Re: Code of conduct, question to all candidates
On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 01:17:02AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 11:37:48AM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > Secondly, I believe the "personality problems" thing is about a quote of
> > mine on -private[1]
>
> Actually it wasn't really a quote at all; if anyone cared I was going
> to point at Ted/Jonathan's platform with remarks like "Most of us are
> disfunctional in various ways."
Ah. Heh, okay then.
[...]
> > The claim was not that you need to have certain personality
> > problems to be a good Debian Developer; rather, that it takes a certain
> > personality type to be at all _interested_ in being a Debian
> > Developer---one that is not what most people think of when they think of
> > "normal" people.
>
> You know, I might've said the same thing a year ago, but I think that's
> actually really wrong. You have to explain it differently -- you can't
> just say "free source makes programs easier to grok, and then you can
> hack on it and make it shiny!!" but the principles there are actually
> pretty universal: sharing, building better things, openness, cooperation,
> friendly competition... You don't have to be remotely abnormal to like
> those things.
Indeed, you don't. Which, therefore, isn't what I was talking about; I
was referring to Debian work specifically, rather than Free Software
work in general.
Anyway, since you apparently did _not_ refer to me in that context, the
point is moot, really; and in the interest of not cluttering -vote more
than it already is, I won't go into it any further. I don't feel all
that strong about it anyway, so there isn't much to discuss.
> > IME, once you have a Niceness Police, people either walk away from the
> > police or from discussing altogether; that way, you throw away the kid
> > with the bathwater.
>
> I should probably note I've had... not the opposite experience, but an
> opposing one maybe; namely that without anyone being authoritative on
> whether something's naughty, you get people arguing about it without
> any resolution, with people then leaving due to the bickering about the
> rules instead.
That happens too; but as you've seen recently on Planet[0], having
someone be authoritative on whether something's naughty doesn't always
work, either.
[0]http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/why_im_not_on_debian-tech-2006-02-28-23-30.html
Yes, I read your reply too. IMHO, it doesn't change much; whatever
happened after Joey left isn't all that important, since he left because
he felt the rules were against him--which is precisely why I think such
rules are (or can be) problematic.
--
Fun will now commence
-- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4
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