Re: A question to the Debian community ...
On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 09:15:34PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 07:36:57PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 10:42:13AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 12:51:23PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > > It is amazing to what step people can resort just to silence the voice
> > > > of their own concience and don't be reminded of their shame.
> > >
> > > There is no shame here. There is only annoyance.
> >
> > There is shame, there is shame, because you support the side who did not
> > which the solution solved, you support the side who did make sure the
> > annoyance would not get away, there is shame, because i asked you to
> > help solving this, and you declined, because the you said the other
> > party would not hear you.
>
> Actually, you asked me to mediate. To that I replied that, given the
> fact that Frans has publically stated that he's not interested in
> mediation anymore, I didn't think it'd be a fruitful use of my time to
> attempt a mediation.
Notice that Frans has said he was not interested in thinking about me.
This did not stop him from being the motor of the renewed expulsion
request.
> That doesn't mean I don't want to help you anymore.
Oh, and how could that be ? I think your last mail was pretty clear,
that even if the way i was handled was highly unfair, i was to be
sacrificed just becasue frans and a few other with influence chose to
behave like arrogant assholes ?
> > There is shame, because of the way the DAMs handled this, without
> > following their own guidelines, without enough transparency in the
> > proceeding.
> >
> > There is shame, because, you, as did the two last DPLs and the DAMs,
> > have recognized that Debian has acted unfairly toward me. You all claim
> > the current situation was inevitable, but was another solution even
> > tried ?
> [...]
>
> No, that's not true. What is true is that you think people *should* be
> ashamed of themselves because of all the reasons you quoted. However,
> the hard and cold fact is that they aren't, and there's nothing you can
> do about that. They're only annoyed; and that, I'm afraid, is entirely
> because of your own doing.
Debian should be ashamed because it has no way of handling social
conflicts except siding with one party and trying to silence the other,
*AND* because it is absolutely not interested in making things change.
> I feel there won't be anything which you will accept as a "resolution"
> unless and until you realise this hard truth:
You would be surprised by what i would accept as a "resolution", care to
try ?
> There is a difference between how you percieve things to be ("I'm being
> treated unfairly") and how other people percieve things to be ("Sven is
> an annoying brat"); and if you want those other people to listen to you
> and to change their attitude towards you, their opinion matters more
Ah, yes, right ? Like i did after Fabio decided to mediate, and suddenly
i was to be banned from the lists without provocation ? Like i was
during january/february, and suddenly Frans and a few others decided to
come again after me and try to expulse me ? Like i did when i tried to
write the wiki page, which was constructive and positive, and was told
to "Fuck off" ?
> than your own. That doesn't mean they're always right, or that you
> should ignore your own opinion; but you should consider theirs more than
> your own if you want them to change.
I think they have expressed themselves enough when asked about their
opinion by the DAMs, opinion they plainly ignored to go with their
already decided way, which was to get me out of the way, so that frans
and co would continue to do good work and make sure to get etch
released. Reread those, they where 70:7 people strongly against the
expulsion. Not counting all those who mentioned afterward that they
considered the DAMs decision as plainly stupid ?
> I'm sorry, but I do think that this is the situation.
Sure, so easy.
I will tell you something else. I cared for debian, i gave inumbrable
hours of my time, made sacrifices for it. Nobody denies that i achieved
great things, and that the teams in which i took a leadership role
achieved great things.
Sure, i react badly to agression, and i think nobody denies that what
was done to me since over a year can be considered as agression. Sure, i
was under a very bad personal stress, but i challenge you to go out look
at the archive and count the number of times where i tried to get this
issue solved. I also challenge you to find a single case where this
issue was fairly addressed.
So, if debian had wanted, this issue could have been solved over a year
ago, and we would all be coding hapilly ever after.
This is the shame of debian, that it chose to let the issue get out of
hand, instead of trying to solve it, and it is a shame shared by every
DD and associated. I share it too, because i know i have misbehaved, but
at least i made an effort to help solve it, many efforts even, probably
more than what you or any other would have made in my situation.
So, yes, my concience is clean, i have misbehaved, but i made amends,
and tried to mend the issue, and, so, i am the voice of your concience
who brings your shame to the light, even if you would prefer to forget
it.
And if Debian doesn't mature, and learn how to deal honorably with
situation like these, then debian is doomed, and will never learn how to
handle these kind of situations, and as i was told, i am not the most
prominent social problems, just look at the regular cries of outrages
all over the lists, the vociferation against the DAMs, the ftp-master,
the mess about the buildd maintainers, the disaster that was the first
vancouver announcement, or the dunk-tank disaster. And i am sure i am
missing many more such events.
The disease of debian is not me, and the few mails i write on some
select lists, it is that debian has absolutely no clue about human
ressource management, and that a few asocial geeks got to a position
of power by the sole virtue of the time they where able to devote to
debian, and believe this makes them superior.
Some have compared debian to a work place, and justified the behaviour
against me by the fact that in a US-like workplace, they would have
gotten ride of me years ago, but remember that in a RL work place, if
you have a tiranic boss, you will not keep your employees, and that the
best of them will go for greener pastures. The same is happening to
debian, where people who could have been assets are turned away by
manipulation, frustration and other less savory behaviour.
So, yes, Debian should be ashamed, all DDs share this shame, and worse
of all, this behaviour will hurt debian, has already hurt debian worse
than what i could ever do.
And because you are not able to see this, because the DDs prefer to
ignore the issue and look aside (i know, i have a tendency to do the
same about issues which somehow disturb me), because of this the mess
between Frans and me has grown out of every proportion. We are happy
that there is such distance between us, and that i am someone who is
still sane despite everything. I am sure someone else, put under the
pressure and humiliation i was, could have snapped and done something
irreparable (and given who we previously expulsed, this is something
maybe not so farfetched as people would hope).
What would you have thought about your responsability if there had been
a gun massacer at the last debconf social event ? Already it turned to
some kind of fist fight (and most notably, Holger was among those who
where agressive and lost his cold blood then, and he is one of the most
agressive and insulting attackers of me now).
So, if like Joerg Jaspert (or at least that is what he told me) you have
no concience, yes, i am sacrificable, but then i fear for the future of
debian.
Shame on you,
Saddened,
Sven Luther
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