Re: base-config CVS relocated
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 02:37:12PM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 12:42:04PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> > It is really sad that this kind of thing can only advance with public
> > rants and threats, but this seems to be the way things work in debian.
>
> Are you sure that your rants don't just make fewer and fewer people
> interested in listening to you, including the people you need to listen
> to you? Contrary to what you say, I normally find ranting extremely
Well, i follow the example of what happened some 6-8 month from now. I
filled a bug against ftp.debian.org, CCed to the RM asking for the
removal of two or three packages from testing which were blocking 40+
packages to enter testing, and which the ocaml maintainer team has
discussed was the best solution to handle this. I got _no_ response for
a long time, and the situation got only cleared when i complained for a
week or so on debian-devel, for something that could have been handled
by simply responding to me. The same thing happens now. I wrote to the
RM, to the ftp-masters, because i heard elmo has made reservations to
joeyh about this (why ever not to me directly, i don't understand),
giving explanation of what i did, the reasons behind it, explaining the
pro and cons of the solution i choose and asking for advice on how to
best resolve the reservations if they where. Later i mailed aj directly,
as RM, and i think Gaudenz or another powerpc d-i person also mailed
ftp-masters about this. This was over a month ago now, and i have had
absolutely no return, even worse, aj, who is one of the ftp-masters as
well as the RM denied being informed of it, which makes me wonder what
happened to those mails. Did they get redirected to /dev/null or
something ? I sincerely doubt they got read, and i see no other way to
making these people aware of the problem they don't seem to care about
than making a tantrum on the public lists.
This is not like it should be, it is a sad state, and which seriously
makes me wonder if my contribution to debian is welcome, or if i should
let everything fall, and consecrate my time to projects with more
respect to the contributions of individual developers.
> counterproductive in Debian, and I've never had any trouble with
> ftpmaster delay. Presumably this is due to the natural human fact that
> there's less resistance to dealing with people who make themselves easy
> to deal with: if I know that doing something is going to unleash a huge
Sure, that is way the ftp-masters cannot be dealt with, there is no way
to engaging conversation with them, they don't respond. So what was your
point ? And it is not like i don't know that they are busy, i waited for
more than a month, and got absolutely zero feedback. And you well know
that mostly mails that are in your mailbox after more than a month will
probably just be forgotten.
> storm of ranting then I will put it off and do something else no matter
> what names you call me (and getting personal and calling me names *will*
> just make me inclined to put it off even further because it's obviously
> going to be too painful).
Did i call anyone names ? Please provide quotes if you think so, and i
will apologize for them, but seriously, i doubt that is the case.
The worse i said is that i feel threated like shit, but this is to
describe my feeling, hardly an insult to anyone.
> You say that ranting worked the last time. Don't you see that if you
> encourage this by doing things when people rant at you, then you're
> letting yourself in for being ranted at a lot? From the point of view of
Don't you see that the ftp-masters, by not providing timely feedback,
are encouraging this kind of behavior ? And we are not speaking of a
random unimportant stuff here.
This issue is needed for 1) continued work on the d-i support on
powerpc and 2) to close the security exploit in the powerpc _kernel_
package. It is inadmissible that this is not replied to in a timely
fashion, and if they are concerns, they should be voiced to _me_ and not
spoken to some mostly uninvolved third party behind my back.
> reducing one's personal level of stress, it makes perfect sense to put
> off people who rant. Ranting about *this* might help you let off steam
> but it's hardly going to solve the actual problem.
And, please, tell me what solution i have ? Patiently waiting has not
brought me anything.
> Welcome to human nature. Work with it, don't fight it. The ftpmasters
> are not demons, but if you persist in treating them all the time as if
> they are then you can hardly expect priority service.
No, i am perfectly aware that they have lot of job to do, that they do
great work and all this, but would it be so hard to ask them that they
provide feedback to me instead of this wall of silence ? Especially if
they have time to voice these concerns to third party, then why not to
me too ? After all, i am the maintainer of the package, and should know
the reason that pushed me to make the change needed better and be the
right person to discuss this with.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
Reply to: