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On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 12:55 PM, R0b0t1 <r030t1@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> |
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> I can't tell, and I suspect other people can't either. |
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> |
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This is the crux of the issue. Decisions involving people issues are |
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made behind closed doors, which means that others are not free to |
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confirm for themselves whether those actions are correct. This tends |
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to lead to ongoing debate over whether those decisions were |
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appropriate, with everybody arguing from their own knowledge, and the |
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only ones who know the information used to make the decision are |
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barred from talking about it. This is basically a debate where |
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participation is limited to the ignorant, at least as far as the |
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particular details go (the general principles are debated by all). |
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|
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That said, even if the decisions were made in the open I wouldn't |
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expect all to agree with them. |
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|
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Ultimately though there are pros and cons to making these kinds of |
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decisions in the open, and there is not universal agreement regarding |
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how these situations ought to be handled. We can either fight about |
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it until the end of time, or we can agree on some way to determine |
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what approach we are going to take and then support it (perhaps |
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begrudgingly). Right now the mechanism that we have in place is the |
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Council. The only other mechanism I could see that would make any |
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sense would be a referendum on the issue. That gets unwieldy if we |
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try to apply it to every little decision, but maybe for the big |
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picture issues it would make sense. |
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|
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However, I think a lot of people would be surprised at the outcome. |
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We all assume that we're all here for the same reasons, but as I |
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commented on my blog Gentoo is a bit unique among distros and many of |
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us are here for very different reasons, and have different priorities. |
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Also, there is sometimes a tendency to assume that all FOSS projects |
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work the same way. When I was listening to a talk about how one of |
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the BSDs dealt with these kinds of issues I was shocked to discover |
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that much of their dev communications happens on completely closed |
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lists (not just closed to posting, but to reading as well). Gentoo |
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has the gentoo-core list but it is very low traffic and it tends to be |
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used for things like swapping cell phone numbers before conferences. |
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When anything substantive comes up there are usually several people |
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who chime in to rightly point out that this talk belongs on a public |
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list. |
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|
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Bottom line is that there are a lot of different ways projects can |
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run, and they all have their pros and cons. A lot of the FOSS we |
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depend on actually gets built or discussed behind closed doors. I |
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doubt many of us want Gentoo to go that far, but I suspect there is a |
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lot of interest in taking smaller steps in that general direction. |
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|
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-- |
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Rich |