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 Sat, Dec 09, 2017 at 08:13:18PM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 7:29 PM, Daniel Campbell <zlg@g.o> wrote:
> >
> > Other developers are required to subscribe to -dev, and are
> > expected to follow it so they stay informed.
>
> Developers are not required to subscribe to -dev.
>
> > If they missed something covered on the list, they are directed to the
> > archives and (usually) laughed at.
>
> Correct.  While nobody is required to follow the lists, acting out of
> ignorance usually doesn't impress others.  Devs are expected to be
> adults and figure out what they need to follow based on what they
> intend to contribute to.  -core and -dev-announce are the only
> required subscriptions.
>
> >
> > Great things coming from Gentoo "leadership" here. What will you do when
> > mgorny starts targeting developers and pitching tantrums over them, too?
>
> You act as if this was the only reason that comrel took action.  In
> the cases of appeals I've seen I've yet to see a case where there
> wasn't something else going on behind the scene that wasn't reasonably
> severe when they've taken action.  I can't vouch for their reasons in
> this case as I'm not privy to them, and I imagine they're not going to
> be made public.

Well, let's consider the order of events here:

1. wltjr and others appear on the ML
2. Drama
3. mgorny suggests some change in structure to avoid dealing with said
   people.
4. more drama
5. mgorny publicly insults comrel, accusing them of doing nothing
6. mgorny publishes formal plan to reform our mailing lists
7. more drama
8. comrel bans wltjr
9. mgorny's plan is put on Council agenda
10. comrel *mails to let everyone know wltjr was banned*, despite prior
    claims of valuing privacy and secrecy
11. you are here

This looks awfully clear to me. I'm pointing out behavior that looks a
lot like one person twisting the social structure to suit their desires.
This concerns me because our community will be damaged by his plan, and
it is only the first step. In the second step, he will turn against
developers as well. But not you and his other buddies. Just the ones
*he* thinks are a problem.

>
> > 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.
>
> Go ahead and cite the list of people who have been banned in the last
> decade.  You won't run out of fingers on one hand.  Some might cry
> about it for months, but good luck finding another distro that hasn't
> banned twice as many in the same span of years.
>
> And keep in mind that failing to take action isn't without
> consequences.  When somebody is harassing somebody else (and sometimes
> more than one other) you don't really get a choice about whether
> somebody is going to end up leaving, whether of their own accord or
> not.  That is a situation I've seen happen more than once around here
> behind the scenes.  Again, I have no specific knowledge about this
> particular comrel action - I'm talking about situations I've seen in
> the past.

I'm not focused on the ban, or whether it was deserved. That's a
separate subject. I'm pointing out behaviors that damage our image, our
credibility, and morale. I'm calling out unequal enforcement and
favoritism; these are things that you won't find in any records, because
the existence of such records would damn those culpable. The fact that
comrel has never acted against mgorny strongly indicates that they do
not care about the way he treats others. He is kept because of his
technical skill. Others do not get this convenience; we are accountable
for the code *and* the words that we write. You're blind if you don't
see this.

>
> > A distro should never bend its entire social structure to protect the
> > feelings of one surly developer (or his/her entourage),
>
> Certainly, and that works both ways.
>
> > 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.
>
> Considering that he won a significantly contested election to Council,
> I suspect that more people around here approve of mgorny than just the
> members of the council.  And I can certainly vouch that not all
> council members are necessarily fans of some of his actions, though I
> suspect that his technical contributions are praised by just about all
> (rightly, IMO).
>
> I've yet to see a discussion between Council members where people were
> strongly playing favorites the way you imply.

I'm not criticizing any code he's written. I do not have the same
background, nor the same open schedule needed to reach that level of
skill yet. This isn't a thread about code review.

The fact you're trying to change the subject isn't helping you. Can we
suddenly ignore it when someone's an asshole as long as they commit and
push good code? That's wonderful for a pure meritocracy (which like all
"pure"isms, is impractical and non-existent), but it's not going to help
this distribution because it's not how humans work.

>
> > Unfortunately, GLEP 39 does not have a section on recalling or
> > impeachment...
>
> This whole debate has been going on for over a year, and there has
> been an election in the interim.  Do you really think that a majority
> of developers somehow missed the hundreds of posts on -dev the last
> time this debate happened?  I'm not sure why you think a recall would
> succeed even if one were possible.  Besides, the council hasn't even
> made any decisions here.  This matter was never appealed to the
> council, so it seems a bit silly to hold them accountable.

More demoralizing. "Don't try, you won't be able to do anything about
it." You're proving what I wrote, man.

>
> > 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)
>
> Dealing with social issues is a major part of the Council's purpose,
> per GLEP 39.  I don't think the developers were blind to this in the
> last election, especially considering all the fiasco this was causing
> in the months leading up to the election.
>
> And again, this particular issue was never appealed to the Council.
>
> I'm not sure where else you would see something like this appealed.
> The Trustees have struggled with simply filing the tax returns.  If
> you don't think that somebody can have both technical and social
> skills, I'm not sure why you think that somebody could have both
> financial/legal and social skills.

I invite you to navigate the Foundation's records and pull together what
we do have the way robbat2, quantumsummers, et al have worked to
recover. If it was that easy, don't you think it would've been done? The
unfortunate truth is exactly as wltjr said; the records fell into
disarray and it's taken years to get anywhere close to "ready for the
IRS". It's been a work-in-progress for quite a while, well before I
became a Trustee. New Councils do not inherit the same "work debt" that
Trustees do, so the comparison isn't equal.

I did not say that someone could not have both technical and social
skills. I said the Council isn't fit to decide on social issues. The
Council's purpose was to create hierarchy within the distribution
through which developers could seek inter-project conflict resolution
and final *technical* decisions that affected the distribution, like
what gets into EAPIs, whether eclasses get deprecated and/or removed,
user and group management policy, etc. The theme here is that it ties
into the main tree, the wiki, or other practical endeavors of
development.  Splitting a mailing list and locking down another, while a
technical job in the end that Infra will do, is something with
far-reaching *social* consequences, that have a great chance of damaging
our community by creating a "chosen users" group that are worthy of
communicating directly with us. Other users WILL notice this, and act
accordingly.

I do not believe that this is brought on by anything but mgorny's
attempt to suit the entire ML to himself. That is selfish and
short-sighted. Social problems are rectified through communication, not
cutting out an entire subset of the community. The approach he is taking
to perceived slights shows that he does not care about the effects of
his plan, as long as he and other developers he likes can discuss
things.

Where are the users' opinions in all of this? Did anyone bother seeing
what our userbase thought? I didn't see any mail about it, nothing
recent on the forums (I found a single sticky from 2008, last post in
July of this year [1])... where exactly did we research our userbase?
...Right.  Nowhere. We're acting without considering our users. I'd
like to remind you that most council proposals get passed. Perhaps we
should count how many mgorny wrote to prove a point.

[1]: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-702248.html

>
> > Would you have done anything different if it were me or some
> > other developer who was proposing this change?
>
> What change are you proposing?

I thought I made it clear, but I'll try again: If it was me or some
other developer who wrote up mgorny's proposal, would it have been
received the same way? I posit that it wouldn't, due to a bias within
the Council. Or more to the point, the relationships had between Council
members or other long-term developers has created a sort of "good old
boys" club where people within the circle are valued more than the
"outsiders". This is known as gatekeeping, especially with the proposal
to partition the club from everyone else. It's plain as day.

>
> > 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.
>
> This is silly.  Go ahead and find a single example of ANYTHING
> submitted by ANYBODY for the Council agenda which didn't make it onto
> the agenda in the last five years.  I can't vouch for how things
> worked a decade ago but the process is basically that if somebody
> replies to the call for agenda items, it goes on the agenda.  That
> doesn't guarantee the outcome that the submitter desired, but I've yet
> to see anything come up and be dismissed without so much as a reason
> unless it was retracted by the submitter.
>
> And the only item recently submitted that is relevant is the item for
> the splitting of the mailing list, and the Council hasn't even met to
> make any decisions one way or another.  You're exasperated over
> something the Council hasn't even done.

Again, the Council approves most things that come down the line,
especially if it's from mgorny.

>
> > 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.
>
> Well, if you have such a problem with the Council why don't you consider:
>
> 1.  Running for the council and convincing a majority of your peers to
> elect you.
>
> 2.  Submit whatever issues you're concerned about to the council to be
> discussed on the agenda instead of just whining about it on the
> mailing lists.

A Trustee should not be a Council member at the same time. I do not have
the background or work experience to lead technical decisions of a
distribution. I already vote in elections.

You told me a few paragraphs ago that it wouldn't be worth it anyway,
and now you're telling me to run for the Council? Which is it? Given the
council's history, the mail outlining the agenda is little more than a
warning of things to come. It would be futile to show up to the meeting
and say something.

>
> IMO the reason these discussions never seem to end is because opinions
> like yours are held by a very tiny minority of developers who assume
> that they're the opinion of some kind of majority that can't figure
> out how to vote for the right council members.  All they can do is
> talk endlessly because the governance structure of Gentoo, by design,
> is intended to prevent the "special treatment to certain members of
> this community" that you are in fact the one who is seeking.

What special treatment am I seeking? You'll need to try harder than that
to deflect.

>
> A majority of devs selected a Council to represent their concerns and
> govern the distro.  If you don't like the job they're doing, then
> don't vote for them.  If they're elected anyway, consider that perhaps
> others are just fine with what is going on...
>
> --
> Rich
>

Ah, the populist argument. "If more people disagree with you, you are
wrong and should shut up."

This discussion has nowhere left to go if that's how it is.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer, Trustee, Treasurer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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