On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 02:52:33PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 11:27:17PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > Who do you think should be subscribed to -devel, and what sort of > > > discussions do you think should make up the majority of the traffic? If > > > reality doesn't match those desires, what, if anything, will you do to > > > change that? > > I'm going to have to refer you to my platform again here.[5][6] > > > [5] http://people.debian.org/~branden/dpl/campaign/2004/platform.xhtml#s3p1 > > [6] http://people.debian.org/~branden/dpl/campaign/2004/platform.xhtml#s3p2 > > I can't see anything there that mentions the -devel list. Can you explain > what creating a request tracker, or working with delegates implies for > the audience and content of -devel in any more detail? Do you mean that > you hope your request tracker will eventually replace the mailing lists > completely? Sorry; I didn't type everything my brain was thinking there. I'll atone by responding at much greater length. :) I don't have a problem with the current charter of debian-devel: Discussion about technical development topics.[1] And as far as I'm concerned, the open subscription policy isn't a problem, either. I think people sometimes feel compelled to send an off-charter message to a high volume mailing list because the correct forums don't seem to work. To use one example, take the recent message authored by Ingo Juergensmann (but signed and posted by a developer) to debian-devel-announce).[2] Without straying too far off the subject -- I absolutely positively do not want to rehash the gigantic threads on debian-devel spawned by that message -- I posit that this was the action of some one who was frustrated beyond all reason. We can assert that trust was violated, the charter abused, and the content of the message inappropriately personal -- I can grant all that, and probably not just for the sake of the argument. But I think we're being insufficiently responsible to our mission to produce the finest 100% Free operating system we can if we fail to take a step back and ask why this happened. Mr. Juergensmann was not some random guy off the street who came in and blitzed us. He was a known quantity to the project, someone with whom we have had a multi-year association. What causes people to freak out like this? My answer isn't "Ingo Juergensmann is a loser." Nor is it "James Troup is a loser." My answer is "we probably had a failure of process." Indeed, that's just about the only conclusion I *can* reach if I don't want to prejudge either Mr. Juergensmann or Mr. Troup -- because I don't have a full command of the facts of the situation even after reading so much mail about it my eyes glazed over. Ideally, I would see it as my charter as DPL to developer forums and mechanisms for getting these sort of concerns addressed before they fester up and boil over into the kind of reaction we saw (not just on Mr. Juergensmann's part, but in reaction *to* him). Is there really nothing we could do -- those of us who are neither Ingo nor James -- to have helped prevent emotions from running this high? Isn't it at least plausible that there are actions we could have taken to have brought about an amicable settlement without this explosion, even if it was two people having to agree to disagree? That's a question I'm something interested in, and that's where I'm trying to go with those two sections in my platform. One my .signature quotes says, "There's something wrong if you're always right." (Glasow's Law) Similarly I think there's someting wrong if we permit ourselves to act as if someone has gone insane, especially if we have evidence to the contrary. Being accurate in our assessments of misconduct does not excuse willful ignorance of why that misconduct took place -- not if we're trying to build a harmonious society. Was that a better answer? [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/ [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2004/debian-devel-announce-200402/msg00008.html -- G. Branden Robinson | If you wish to strive for peace of Debian GNU/Linux | soul, then believe; if you wish to branden@debian.org | be a devotee of truth, then http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | inquire. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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