks comrel to jump in before. comrel by its design was always intended as a body to respond post event. |
You missed the point. When e.g. a developer repeatedly ignores bug reports from another developer, then you can just act by formal policy... wait 2 weeks or so and just do your thing. It will cause an explosion if the package in question is a toolchain package.
So people do that... and THEN involve ComRel. Profit? Wat?
And no, the Project page does not say "we only act post event". Please see
| Quote: | | Community Relations is also responsible to assist in inter-developer and developer-user conflicts. |
Conflicts can have various stages and it doesn't make any sense to only jump in when the last stage has been reached.
| idella4 wrote: | | hasufell wrote: | | The only way a change could happen, IMO, would be to start from scratch, not only in technical terms, but also in social terms (including: who is actually part of the dev community, probably decreasing that number drastically and moving to a better collaboration model). |
You're going against the grain here. All we ever hear about is we need more man power and the arch teams are over worked and need more man power. And you are suggesting an internal down sizing??? This kind of contribution to the topic does not help your cause. |
That is absolutely incorrect, IMO. A lot of big-sized projects exactly work that way... and ONLY that way: by limiting the core-devs to a very small number, but opening up widely for contributions (or having a distributed model, like NixOS... strictly separating PM/core-tools and general-purpose nixpkgs) and that is easy to notice if you contribute to other opensource projects than gentoo. We do the opposite... we make drive-by contributions very hard, but open up the gates for everyone to become a core-dev (with a political voice). I have explained this in detail on the ML too. I don't think I want to repeat all that here. And I don't really care if that is "against the grain". I care about arguments and I don't believe everything people tell me, including "we need more developers". No, we need more contributors.
In case you wonder... if contributing wasn't that tedious in gentoo, I wouldn't be a dev in the first place.
You may also find this talk interesting. |
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idella4
Retired Dev
Joined: 09 Jun 2006
Posts: 1600
Location: Australia, Perth
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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hasifell it's a shame you take such a hard and defensive stance. I actually sympathize with the thrust of your main points but to read this you'd think we're having a punch up.
1. You immediately leap into the specific types of conflicts you have encountered. I was attempting to speak generically.
<. Community Relations is also responsible to assist in inter-developer and developer-user conflicts.>
right. developers have a disagreement about how to manage something first, then comrel come along and arbitrate. You make my point. I don't want to argue doggedly. We seem to agree on the main thrust and you're telling me I am missing the point or getting it wrong. I agree devs are getting away with ignoring and being unresponsive in bad form which is prone to massive improvement. You appear determined to argue doggedly over semantics.
why?
<That is absolutely incorrect,>
Here we go again. I was talking about the total tally of gentoo devs in the Gentoo Community and suddenly you're talking about a micro structure in individual projects and in fact postulating a whole alternative structure to contribute and develop.
You are trying to get the tail to wag the dog. Whatever projects and structures you refer to or work within are a small subset of Gentoo Community. You appear to be attempting to generalise your preferred or much vaunted alternative onto the rest of the entire Gentoo Community, in one fell swoop. That would take to my understanding a massive internal re-write of Gentoo infra, a new generation GELP39.
Let desultory attempt to describe to you the nature, and disadvantages of, right fighting, either here or email or whatever.
Frankly I think Gentoo Community has likely more then enough devs as it is. The ones they have work more or less as they can and want in a loosely defined but rigid structure. I think everyone is actually feeling strangled or hypoxic. I think we have enough issue and strife with the ones we got already let alone attempt to inflate the numbers indiscriminately all the more.
You could do well to attempt a more conciliatory tone.
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steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
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| Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| hasufell wrote: | | Conflicts can have various stages and it doesn't make any sense to only jump in when the last stage has been reached. |
IOW you want moderation.
Like I said, exploring the ground that led to the original Community CoC (which is all "starting from scratch" means), with proactive moderation via Proctors.
Well so long as we're actually talking about the subject, and not "hasufell's idea of who's a developer."
| Quote: | | A lot of big-sized projects exactly work that way... and ONLY that way: by limiting the core-devs to a very small number, but opening up widely for contributions (or having a distributed model, like NixOS... strictly separating PM/core-tools and general-purpose nixpkgs) and that is easy to notice if you contribute to other opensource projects than gentoo. |
Oh man, "separating out PM/core-tools" is already done. Granted base-system/toolchain hasn't done that well, but blueness and zorry joined on a month or two ago, going by the ML, so that should improve.
I don't agree that such a separation would help Gentoo at all, since in the main, ebuilds are what we want from Gentoo developers.
| Quote: | | We do the opposite... we make drive-by contributions very hard, but open up the gates for everyone to become a core-dev (with a political voice). |
Nonsense: I've made a few, and seen many more, such "drive-by contributions" on the bugzilla. Users do that sort of thing all the time.
Your idea of improvement, to restrict "core" status and open up to user contributions, seems okay in the latter aspect.
I'd suggest you focus on that part, since Gentoo users do a lot more of the development work (certainly most of the QA) than in a standard bindist, or indeed most other projects.
The former simply sounds like the usual "everything would be better if only everyone thought like me (here's how to do that..)"
IMO, you're making far too much of what is after all, not very hard bashlet scripting. Going by the recent discussion on CI tools on the dev ML, which appears to ignore tinderboxing, you're not alone there. |
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