Re: communication, friendlyness, DDs (Re: Ubuntu-to-Debian packaging)
Hi,
On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 09:08:54PM +0100, Holger Levsen wrote:
> On Sunday 02 December 2007 13:19, Patrick Schoenfeld wrote:
> > Really, it may have sounded more rude to you, then it was meant to be.
> > But I was really annoyed by such a statement,
>
> That rather implies you were unfriendly, at least I'm often (too) unfriendly,
yes, I agree.
> when I'm "really annoyed". Also, in communication it is totally irrelevant
> how you (the sending end) ment something. What matters in communication is
> how the receiving end perceives it and what the sending end ment, is almost
> totaly irrelevant.
Well, but its not really possible for the sending end to know before,
how the receiving end will perceive something. Besides that I'm feeling
hard to express some things properly, because english is just not my
native language. Its hard to try to respect feelings of receival ends
then.
> Then let me tell you with my oh-my-god-DD!-status, that most DDs expect
You get me wrong. I don't say, nor did I mean that DDs are gods. The
problem is just the place were it happens (because of the audience)
and the simple fact that the argued thing is easy to look up.
> friendlyness when interacting with fellow developers (being them DDs or
> not) :-) Sure, most of us can life with a flame here or a heated argument
> there, but at least I do expect to be treated friendly. Anytime, everywhere.
Well, its not always that easy. What you feel as beeing unfriendly is
felt unfriendly by the receiving end. In fact my first thinking when
I read the mail about my unfriendlyness was: "What?! I don't really
understand why my mail has been unfriendly at all." Because I just
complained about something that I felt totally wrong. I did not call
Jose a moron or anything else insulting.
> And, DDs don't know everything and don't have to know everything as well. José
I agree with this. But the problem is not to know everything, but the
simple fact that informations can be looked up. If you argue with
someone about elementar questions on how things should be done, its
better to be informed. IMHO Debian Developers don't need to know
everything, but they should know where to get the information from. In
this case Jose knew the information source very well, but instead of
looking into it and _then_ answering he indicated that he was to lazy or
whatsoever to look into the policy and instead say that he does not
know. I should have said that I feel this beeing bad, then it my have
sounded different on the receiving end. But i cannot change things I
already did.
> shared his experiences with you and the list and when he was in NM he was
> told by a DD (! :) that he should remove the old changelog and that he is not
> sure if there is a policy for this. And he made it through NM with this
> advice and all his NM communication was read by his AM, FD and DAM. Can't be
> that wrong.
I don't see how this argumentation works. Sorry.
> He also indicated he might be wrong (as things might have changed) and that
> his knowledge is limited (doh! just like anybody elses on this planet) -
Thats not true. In his first mail (the one that I first critizized) he
just stated how it should be. Quiet confident. Sureley anyone who does
not (yet) know better would see: Ah, the advise from a DD, additional
their is no policy for it and oh not even a documented best practice in
the DevRef, so I'll follow his advise. You see what I think is bad?
In his second mail he did. But this mail would have never happend if I
had not complained to him.
> what's wrong with that? It's rather good for two reasons: people know that
> they should not take his advice (in this matter) for granted and people can
Thats right, but the acting in this case is IMHO wrong anyways.
Because the information is so easy to lookup and proof. So why should someone
who really does know that something like the Debian policy exists and
where to find it (I assume that he does, because he is a DD) make statements about
contents of the policy without looking it up?
> correct him and inform the list and point out the policy about keeping
> changelogs or not.
>
I don't like this way of doing things. You can stretch this in any
direction. Example: Not in a mentor-mentoree relationship, but in packaging:
Why lookup sth. in the policy at all? Someone will make a bugreport
and point out to the policy. Right?
> There are good arguments [..] but there are also good for removing
Maybe. But the questioning of the topic starter surely wanted to ask for
a rule of thumb. Jose gave one, which is _at least_ questionable.
> it. For example if you dont plan to merge back and forth in future (IME I
We are talking about Ubuntu-to-Debian. So this is not of concern, right?
> And, yes, the packaging is copyrightable and has a licence. A licence which is
> a free software licence, which allows modification...
You are right. I confused something.
Best Regards,
Patrick
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