Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto" <jmbsvicetto@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:10:44
Message-Id: 4C1D1618.8030708@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo by Richard Freeman
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4 On 19-06-2010 17:40, Richard Freeman wrote:
5 > On 06/19/2010 01:06 PM, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
6 >> On 19-06-2010 16:15, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
7 >>> #gentoo-infra is a channel on infra matters.
8 >>> The fact that it's developers only doesn't make it a private channel in
9 >>> a sense of "tone doesn't matter".
10 >>
11 >> you've failed to notice an important point that others have already
12 >> tried to convey to you - #gentoo-infra is the home of the Gentoo infra
13 >> team. Yes, developers go there to address infra issues on Gentoo, but it
14 >> is the infra team channel and not the channel of every Gentoo developer.
15 >
16 > Perhaps he didn't fail to notice this point, but rather he just
17 > disagrees with it?
18 >
19 > The fact is that #gentoo-infra is part of the Gentoo linux distribution.
20 > It belongs to every Gentoo developer, or at least legally to every
21 > Gentoo foundation member. Conduct on this channel reflects on all
22 > Gentoo developers.
23
24 Richard,
25
26 that channel is as much part of the Gentoo Linux distribution as
27 #gentoo-kde, #gentoo-elections, #gentoo-devrel, #gentoo-forums and many
28 others, including private channels for some teams.
29 I can assure you that if someone goes to #gentoo-forums and tries to
30 tell the forums team what tone should be used in that channel, we'll
31 kindly ask the person to stop or to leave. This is one of the "public"
32 and exposed channels and thus we have a tone with that in mind, but
33 we're not going to set our tone according to the demands of a developer
34 that is not even part of the team. I can convey similar statements about
35 #gentoo-userrel, #gentoo-devrel, #gentoo-elections and many others. I've
36 picked these particular channels as I'm member of these teams, have been
37 for a while, and these are public channels that try to keep an inviting
38 tone as they are very exposed to the community.
39 If someone tried to go to the old userrel private channel and tell the
40 people in the team how to behave in their "backyard", they would likely
41 get a similar response to that used in #gentoo-infra. What would grant
42 any non-member of a team the right to demand how the members of the team
43 should act amongst themselves in their private room?
44
45 About the "legal right", that isn't true. There are a few misconceptions
46 in your statement. Even though the Foundation is the body which holds
47 the Gentoo brand, trademarks and logo, it's not the Foundation that sets
48 the rules for joining and be part of the Gentoo Developers Community.
49 Furthermore, being a Gentoo developer doesn't mean you can join any team
50 you want or that you have a "right" to go to any #gentoo-* channel. In
51 case you have any doubt, I can give you a list of quite a few channels
52 most developers don't have access to.
53 If you insist, to address the question that access lists for #gentoo-*
54 channels can be set by Freenode (our main IRC network), you should know
55 that the only people Freenode will listen to regarding that are the
56 members of the Freenode Gentoo Group Contacts. The people in that group
57 were not chosen by the Foundation nor do they respond to it.
58 Also, please never forget that being part of Gentoo is a "privilege" and
59 not a "right".
60
61 > It really does bother me that everybody is lining up to defend this kind
62 > of behavior. If the response had been - sorry, I guess the joking got
63 > out of hand I'd say, ok, well, let's try to do better but let's all move
64 > on. I don't see offensive behavior using Gentoo IDs/IRC Cloaks/media as
65 > a trivial matter. It sets the overall tone of the distro, which is what
66 > this thread is all about.
67
68 I'm not defending "your-mom jokes" nor a "harsh tone" in Gentoo. I'm
69 trying to explain the difference between joking amongst friends on your
70 house and making insulting comments directed towards individual members
71 or a global community in the public.
72 The #gentoo channel has had a long time policy of clean language as it
73 can be and is used by children and it's one of the channels (the one?)
74 with greater exposure to the community. Many of the comments and jokes
75 that are common practice and perfectly reasonable on #gentoo-dev would
76 likely get you a warning in #gentoo. Some #gentoo-* channels impose some
77 restrictions about valid topics for that channel. The #gentoo-ops
78 channel topic is "Discussion of #gentoo issues". The #gentoo-kde channel
79 doesn't want PM discussions. So the appropriate tone for each channel
80 depends of its environment.
81
82 > I've heard several devs over the years comment that they love
83 > contributing to Gentoo, but they'd never put it on their resume. Who
84 > can blame them? I know that if I ever were hiring somebody and they
85 > pointed out that they were a Gentoo dev, I'd tend to assume that their
86 > technical knowledge was pretty good but you can be assured I'd do quite
87 > a bit of digging around to figure out if they're somebody I'd want
88 > working on my team.
89
90 Well, this is an option of every Gentoo developer. It's up to each
91 member of the community to decide whether they want to publicize their
92 participation in Gentoo or not. To be more precise, it's the option of
93 every member of every community to decide that.
94 In my humble opinion, that decision reveals much about the person and
95 can help explain how one behaves in the Gentoo community. So if that
96 helps you or someone else make your opinion about this particular Gentoo
97 developer, you should know I do publicize that I'm a member of this
98 community and I feel no shame in being part of it.
99
100 > I don't think that most Gentoo devs behave in this way. I think a lot
101 > of people care about trying to fix this. I don't think it is asking too
102 > much for Gentoo devs to try to keep their behavior reasonably
103 > professional when using Gentoo media, or Gentoo emails/cloaks/etc.
104
105 No, it's not too much to ask and I agree we should all try to keep our
106 best behaviour - in particular in public. But none of us has any right
107 demanding that in private mediums.
108 As an example, even though I use my gentoo cloak online, you don't have
109 any right to impose a behaviour into me in my private channel.
110
111 > No need to start burning people at the stake for slip-ups, but let's at
112 > least try to agree that we'd like to be associated with a somewhat
113 > professional-acting distribution?
114 >
115 > Rich
116
117 We have a loosely-knit community that is able to provide a reasonable
118 product "Gentoo Linux". Let's try to avoid killing it by wanting to
119 impose a certain "mentality" or "behaviour" into others and let's try to
120 respect each other and learn to live in a community.
121
122
123 - --
124 Regards,
125
126 Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
127 Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Tone in Gentoo Richard Freeman <rich0@g.o>