Re^4: ideas regarding a conflict management strategy
> > > I had reasons why I dont fill the pipe with E-Mails that contain 20
> > > pages long efforts if the expectation is pretty hostile feedback.
> > As you can see, posting generalities didn't really fare much better.
> Right - 20 pages of anything, from someone who doesn't appear to be
> contributing to the community which he insists should change to his
> standards, is not going to be particularly well-received.
Steve Langasek, exactly that is a general misunderstanding of you and a few other Debian Developers.
"I have three world-class operating system releases to my credit, and you dont" is cause for respect and fame, but it does not justify the attitude, that anybody else has no right to voice his opinion, if he cant show up with similar credit.
Conciousness, awareness, understanding and practise of non-violent communication.
The Debian Bug Tracking System is open, the developer and project lists are open, the entire structure is open. And this has a reason. It is exactly what makes Debian special and attractive compared to other distributions. But open structures also have their downsides compared to communities that are lead by companies.
We see in real life every day how democratic processes are a real challenge to all involved people. Most of us are conscious about the fact that democracy is not a perfect system. But we are aware that it is the best mechanism available to keep huge groups of people together in a peaceful way.
A few smart people with a good understanding of social ethics made up the Debian Social Contract. And one of the main points of this Debian Social Contract is "we will not hide problems" and "our priorities are our users". Thank you for keeping that in mind through all your actions.
Some people obviously value tribalism much higher than the Debian Social Contract, when they went to attack "Patrick Frank" some months ago only because he was voicing a concern, that the current Debian Project Leader used defacements of other Debian Developers during his electoral compaign. And I am not making up this entire case again, just to cause another destructive flame war. Feel reminded on the electoral compaign lead in the US mass media between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: mud fighting instead of dealing with facts. And the reference to "Patrick Frank" was made up by you, Steve Langasek.
When I have a look at this public conflict from that time around "Patrick Frank", then I come to the conclusion that "we will not hide problems" is not taken very serious. And observations of behaviour from Debian Developers on chat rooms on Internet Relay Chat from the last years show, that many people take "our priorities are our users" not very serious.
A few smart people with a good understanding of social ethics made up the Debian Free Software Guidelines. And one of the main points of these Debian Free Software Guidelines is "No Discrimination".
What is the point of making software that does not discriminate other people, but the behaviour of several Debian Developers does?
Did you sign the Debian Social Contract and agree to the Debian Free Software Guidelines to get as much reputation as possible for being one of the best hackers, or do you enjoy giving people great tools so they can have the most benefit from using their computer?
The Debian community is not about your ego and not about mine.
Its about the desires of many people.
To cover as many desires as possible is the main philosophy of Debian ever since.
And exactly that was my point in my first E-Mails, when some people chose to try to give my name a bad reputation instead of dealing with the facts.
Most of the Debian Developers need to get conscious about their own personality, the personality of other Debian Developers and the personality of all the people they have to deal with in general.
I tried to explain why I am convinced about that requirement.
GNU/Debian Linux is used and supported by companies like Hewlett Packard, Intel and many others.
Shouldnt that create good self confidence for all the people who help to make GNU/Debian Linux what it is?
Why do some people use that self confidence against small people like me, instead of trying to catch the message that I try to voice?
The problems that I see and try to express are problems that are seen by other people, too. Some people deal with it in a different way. A really smart way of dealing with some of these problems of the Debian community was, when Mark Shuttleworth gave birth to the Ubuntu project. Much smarter people than me will write a book about his life sooner or later. So again, I dont aim to give a scienctific work here. But one of the reasons why Ubuntu catches much of the fame that would usually be due to the work of many Debian Developers is, that Mark Shuttlerworth was giving the Ubuntu community a clear and clean structure which is kept together by the company Cannonical. While many Debian Developers were angry about the former DPL and how the project Dunc-Tank was introduced, Mark Shuttleworth was coming through the backdoor with paychecks to hire selected Debian Developers who are useful for the work of Cannonical. I dont aim to cause paranoia here. I want to explain a smart move and a simple mechanism that is visible to everybody who gets past his hard feelings. What Mark Shuttleworth did and still does works so well, not because his money is sexy. It works because the Debian community forgot to do their homework regarding the rebuilding of a modern leadership structure for such a huge group of developers and their homework regarding a conscious practise of social ethics towards other developers and towards your users.
I will take projects like Linux from Scratch, Slackware and Gentoo out of my considerations, because they leave a lot of work to their users. And in my humble opinion, the main benefit of a distribution is that other people do most of the administrative work for you. This is again no boolean type of choice to like Slackware and Gentoo or to hate it. Every distribution has its purpose. They satisfy desires their typical own way.
But as real competitors I see Fedora which follows the company philosophy of Red Hat, I see OpenSuse which follows the company philosophy of Suse and Novell, I see Mandriva which follows the company philosophy of Mandrake Soft and Connectiva and I see Ubuntu which follows the company philosophy of Cannonical.
And the very much strongest point of Debian compared to all competitors has always been its independence from any company leadership.
This is what makes Debian unique and superior.
But some Debian Developers have to come down from their high horse and they need to stop spreading this poisoned attitude.
Because all the competitive distributions can coexist next to each other just fine as they target different groups of users - except for Ubuntu, which will take over more and more shares of the Debian users if you dont pay attention to your social problems.
Learn to be more conscious about your own personality, about the personality of other Debian Developers and about the personality of all the users. And become aware of the problems that arise from different personalities. Learn to understand and - please - learn to use non-violent communication.
And then you will be able to play the big card Debian undoubtedly has compared to all other distrubutions that are not independent from companies who provide the structure and philosophy.
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