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William L. Thomson Jr. wrote: |
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> No one questions why I stepped down. |
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I have wondered what happened, but haven't felt able to investigate. |
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Please know that I wouldn't take sides without investigating, and I |
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think that an overwhelming majority is also like that. A problem is |
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that you'll only ever hear from those who do take sides, but I think |
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the vast majority doesn't. |
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In the end I think giving up any position comes down to one of two things: |
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either feeling that one can not sufficiently meet expectations, or feeling |
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that others do not meet one's own expectations. I've experienced both. |
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How those happen is probably always a sad story of personal differences. :\ |
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> I let others convince me I was the problem so I went away. Yet things |
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> did not improve in my absence. Maybe I wasn't the problem.... |
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I hope that everyone always learns. I think almost everyone does. |
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William L. Thomson Jr. wrote: |
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> > doing whatever you did to get banned from GitHub |
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> |
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> You tell me does this make any sense to ban someone from Gentoo's Github? |
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> https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/1721#issuecomment-300178677 |
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It doesn't make sense to me, because you're trying to help inform a |
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community contributor. But I also don't know any of the "Gentoo Java" |
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context - which I think also matters. |
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Reading the motivation for the ban "not the place to post comments and |
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recount how Gentoo Java is struggling with its staffing needs" and |
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"GitHub .. [is] for code-centric feedback and technical discussions, |
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not about Gentoo-meta issues or the like" I can understand that someone |
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would feel that your comment was out of place, but I don't think that |
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a 14 day ban is an appropriate first response. |
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That said, expectations were clearly not met, all around. |
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The expectations of the community contributor were not met by Gentoo, |
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since (as is mentioned in the ban mail) Gentoo is not a typical GitHub |
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project, where a PR is the entire process into the repo. I think it is |
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perfectly fine to communicate about this in a PR, and I think a Gentoo |
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policy never to do so is a mistake. |
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The expectations of the Gentoo GitHub Project were not met by you, |
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since it seems a PR policy is "Everyone can review pull requests. |
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However, please make sure that your comments are correct and on |
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topic." and your comment was also trying to inform about the larger |
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context, not strictly limited to technical details. |
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I personally disagree with such expectations in the GitHub team, but I |
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can't even be bothered to become a proper Gentoo developer, because the |
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threshold is just too high for me. |
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I would attribute the contributor's (very valid) disappointment to lack |
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of communication, ie. to Gentoo not having set accurate expectations. |
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It is probably true that Gentoo isn't equipped to do so at the moment, |
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so everyone has to learn on their own. Some will get burnt in the process. :\ |
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> https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/6033 |
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> I felt I should have responded to not be rude. |
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I agree with you, and you seem to always respond politely. While I |
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sometimes find it a bit difficult to understand what you intend to |
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say because of your writing style, it looks to me like you always |
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intend to equip others with useful information. |
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> I still do not respond in kind to others. |
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I think that shows good character. Please keep that up, no matter what |
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others do. |
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To the actual topic of Gentoo Java I think the best you can do is |
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essentially what you are already doing - work on solving your own |
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problems in your own overlay, if there is a kind of informal team |
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working mostly to provide life support. You can try to support them, |
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but you may have very different needs, and if communication doesn't |
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work so well then there can't be an actual team. |
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I rarely use Java, but what I do know about Java supports your |
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argument that Gentoo could need a lot of work for JDK 9, because |
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the expectations/assumptions of the Java ecosystem are quite far |
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apart from those of the Gentoo ecosystem, and if a great solution |
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is even achievable at all then it certainly requires mastering both |
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Java and Gentoo, which likely requires Java people to get into Gentoo |
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rather than the other way around, and both environments have long |
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learning curves, and until there is a critical mass of developers |
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mastering both, there can't really be a team. :\ |
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Kind regards |
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//Peter |
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