Re: enforcement first, ask questions later?
On 03/02/2019 11:02, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Daniel Pocock - 03.02.19, 08:38:
>> This reveals a lot about the serious problems in Debian right now.
>> Did we really sign up to be part of an experiment like that? I
>> didn't.
>>
>> Why do certain people want to start out with enforcement, skipping
>> over normal human relations, avoiding meetings for almost a year,
>> assuming they always know who is at fault?
> Quite bold accusations, Daniel.
Those are known facts, not simply accusations. They acted like Debian
is a Facebook group, deleting people without any process or discussion.
Afterwards, during January 2019, they started making up a process to
validate their decision retrospectively. Their arrogance is no less
bold than my own repudiation of it.
Various people have discussed it privately, sharing communications from
AH/DAM/DPL and concluded there is a pattern in the communications from
our leaders.
de Blanc's talk description also appears to corroborate the same pattern
of communication. But I want to make it clear I'm only referring to the
description, I didn't see the talk or video yet.
I'd ask people to view this constructively, how can that pattern of
communication be improved when people have some differences?
> And in yet another thread about what seems to be about the same topic
> than in about half a dozen or even a dozen of threads before this
> thread. If the previous threads did not give you the results you wanted,
> how do you come to believe that this new thread will?
No doubt de Blanc has spent some time and effort preparing her talk.
I fully believe a DD giving a talk is worthy of its own thread, even if
I disagree with what the description is suggesting and even if there is
a perception the talk may be trolling people about the issues in
previous threads. I heard feedback from people who attended the talk
but I would leave it to them to post that here.
I hope somebody will start a thread about my talk too. I would
encourage people to watch de Blanc's talk video, even more than my own,
with an open mind and also review material, like the movie Das
Experiment, to get a comprehensive understanding of the issues and risks.
> Did you actually aim at talking with the people you accuse? Did you
> contact them personally by mail *before* writing these bold accusations
> to the list?
> Our even more clearly: Are *you* even interested in really talking
> *with* them, instead of just *about* them?
There have been numerous public and private requests for meetings, for
example, the public thread suggesting that we need a mediation procedure
rather than an "anti" something approach.
I had personally written to Chris Lamb a couple of weeks before FOSDEM
and on other occasions and he never provides any constructive reply.
> That written, I do not have any firm opinion on how true your or the
> story of anyone else who is involved in that is. In the end, they are
> all just that, *stories*. None of it is absolutely true or absolutely
> wrong.
People should not be rushing to make stories about each other public anyway.
As nobody knows the stories and even if we did, it would be hard to
validate parts of them, it would be good to start by making decisions on
the principles, for example, with one or more GRs to address the following:
- does the community want to rule out the use of secret "evidence"?
- if it isn't ruled out, what can be done to reduce the unfairness?
- what are reasonable periods for volunteers to respond to complaints?
48-72 hours is far too short.
- do we uphold the presumption of innocence, except in the most
outrageous instances of misbehaviour?
- does the community revoke any adverse statements that have been made
through the history of the project, not just the recent emails from
Chris Lamb? Do we issue guidance to future DPLs that they can never
undermine or speak badly about any developer, past or present?
It is better to answer those questions without reference to any
individual cases.
> For me, to exit the current approach of accusing each other is to assume
> good intentions and really notice that there is no fault in life. There
> are certainly correct and incorrect decisions and different opinions on
> what those are, but how would it be if what happened is simply just
> that, is simply just what happened? And what if, just what if it is no
> one's fault, but just a result of a large group of people having
> different opinions and viewpoints of how to work together and struggling
> to find a consensus on how it can work out?
I notice that in the Tory party ruling over the United Kingdom,
everybody has a different opinion on Brexit. They argue and fight
vigorously but they didn't expel anybody.
Most organizations find ways to work through differences and reorganize
teams to optimize productivity rather than picking people out to be
scapegoats.
> What if, just what if you just for a moment stop giving your power to
> other people by accusing them have done wrong to you or Norbert? The
> more you do that, the more you just keep repeating the same pattern over
> and over and over again.
This is not about power over anybody, this is about the reputation of
the project. I have no problem working around people like this, it is
par for the course in most big organizations.
Although I didn't want to emphasize it before giving them time to
repent, the only people they have demoted here are themselves. Because
there are many people, not just myself, who trust DAM a lot less than
before and will be unlikely to trust them again. Maybe the DAMs, the AH
team and the rest of their inner circle are giving themselves high-fives
right now but the wider community finds this backstabbing repulsive.
For example, a lot of people spent a lot of effort migrating their
repositories and ACLs to Salsa in 2018. If we can't rely on our Salsa
accounts then we may as well not use Salsa at all. Who would want to go
to all that effort of setting things up on Salsa and then find it ripped
out underneath them. In future, I'll create repositories on Gitlab or
another platform.
Not only that, but I won't be encouraging any new contributors to create
guest accounts on Salsa any more. I don't like this idea that we are
looking down on new people. I'd prefer to treat collaborators as equal,
I don't want to have endless debates about who is the "real" Debian
Developer. I've been promoting Debian for over 20 years and abusive
threats from DAMs are not going to stop me any time soon.
If Debian revises the constitution to ensure we are sincere about
membership rights, I might go back to using Salsa and other services more.
> And now I breathe deeply and let go wanting to control what you do or
> how you do it. You do what you do, you do it the way you do it… and it
> is totally up to you, whether you like to receive anything of what I
> wrote here and take it as an inspiration, or not. It is totally up to
> you whether you continue to give your power away like this, or stop
> doing that and look inside for intuitive guidance and clear reason. And
> it is totally up to me whether I even respond to any further mails like
> this one.
Any feedback is welcome
Many people have communicated privately about this. Some have made it
clear they are fed up with the discussions, in fact, so am I. Others
have stated they are horrified to see Debian treating volunteers like
this and while they are afraid to speak up, they are watching closely,
keen to see us be transparent, especially as we work through the
principles. Some have said they are keen to read all opinions,
including my own and would like more people to contribute too.
Regards,
Daniel
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