Re: Please assume good faith
On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 4:31 AM, Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org> wrote:
> David Kalnischkies <kalnischkies@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 11:31 PM, Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org> wrote:
>>> Thorsten Glaser <tg@mirbsd.de> writes:
>>>> Lars Wirzenius <liw <at> liw.fi> writes:
>>>>> I write a backup program. It uses its own storage format, and people
>>>>> sometimes ask if they could use tar files instead. But I am evil
>>>>> incarnate and FORCE them to use my own storage format instead. Should
>>>> […]
>>>>> can be, and I think that the storage format I've developed is better
>>>>> than storing backups in tar files. I truly, deeply feel that using my
>>>>> format makes the program better, and that offering tar as a choice
>>>>> would be pretty much disastrous, because almost all of the features I
>>>>
>>>> This *is* bad because if there is an existing userbase with tar (which
>>>> isn’t true in the obnam case, sure, but would be true if you were to
>>>> try forbidding all other backup programs in Debian) this will break
>>>> their use cases, and *that* is what the systemd situation is all
>>>> about.
>>>
>>> I don't understand this point of view. Even if there is an existing
>>> userbase, I don't think that would obligate me (as the author) in any
>>> way to support them in the future. […]
>>
>> You are not forced of course, but if you have (or aim to have) a userbase
>> consisting of more than just a few people you might want to consider to not
>> alienate them because you are a nice fellow (or aim to be one).
>
> Yes, that's certainly what I do in practice. But I do not understand how
> you make the jump from this to:
>
>> That isn't meant to be advocating to never change anything, but you better
>> have really really really good reasons to do it OR you accept that people
>> start to distrust you and avoid you like the plague even if you have
>> invented the cure for the common cold this time.
>
> Is that really how you'd feel toward me if I stopped working on a piece
> of software? By being nice to you for a limited time I get your distrust
> and avoidance afterwards? I don't think that's a healthy attitude for
> open source, because it means that if you want to get along with people,
> you better not release any of your code in the first place (at least
> everyone will still be neutral to you then).
Maybe. The difference is how you have communicated what your software is
supposed to achieve. "Just scratching my own itch here" is far different
from "all your base are belong to us".
You say later on that APT is doing what you need. Would you like that to
change? Do you really think you could use an old version for long?
(lets be crazy and announce that apt is hard-depending on bsd jails now)
If you think trust isn't a healthy 'currency' in volunteer communities I
wonder what you are using…
I have the luxury of being able to delegate such (to me) ultimately boring
decisions like which init system is allowed to start my tiling window
manager to others I trust and are far more capable in that area. Others
on this list obviously can't or we wouldn't have such a battle, so it
might be interesting to find an answer why they can't and learn from it
(beside from those who think fighting is fun maybe).
As usual: "War does not determine who is right – only who is left."
>> And based on that we don't have enough people to maintain one APT¹, I doubt
>> you find enough for two, so a "just fork it" sounds nice in theory, but
>> just because you have a million users doesn't mean you have a million
>> developers willing to work on it…
>
> No, but that's really a problem (or non-problem) of the millions of
> users. If no one is interested in working on apt, isn't that a sign that
> apt is really good enough for most of its millions of users?
>
> At least this is the reason that I'm not working on apt. For me it works
> perfectly, so I spend my time working on things that really bug me
> rather than working on apt.
That is nice to hear, but given that the answer to the question which package
owned the last two open RC-bugs against Debian wheezy and which one has the
most open bugreports in general in the BTS is "apt" I somehow doubt its true
for everyone around here.
Its more a sign for a) capable contributors believing that they have to
be deities (pun intended) to work on APT, b) users trusting that those
deities are not stabbing them in the back and c) the universal hope for
having always at least one more active deity than deities hit by a bus…
Lets just hope that works out just as 'well' as it does for other teams.
Best regards
David Kalnischkies
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