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Re: [bernhard@intevation.de: Re: The powerpc port should be removed from etch release candidates ...]



Hi Frans,

(I am answering this email in the same group, 
as it also addresses some of the problems of various mailinglists
and has its home on debian-powerpc.)

On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 06:22:29PM +0200, Frans Pop wrote:
> On Monday 08 May 2006 11:18, you wrote:
> > it was brought to my attention that you are not reading debian-powerpc,
> > thus I am forwarding my email to you directly.
> 
> That is correct, mainly as I do not have a powerpc system myself.

For being a very important list to powerpc users, 
it was underinformed about the incident.

> > b) The social and personal side is important. Sven's emails are clearly
> >    showing this, but some of the responses by Thomas and
> >    others did not reflect this.
> 
> Yes, but Sven's emails are also only showing one side of the issue.

It is only natural that Sven's emails show his side which I have considered
before answering. Still others answered with technical arguments only,
which stroke me as strange. My point in general is, that this is not
a nice way to treat a volunteer and does the organisation no good,
no matter how bad a volunteer might have behaved.

> I have not replied to the various threads because I have no interest in 
> prolonging this discussion. 

Best to avoid a long discussion is to have a clear and
understandable statement you can point people to.
To me not having this from the start clearly has prolonged the discussion.

> The second reason was that there was a 
> mediation going on by the DPL and his "second in command" and I did not 
> want to interfere in that.

This is a good reason to hold communication for a while.
I am bit astonished by the result of the mediation, though,
as there obviously was no agreement between made between the parties.
That is sad.

> >    My part is: Writing this comment to help the situation.
> >    I am also speaking up to support Sven. I believe
> >    that he was bit badly treated in the thread.
> >    No matter what he did to contribute to the situation,
> >    this list has people which are new to the problem.
> 
> Well, I'm afraid we disagree there and I don't feel that someone who has 
> not followed all that's happened over the last year on the various lists 
> and IRC channels (mostly d-boot and d-kernel, but elsewhere as well) can 
> really judge the rights and wrongs here.

As I have stated earlier: I have only read debian-powerpc
and been working from this. As there will be other people doing so,
Sven, just like anybody, deserves a fair treatment to this audience,
which cannot know what has happened on other channels.

> Also, this is not really about right or wrong, but about having some fun 
> while working on Debian in general and the installer in particular. 
> Having fun is very important when it comes to a volunteer based project 
> and I'm afraid that Sven was reducing the fun for several core members of 
> the d-i team in a way that has become unacceptable.

Giving an understandable examples in a statement for this, 
would be fair treatment. This would be a step after personal communication 
to try to improve the situation has failed.

Assuming that Sven had the distressing personal situation he wrote about,
there should be enough base to make a new attempt and forgive some of the heat.
To me it still actually looks like this was used to Sven's disadvantage
which I would not have happen to me on a general basis.
But that is beside the point, if you and the other core members
of the d-i team are not willing to do this, no one can force you.

> >    What could have been done better?
> >    If Sven's commit rights have been revoked and he got "kicked out",
> >    it would be very good to give a reasonable explanation
> >    that people can be point people to.
> >    The usage of the phrase "kicked" by Sven,
> >    seems to indicate that there was
> >    no common position why he left the d-i team.
> 
> "Kicking out" Sven from the d-i team had already been discussed twice this 
> year. Eventually we did not have to "kick him out" as Sven himself 
> resigned from the team.

If the personal situation Sven write about is true,
you cannot really count the "resignation".

> We (I) revoked his commit access mainly because of the broken personal 
> relationships between Sven and other members of the d-i team.
> IMO it is not good that someone who is not friendly towards a team has 
> commit access to their source repository. In the long run that will only 
> lead to new conflicts. It is much better to have a clean break and maybe 
> resume a normal working relation later on when things have calmed down 
> and people are willing to work together again.

I agree with the clean break, if both conflicting parties agree to it.

> Note that it is just as easy to grant commit access as it is to revoke it 
> and I do not exclude the possibility that Sven will be allowed commit 
> access again in the future. There will have to be major changes in his 
> attitude for that to happen though.

I am assuming that Sven knows those criticism of him.
And my hope is there is a good way to integrate him as a volunteer for good.

[ I have deleted some of the other points as they are discussed elsewhere. 
  Thanks for responding, though. ]

> P.S. I will probably not be replying to any replies to this mail as almost 
> everything has been said at least several times already. I really would 
> like to put this behind us and start working on d-i again.

Regards,
	Bernhard

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