On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 13:42 +0100, Cesare Tirabassi wrote: > On Wednesday 05 December 2007 04:27:28 C.J. Adams-Collier wrote: > > > Thank you for taking the time to respond Cesare, > > No problem at all. > > > I asked for your input not for your association with a particular group, > > but because of your first-hand experience with the subject matter. > > OK, it would have been better to clarify it, I understood this to be a thread > on new Ubuntu packages being imported to Debian and since I've done some > myself I thought it was one of those. I often find it easier to place blame on another party than to consider that I am responsible for the same things which I accuse them of. I was trying to demonstrate this point to the members of this list, and failed to consider your feelings in the process. I should have been more forthright. I apologize and I hope that you can forgive me for my insensitivity. > > Do you feel that it is appropriate to copy someone else's changelog > > entry verbatim without giving credit to the original author? > > I guess you refer to mono-addins, for which I prepared an SRU in Ubuntu, using > the patches provided by Mirco? Correct. > Yes, I partly used his changelog because, quite frankly, what was the point of > changing it? Its the author's changelog and for him it reflected best the > content of the change, beside it ties with the history of the package. For > those not familiar with our SRU, we apply the changes in the development > version (in this case from the new Debian version) to solve a problem in our > stable release. I'm sorry, what is an "SRU"? > If you look at the bug report this should be clearer to you: > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mono-addins/+bug/149485 sadly, I do not have the time required to review this bug report. > In summary, I made the (evidently wrong) assumption that it was clear that > this was a backport of an issue already fixed in Debian. If we had the time to review the full documentation, we may not have even brought this up. It is a sad fact that we often do not have the resources required for due diligence, and we rely on maintainers to perform it on our behalf, documenting their progress as they go. > So, in retrospect, yes, it would have been clearer to quote the source in the > changelog, something that I won't forget in the future. Thank you. This was the result I was hoping for. > > Do you think that doing so is similar to plagiarism? Can you understand why > > the author who performed the work might feel violated? > > Quite frankly, no. Perhaps this is because you did not intend to claim Mirco's work as your own? It seems that you do not consider including his "work completed" log without mentioning his name to be the same as claiming that you performed this work. I think this is the crux of the issue. Those that read the changelog entry will mistakenly assume that you did the work mentioned therein. Since you did not intend to claim his work as your own, you do not consider it plagiarism. However, this does not change the fact that reality does not line up with your intent. This seems to be a failing of the system. When importing a change from upstream, it seems that the changelog should be auto-generated and include mention of the upstream author. In this way, there is less room for human error. > I have seen patches or even packages from me (not talking > about a changelog entry) who have not been recognised in any way. I certainly > don't feel plagiated (I would have appreciated it obviously); again, we are > not talking here about a new fix, its a fix backported to an old release. Others making the same mistakes does not mean that the mistake is not a mistake. Many people speed and drive drunk. This does not make these actions legal. > Personally, I have always strived to recognised the work done by others (just > as an example look at the changelog of rutilt which is one of my packages > being imported to Debian): > > https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rutilt > > Feel free to browse all the patches I have applied: > > https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/~norsetto/?field.searchtext=&orderby=-importance&search=Search&field.status%3Alist=FIXRELEASED&assignee_option=any&field.assignee=&field.bug_reporter=&field.bug_contact=&field.bug_commenter=&field.subscriber=&field.status_upstream-empty-marker=1&field.omit_dupes.used=&field.omit_dupes=on&field.has_patch.used=&field.tag=&field.has_cve.used= > > for further examples. > > > I understand that you may not have intended to transgress, disrespect or > > otherwise harm the upstream maintainer. > > Well, if that would have been the case I would indeed be a very poor person. I prefer not to make such judgments. We all have our reasons for making poor decisions. > > However, you should be aware that your actions have consequences, and > > that the work performed by others should be respected and acknowledged. > > I don't quite understand why this has been blow out to this proportion. > Wouldn't a simple email sent to me saying: "Hey, I think you forgot to quote > me in the changelog" have been more than enough? You are correct. I should have discussed this with you privately before bringing it up in a public forum. This was a poor decision on my part. The reason that I brought this up is because there has been much discussion recently about this topic without a concrete example. Again, I should not have made an example of you without your permission, and I apologize. > Since we are on the subject of respecting the work done by others, let me > point your attention to bug: > > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=447342 > > linked to: > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/monodevelop/+bug/123182 > > which has not even be acknowledged. > I have sent it to you because I'd really appreciate to have your opinion. Has the change you recommended been implemented without your acknowledgment? If so, you are right to bring this up. Perhaps there should be a CONTRIBUTORS file along with the AUTHORS where contributions such as this can be acknowledged? > > Again, thank you for taking part in this conversation. > > No problem at all, better clarify this. > > Cesare Cheers, C.J.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part