Re: The unofficial buildd effort and its shutdown - my POV
On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 02:59:42PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > But there are people who argue that non-DDs can't be trusted and that
> > untrusted uploads and untrusted buildds are harming Debians trust at
> > all. So, they're neglecting my past 4 years work for Debian. Isn't that
> > nice?
> I haven't seen anyone saying that they don't trust you in particular.
No, I'm not named, but how those people argue, you can hear out of this that
I'm meant either.
> I've seen a lot of people saying that they're very nervous about packages
> entering the archive without an explicit trust relationship, and it seems
Well, without the other unofficial buildds all those packages wouldn't have
entered the archive either (at least maybe not in time for sarge). Usually
those people are getting nervous as hell when their beloved packages are not
going into sarge. So, for one reason or another they're always nervous...
the difference is only for the user: will the package be released or will it
not because some archs are backlogged as hell?
> like the primary mechanism the project has currently for establishing such
> a relationship is the NM process. I think you may be personalizing this
> more than is needed. If you applied and were rejected, *then* people
> would be saying that they don't trust you personally. All that they're
> saying right now is that the project trust in you has never been vetted by
> a formal process, something that I believe is simply factual, is it not?
True, there's no formal process for people like me, although I proposed some
ideas for something like that some time ago, but that was put down as any
other idea, most likely by the same people that are now yelling loudly about
trust. It was put down for reasons like "That's nonsense! That can't be
done. Shut up, moron! If you want, become a DD!"
(It was an idea of something like a Debian Contributor, a status that is
more than just a normal user and less than a Developer, f.e. not allowed to
elect, but having access to some machines or so.)
Needless to say that I stopped in making proposals to get something like a
more official status within Debian, when the ideas I brought up where
rejected with reasons like "You're a moron!"... :(
> > I don't think that's surprising that I'm frustrated and tired of all
> > these stuff directed against me and that I'm not wasting my time and
> > money any longer when it's obvious that my work is not appreciated
> > anymore.
> Are the packages being accepted into the archives? If so, I think the
> work is appreciated, is it not? It sounds like some of the things you've
> offered to Debian have been appreciated and accepted and some of them have
> not.
Yes, and right now it seems as if the unofficials buildds are being not
accepted. I don't want to have stress because I'm not trusted as some people
thing, so I stopped the buildds (actually they had network problems and were
offline at that time and I just didn't start the daemon again ;)
> I'm (relatively) new to Debian, but I'm not new to free software projects
> or public discussion groups, and I've found it worthwhile to keep
> reminding myself from time to time that a bunch of discussion on a mailing
> list is, in the end, just a bunch of discussion on a mailing list. Volume
> can be completely unrelated to influence, positions can be stated more
> strongly in argument than they would be applied in reality, and people can
> say things in the heat of a thread that they would reconsider in leisure
> later.
> It's rather more important what people *do* than what people say.
Well, in the end they *do* saying a lot as well ;), but when you followed
the discussions you'll have noticed that's almost always the same DDs who
are saying something "you're an idiot! you're no DD, you have no say!" and
such. Unfortunately these people are making that much noise that other
people believe that those troublemakers have something to they in the
project or that their opinion is right.
Even more unfortunately those people who do their work and appreciate mine
are quite quiet. I know many people (DDs as well non-DDs) who agree with my
POV, but don't say this in the public. This gives the impression that I'm
just a single person with obscure opinions, a troublemaker.
Anyway, all these bad minded discussions are just another reason why I'm
tired and frustrated. Instead of discussing possible solutions, there's too
often just a flamewar going on, which make people turn off from Debian - me
too.
> > So, please decide first (as a project) if you appreciate my work and
> > trust me (although I'm no DD) or if you prefer to have backlogged
> > ports. (No, this is no extortion or anything like that. I just want to
> > know how reliable Debian as a project is and how well I can trust *you*
> > and if you still appreciate what I'm doing or not.)
> Perhaps I'm being naive here, but it seems to me like you're asking for
> formal validation of the project's trust. Is there not a regular
> procedure for obtaining that?
No. I don't want to become a DD, because I won't package any software
anyway, but NM process seems to be very much based on this kind of stuff.
There was some days ago a mail asking for some formal process or changed NM
process for buildd admins, which I answered as well, but so far I haven't
seen any reply on this topic. So, my impression is that this kind of
buildd-DDs are not wanted. Instead people want flamewars, so we better
should have a flameware-DD process then, eh?
> Perhaps it would be worthwhile to create
> some additional method of vetting and formally validating trust other than
> the NM process, but I would expect creation of such a thing to take a
> rather extensive amount of time, and in the meanwhile there already is
> such a process that you could (I assume) use if you want.
No, I can't apply as NM, because I will end up as Goswin did for sure. James
doesn't like me, so I never will have to succeed in NM process anyway. This
is my impression of how things go in Debian, therefore I'll not even try it.
Give me a DAM that I'm trusting in being not personally minded and I'll
apply...
> Perhaps I'm missing something here, but to myself (fairly new to Debian,
> not yet a DD myself, not yet *quite* ready to apply to NM), it seems like
> you're asking for special and distinguished treatment in establishing
> formal trust rather than following the procedure that most everyone else
> has followed.
Not quite. I find it quite annoying and useless to start such a discussion
about people (like me) that are doing exactly the same work for years and
suddenly this work seems wrong. That's not really encouraging and it feels
to me that this is destroying the trust I had in Debian. So, for me Debian
should start in establishing a trust base to me again, because the web of
trust is actually the base of my work for Debian, but trust is not a one way
lane - there needs to be trust on both side and atm I can't trust Debian
anymore in that regard because of those discussions.
--
Ciao... //
Ingo \X/
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