[Bug 129910] Re: Blank ttys when using vesafb (vga=xxx)

[Taupter]

About Ubuntu's Code of Conduct,


Disregarding so many people for so much time is, imo, a disrespectful act.
Getting upset with the aforementioned lack of consideration to its users and to all the people who cared about reporting, confirming, investigating and posting workarounds/fixes to this bug is, imo, a completely natural reaction.
Closing a bug as invalid doesn't magically fix the problem.
Closing a bug as invalid in such circumstances makes people question the seriousness, commitment and capability of the maintainer and his employer.
Complaining != being disrespectful.
Following Ubuntu's Code of Conduct doesn't make everything pink, happy, right and good.
The CoC is a guideline, not the 10 Commandments.
The CoC shouldn't be used as a cloaking device to avoid criticism.

The CoC's link (http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct) has a beautiful word in it: "community". If we can't give opinions, question people or express ourselves, including our dismal about other community members, it may well not be a community worth of taking part.
'Humanity towards others', Ubuntu's motto, expresses fully this concept of interaction between humans (sharing ideas, feelings) for a greater good. I believe nobody here complained or suggested fixes to this bug just to piss off the Ubuntu's kernel team, but because fixing it was seen by all these people as being an improvement to Ubuntu and another step in direction to a greater good.

Before another Law's Guardian comes up here to trump the CoC card again,
let's take a look at it:

"Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people, and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and we expect you to take those consequences into account when making decisions. For example, when we are in a feature freeze, please don't upload dramatically new versions of critical system software, as other people will be testing the frozen system and not be expecting big changes."
When the unknown-to-me Kernel maintainer added this regression in august 2007, almost 7 months ago, before gutsy's stable release, he/she disregarded the very CoC, as this bug affects a lot of people, and framebuffer consoles are used mostly by developers, sysadmins and other knowledgeable people who have a good deal of influence, either as local gurus or IT professionals.

"Be respectful. The Ubuntu community and its members treat one another with respect. Everyone can make a valuable contribution to Ubuntu. We may not always agree, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We expect members of the Ubuntu community to be respectful when dealing with other contributors as well as with people outside the Ubuntu project, and with users of Ubuntu."
Ignoring so many people for 7 months _is_ disrespectful. Asking if the maintainer cares is mostly a rethorical question, as his actions speak for him. 7 months is a way too large span for "now and then". Being less productive than he has being (at least as long as this bug is concerned) is impossible, be it because of our complaints or not. As of expecting this or that, we're expecting for months to no avail.

"Be collaborative. Ubuntu and Free Software are about collaboration and working together. Collaboration reduces redundancy of work done in the Free Software world, and improves the quality of the software produced. You should aim to collaborate with other Ubuntu maintainers, as well as with the upstream community that is interested in the work you do. Your work should be done transparently and patches from Ubuntu should be given back to the community when they are made, not just when the distribution releases. If you wish to work on new code for existing upstream projects, at least keep those projects informed of your ideas and progress. It may not be possible to get consensus from upstream or even from your colleagues about the correct implementation of an idea, so don't feel obliged to have that agreement before you begin, but at least keep the outside world informed of your work, and publish your work in a way that allows outsiders to test, discuss and contribute to your efforts."
Lots of people collaborated with reports, confirmations and fixes to this very bug. By the sheer volume of comments here, there's a huge "upstream community that is interested". The transparency was so great we saw through it as if is was nothing.

"When you disagree, consult others. Disagreements, both political and technical, happen all the time and the Ubuntu community is no exception. The important goal is not to avoid disagreements or differing views but to resolve them constructively. You should turn to the community and to the community process to seek advice and to resolve disagreements. We have the Technical Board and the Community Council, both of which will help to decide the right course for Ubuntu. There are also several Project Teams and Team Leaders, who may be able to help you figure out which direction will be most acceptable. If you really want to go a different way, then we encourage you to make a derivative distribution or alternative set of packages available using the Ubuntu Package Management framework, so that the community can try out your changes and ideas for itself and contribute to the discussion."
'Resolve' is a word that couldn't be applied to this bug as far as maintainers could say. Disagreements were closed unilaterally with this bug, but nothing was resolved. The maintainer ignored the community despite of how much information was written, using a half-baked excuse that makes any reasonable person question him.

"When you are unsure, ask for help. Nobody knows everything, and nobody is expected to be perfect in the Ubuntu community (except of course the SABDFL). Asking questions avoids many problems down the road, and so questions are encouraged. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful. However, when asking a question, care must be taken to do so in an appropriate forum. Off-topic questions, such as requests for help on a development mailing list, detract from productive discussion."
WTF is SABDFL? I didn't feel to encouraged by the maintainer. He was not responsive or helpful. When somebody writes "This bug report is so convoluted, it can not be made sense of" it means _he_ can't make sense out of it. People (included myself) were able to fix the issue locally following the instructions contained in this bug report. If he's unable to handle it be if because of lack of patience, capability or commitment, blease be clear and

"Step down considerately. Developers on every project come and go and Ubuntu is no different. When you leave or disengage from the project, in whole or in part, we ask that you do so in a way that minimises disruption to the project. This means you should tell people you are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where you leave off."
If the maintainer wanted to step down he should put it clear instead of cooking our collective brain for so long.


Best wishes to all involved.

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Blank ttys when using vesafb (vga=xxx)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/129910
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