Frans and Colin dropped from Cc's, -boot and -powerpc Bcc'ed only;
please avoid crossposting.
On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 11:14:39AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 04:38:31PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > As I suspect you're all already aware, on 27th April, Sven Luther asked
> > me to review the situation with d-i and powerpc as a result of finding
> > his commit access to the d-i repository had been removed. Having spent
> > some time since then seeing what's been going on, I've concluded that
> > removing Sven's commit access was a reasonable course of action, and
> > won't be asking that you accept Sven's request to have it reinstated.
> Anthony, d-i team.
> I would very much like to get the detail of the reasoning behind how you
> concluded that it was a reasonable course of action,
The d-i team were acting under the belief that you no longer wished to
work on d-i after a number of conflicts in the past [0]; they then sought
to find someone else to work on powerpc issues for d-i on the -powerpc
list [1], indicating they need people at all levels to work on it (from
testing builds to arch-specific development), and you not only saw that
call for help, but participated in the thread [2]. About a month after
that got around to removing your commit access.
That you now indicate that your intention had been to resign as *lead*
powerpc porter for d-i doesn't really change matters; you weren't clear
that that was your intention originally, you didn't clarify your intention
when Frans stated the d-i team's understanding, and for various reasons
your involvement in d-i over the month between the mails above and your
noticing your commit access was also removed.
I don't think there's anything at all unreasonable in removing commit
access for someone who voluntarily resigns from a project, especially when
they go on to make it difficult to recruit new members to replace them.
That means it becomes a question of whether you joining the d-i team at
this point actually makes sense on its own merits, rather than merely
as a reversion of a previous bad decision.
Since both you and Frans have made it very clear you're uncomfortable
working closely with each other at this point, forcing you together
seems entirely inappropriate, and against explicilty expressed desires
from both of you.
[0] Message-ID: <20060327144312.GA17232@localhost.localdomain>
"I hereby officially announce that i won't continue to do the
ungratefull job of powerpc d-i porting, i hear the d-i team has
plenty of folk to take my place, so they should fix this."
[1] Message-id: <200603290205.11700.aragorn@tiscali.nl>
"Sven Luther has recently announced [1] that he will no longer work on
PowerPC support in Debian Installer."
[2] Message-ID: <20060329010019.GA30521@localhost.localdomain>
"Well, that is what i see right now, some of these issues are open
since a couple of weeks now, if not more, and i saw nobody jump in
to fix then, even after i was scheduled for expulsion, so i hope
that frans calls will give more results, altough seeing as it is
a tedious process with little respect from the d-i team ..."
> Further, i want to point out that i am the original author of both the
> nobootloader and prep-installler .udeb packages, and was also early involved
> in partman-prep (which is currently broken) package from Cajus Pollmeyer.
Note that your technical abilities are not in any question.
> These tree packages are in the debian-installer svn repo, and removing my
> commit access means additional hurdle to me working on them,
It means that if you wish to continue maintaining them, you need to do so
independently of the Debian Install System Team, which is listed as the
current maintainer, and of which you are no longer a member. If you wish
to consult with your co-maintainers for those packages (Matt Kraai and
Stephen R Marenka for nobootloader, and Cajus Pollmeier for partman-prep)
and setup a new source control repository, that's entirely appropriate.
> and i think it
> would be more logical if this confirms itself, that those packages be removed
> from the d-i svn repo and hosted somewhere else more neutral.
You're no longer a member of the d-i team; if they wish to keep those
packages' source in their subversion repository, it doesn't matter to you
at all. If they wish to maintain a fork compared to your packages, that's
fine too. If other members of the d-i team wish to maintain it in your
stead, they probably will be expected to justify that change as a package
hijack, depending on what your co-maintainers think of the situation.
> [...] and in any case, i have seen
> no evidence that this removal of my svn commit access was expected to have any
> technical effect, only a social one, to get ride of me and make sure i would
> not be able to interact with d-i in the future.
You have been asked to interact with the d-i team a number of times in
a number of ways; you have consistently refused to do so by any means
other than direct commit access to their subversion repository.
If people were trying to get rid of you, or stop you from interacting with
the d-i team in the future, it would be achieved by blocking or limiting
your access to the mailing lists or bug tracking system, or by undertaking
expulsion procedures. The d-i team have specifically refused from taking
any of those actions, and when asked have indicated that your involvement
in the team is highly desired -- just that they no longer consider direct
subversion access to be a reasonable way to interact with you.
Furthermore, while it has not been requested, and indeed the d-i team have
explicitly indicated that they would like you to continue contributing,
there would be quite a reasonable case for reducing your ability to
interact, given the signal to noise ratio of your posts, and the impact
your negativity is having on other people contributing to both d-i in
general, and powerpc support in particular.
> I believe that the mediation attempts has thus failed, and that the proposal
> you make has not evolved a bit since we started this, and that you gave all
> the reason to the d-i team.
If you believe authorising 0-day NMUs for any issue you believe is
important with the rather basic conditions outlined in my mails is
disregarding you entirely, then you're simply mistaken. That, of course,
is your right.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns -- Debian Project Leader
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