Re: [Debian account] I request your attention
From: Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au>
>> It would be a question of honour, now wouldn't it.
> No, it wouldn't. Not even slightly.
> You have _no_ right to demand I do anything with my free time, or anyone
> else. Unless you're their boss, you don't even have any right to demand
> anything of people specifically paid to work on Debian.
If you volunteer to do a job, then you should do it. If you don't, you lied
to the people of Debian. Honorable people don't lie. Honorable people, when
they say they'll do something, do it, whether or not they get paid to do it.
If you volunteer to do a job for Debian, it's perfectly reasonable to back
down or ask for help if you can't do it. But to just not do it can leave
everyone in the lurch.
If you volunteer to do a job and don't do it, the job doesn't get done. A
lot of times, a package will get orphaned, and half a dozen people will
immediately ask for it. If the person that gets it doesn't work on it, then
he prevented someone else from working on it. There's many changelogs, often
for important packages, where it's obvious that the maintainer quit working
on it and after a year or so, someone else finally grabbed it. Had the
maintainer orphaned (admitted he can't or won't work on it), it would have
got work during that time; one release would have gone out with a few less
bugs.
> The correct response to someone who goes MIA from Debian, or who gets
> bored with doing stuff, or who develops a personal vendetta against you is
> to be grateful for everything they've done in the past, and to volunteer
> yourself (and prove your competence beyond any doubt, and whatever else)
> if necessary.
The "at least Mussolini made the trains run on time" priniciple, eh? If
someone cannot be bothered (as distinct from is incapable of) to either
fufill the responsiblities they accepted or properly hand them off to
someone else, then I will be annoyed. If they were otherwise helpful to
Debian, I will recognize that no one's perfect. If they just came in, picked
up a bunch of responsiblities, and mishandled them, then Debian would have
been better off without them, and I will feel all right in being pissed at
them.
In this situation, Eray is working as hard as he can, and is getting
screwed. He can't volunteer for the DAM job, or anything in that whole
system. His free time is being wasted. The volunteer who isn't doing his
job, is bringing disgrace to Debian, by making a vital and highly visible
part of Debian closed arbitrary and scary instead open, fair and sane.
> How _dare_ you question the honour of anyone who's given of their free
> time to help out Debian?
Because volunteering doesn't make one perfect, or honorable? Because some
people volunteer for the title or the control or other selfish reasons, and
people who forget that responsiblity comes along with them can cause more
damage than good?
> Is your heart truly so blackened with arrogance
> and selfish greed?
Sigh. Ad hominen attacks. How is questioning the honor of a Debian developer
"greedy"?
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
"The pig -- belongs -- to _all_ mankind!" - Invader Zim
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