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Re: can we (fully) fix/integrate NetworkManager (preferred) or release-goal its decommissioning



On Sunday, August 19, 2012 20:41:47, Michael Biebl wrote:
[…]
> I won't bother following up as I'm really tired of all this BS on
> debian-devel regarding NM lately. Sorry.
> My guess is, that this will be another of those pointless NM bashing
> threads, where nothing useful comes out of it. Actually I'm not sure
> what the point of this thread is, but it definitely managed to piss me
> off, the maintainer of network-manager, and I'm not going to further
> participate.

I'm sorry you're feeling hurt from the NM criticism.  I'm confident that 
nobody had any intent of hurting your feelings.

Whatever opinions I or others my have about NM are about the software is 
mostly about the software that comes from upstream -- which has nothing to do 
with you directly, so /please/ try not to take this personally.  Also this 
thread started mainly about *other* packages that pull in network-manager as a 
dependency, which doesn't even have to do with the network-manager package 
itself.  NM is just one part of a larger "meta issue" going on concerning 
coordination /between/ various packages.

There's a natural tendency to have an emotional attachment and pride one's 
work.  In the case of Debian packaging the maintainer gets to have a lot of 
input on how the package gets installed and might have /some/ control over the 
software's default behavior, but to a large extent it seems to me the 
maintainer only has minimal control over how the software actually works, 
because that comes from upstream and it's specifically /not/ the packager's 
task to implement major design changes to it.

I therefore think taking criticism about the /software itself/ that a 
maintainer packaged /personally/ is a harsh self-judgment, especially if 
there's not much a maintainer can actually /do/ about the perceived design 
failings that the software might have.  This reminds me of the the "Serenity 
Prayer" [1] mantra used during meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

The part of this that I think is non-obvious is that one's emotions and 
reaction are actually a choice.  For instance, my experience is that if 
someone outright criticizes me directly with the obvious intent of /trying/ to 
hurt my feelings, /that/ is often far easier to dismiss than if someone 
criticizes the output of my efforts /without/ any obvious intent to make it 
hurt.  This is a good thing as otherwise I would be allowing someone else to 
/control/ my emotions and my reaction.  But the extension of this is even more 
interesting -- that I am /responsible/ for my emotions as as well as my 
reaction, because they are both my choice.  (There's an interesting 10-minute 
video [2] discussing some of these issues which I think is worth watching.)

Finally, I want to make it clear that none of the above is meant as criticism 
of any kind -- it's meant purely as an attempt to help.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhgtGFPTeMY

  -- Chris

--
Chris Knadle
Chris.Knadle@coredump.us
GPG Key: 4096R/0x1E759A726A9FDD74

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