>>>>> "Jonathan" == Jonathan McDowell <noodles@earth.li> writes:
Jonathan> It's worthwhile stating the actual problem that is trying
Jonathan> to be solved here.
Jonathan> I believe that is: "Given difficulties with keysigning in
Jonathan> the modern environment, what does the project believe is
Jonathan> the appropriate verification of identification before we
Jonathan> allow someone access to our systems, the ability to upload
Jonathan> packages and/or the ability to vote within the project".
I think exploring this broader statement of the problem makes sense
(although I would have been happier if you had changed the subject:-)
I'd like to take a moment to express regret and what I've learned that I
can improve with the interaction I had with Olek . I deeply regret that
Olek walked away from that interaction feeling like I was dismissing his
ideas including the idea of exploring the broader identity context. I
regret that I allowed my frustration to get in the way of clearly
articulating my concern, because had I done that I would likely have
realized that I didn't have evidence Olek was taking the position I
thought added stop energy.
So, I think that exploring the broader concept of identity verification
is valuable and I think we've reached a point where it makes sense to do
that.
What frustrated me is the idea of holding back what appeared to be a
productive short-term discussion where we were getting valuable advice
and input and blocking that short-term success on a long drawn-out
discussion where no one had any concrete suggestions yet. I do think
the longer-term discussion is valuable.
But I also strongly believe that when people are having useful input
that will help them today, we as a project shouldn't get in their way
with our long-term thinking.
I don't think you're trying to do that. I don't think Olek was trying
to do that.
As someone who as organized these discussions, when someone jumps in
with a proposal to reframe things with a much broader scope, it does
have the effect of slowing things down.
But the broader discussions are valuable, and Debian really does think
about the long-term.
Again, as someone who has run these discussions and felt the frustration
of how hard it can be to make decisions in Debian, simple things like
changing subject lines and waiting a bit can help so much.
Re reading the discussion, even by the time Olek wrote his first
message, I think the timing was totally fine and we'd already gotten the
short-term actionable input we were going to get.
I do hope that as a community we eventually move toward a culture where
we expect ourselves to do things like change subjects, think about the
timing of broadening scope, and think about how we can make decisions
and get input more efficiently.
And so I do strongly stand behind the idea that we shouldn't block the
short-term on the long term. I wish that I had found more constructive
ways of asking Olek for reassurance that he wasn't trying to block
short-term progress.
I think that based on an off-list discussion with Olek and thinking
about the situation I've found better mechanisms to do that in the
future.
--Sam
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