Re: That's all folks. (Re: OT Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] Splitting developer-oriented and expert user mailing lists)

[Daniel Campbell]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2017 at 09:22:32PM +0100, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, 7. Dezember 2017, 19:06:36 CET schrieb William L. Thomson Jr.:
> >
> > The day everyone wanted has come, after this message. I will
> > unsubscribe not to return. You all won in 2008, and again in 2017.
> > Though this time I will not be back. I tried more than most anyone else
> > would for a very long time. Gentoo wins I lose, I am fine with that.
> >
> > Please do not contact me off list in IRC or at all. I am done with the
> > Gentoo community!
>
> <comrel hat>
> Independent of whether William now unsubscribed or not, he's now enjoying a
> lengthy (1 year until review) vacation from all Gentoo communication channels.
> </comrel hat>
>
> --
> Andreas K. Hüttel
> dilfridge@g.o
> Gentoo Linux developer (council, perl, libreoffice)

So, mgorny threatened to leave if something wasn't done, right? I saw
the IRC conversation about unsubscribing from gentoo-dev, as well. IRC
is not private, for the record. Other developers are required to
subscribe to -dev, and are expected to follow it so they stay informed.
If they missed something covered on the list, they are directed to the
archives and (usually) laughed at. I see no reason for this expectation
to be waived for any single developer. Do I get a free pass if I don't
like what someone says?

It's not enough to let wltjr leave on his own; you had to create a ban
and add a smug, tongue-in-cheek mail to it to maintain the image of
doing something. Quite hypocritical of comrel's attitude of secrecy to
suddenly announce a ban. It seems to me that secrecy is only adopted
when it suits those who stand to benefit from it.

Great things coming from Gentoo "leadership" here. What will you do when
mgorny starts targeting developers and pitching tantrums over them, too?
Are we going to stratify developership further, too? It seems rather
clear to me that a few individuals see themselves as the owners of this
distro and bend it to suit their whims, using bureacracy to obscure
their actions and motivations, segment the community, and block those
less experienced. This is precisely why we have unmotivated developers
and a bevy of unmaintained packages; nobody wants to contribute to a
distro that treats its users (and developers) so poorly.

A distro should never bend its entire social structure to protect the
feelings of one surly developer (or his/her entourage), but naturally
since every council member is friends with mgorny and comrel is afraid
to take any action against him, they'll make exceptions to established
procedures and ignore any complaints about the way he treats others.

Software cannot fix wetware. Plenty of developers get to deal with
mgorny's aggressive and insulting tone, yet nothing happens. Gee... I
wonder why.  Maybe because the upper parts of Gentoo are riddled with
cronyism.

	"Rules for thee, not for me."

It's clear to anyone with eyeballs that there is preferential treatment
and inconsistent enforcement of rules in this community, and the people
in a position to fix it, won't, because they in fact benefit from this.

Unfortunately, GLEP 39 does not have a section on recalling or
impeachment... This whole situation highlights why the Council has no
business sticking its head into non-technical matters. It's clearly not
up to the task. It's no surprise, since technical skill does not
guarantee or even imply social skill. (or vice-versa)

I'm tired of people beating around the bush and the facile attempts of
tact: why do you give special treatment to certain members of this
community? Would you have done anything different if it were me or some
other developer who was proposing this change?

It wouldn't have made it to the Council agenda if he didn't write it,
period. Everyone else would've been told to suck it up and deal with it.
And knowing how the Council is, in a few days we'll all get to deal with
the churn of mailing lists to protect one person's ego. Sad.

~zlg
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer, Trustee, Treasurer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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