[ANNOUNCE] dh_splitpackage 0.1

Sat Jun 4 20:40:54 UTC 2011

Hello,

Am 04.06.2011 22:05, schrieb Scott Kitterman:
> Some people seem to think that the CoC requires us to avoid conflict, but I 
> think the opposite is true.  I think it requires us to engage and work to get 
> conflicts resolved.  I can understand that my response may have seemed harsh, 
> but it was nothing more than an honest reflection of my reaction.

I agree with you that avoiding conflict is not a goal of the CoC, it
just reminds us of doing it in a civil, engaging and goal-oriented way.
I can't remember who paraphrased the CoC in five words, but it was "be
excellent with each other" which is very far away from "never disagree". :)

> I agree there are similarities, but I find the situation more like after a 
> potential sponsor reviews a patch and suggests upstreaming would be the best 
> approach they are called idiots for suggesting it.  I think that would be 
> inappropriate in that context just as the flaming response to Evan's 
> suggestions were inappropriate.

"You're idiots" is not how I understood the mail, but I guess that's
sufficiently clear by now.

>> What exactly was unacceptable? Could you imagine that Zygmunt was
>> demotivated as well?
> 
> I think flaming people who are trying to help you is unacceptable.  It wouldn't 
> suprise me if it were, but if people are not willing to work collaboratively 
> as part of the community, I'm not overly concerned about it (Note: I'm not 
> saying that's still the case in this situation, but it certainly appeared that 
> way at the time).

Who exactly do you feel was flamed? Zygmunt's mail was not directed at
any specific person.

I personally would probably have written the specific mail differently,
but as I said earlier, I see this as the experience of a frustrated
contributor who is overwhelmed by the amount of work and information
after just having shared a solution to a specific problem. This is a
very real problem and I think it's worth acknowledging it. The main
question to me was: how much is it the default expectation that
contributors go all the way and how do we treat them (and their
solution) if they can't/don't want to generalise it.

>>>> Ubuntu is different because we invite people to share their ideas and we
>>>> welcome people in. Dismissing a helpful developer is unproductive and
>>>> more importantly actively damaging to the project.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure who the helpful developer you're referring to is?  Blasting
>>> someone who offers suggestions about how best to get one's work
>>> incorporated into Ubuntu is not, IMO, helpful.
>>
>> I'm not sure Zygmunt's intent was to get dh_splitpackage into Ubuntu. At
>> least it's not mentioned in the initial email. The way I read the mail
>> is "Hey, I solved a problem I ran into, check it out if you're interested."
> 
> In that case a simple "That's great, but I'm not interested in trying to get 
> it into Ubuntu" would have been sufficient.

I'm a bit surprised - to me this never seemed to be part of the email
exchange.

>>> I see in another part of this thread that
>>> Zygmunt is going to work with the Debhelper upstream to see if this can
>>> be incorporated.  I think that's very good news.
>>
>> I agree that it's good news, the question is if this was the most
>> pain-free way to "get there".
>>
> I agree it's quite unfortunate that Evan's initial helpful suggestions weren't 
> better received.  If they had been, a lot of pain would have been avoided.
> 
>>> I think that sitting idly by while people are hostile and
>>> negative makes the environment more difficult for everyone.
>>
>> I totally agree with this and I did feel the need to step in.
> 
> It's unfortunate (IMO) that you decided to step in and defend such behavior.

I did not defend it, I decided to step in when I felt the discussion was
becoming personal.

>>> Instead of a long
>>> rant attacking Ubuntu and Debian, Zygmunt could have just said he wasn't
>>> interested in doing that work, but he didn't.  He went on the attack and
>>> I think it's unreasonable for you to attack me for calling him on it.
>>
>> There certainly was frustration in that mail, but it also contained
>> valuable feedback about how it feels contributing something to
>> Ubuntu/Debian for somebody who is not participating in Ubuntu
>> development every single day.
>>
>> I think it's absolutely possible to point out that the tone of an email
>> is not OK, the critical difference between our two perceptions is in
>> "rant of a frustrated contributor" vs. "attack of our projects".
> 
> Perhaps rant of a frustrated non-contributor.  Most of the "Oh, I'd have to 
> ..." in the response was completely inaccurate.  If the response had been 
> further questions about what would be required to work on integrating it with 
> debhelper, then it would have been completely appropriate (even with some 
> mention of being worried about the level of effort required).

I can't ask this of anybody else, but what I would try to do in such a
situation is to ask questions instead. I mentioned a few examples in my
mail earlier on. At every single time, anyone of us can deescalate a
discussion.

>>>> Negative:
>>>>  - some confusion about email addresses,
>>>>  - a lasting impression that contributing to Debian and Ubuntu is hard
>>>>    and you might get flamed if you share your work but might be too
>>>>    busy to fully generalise it, etc etc.
>>>    - Ubuntu developers getting flamed for upholding project values
>>
>> It seems we both clashed in trying to do the same.
>>
>>>    - At least one Ubuntu developer feeling like the Canonical community
>>>    team
>>>    
>>>      is more committed to Canonical employees than Ubuntu.
>>
>> Jono, Jorge, David and Ahmed were not part of this debate.
>>
>> It's an idle side-path of the discussion, but I don't want anybody
>> treated on this mailing list like Zygmunt was treated, Canonical
>> employee or not.
> 
> I don't sense any concern until it was a Canonical person being told they were 
> behaving inappropriately.  AIUI you are the person on the community team 
> tasked with working with Ubuntu developers, so what I have to go on is your 
> reaction to this.  I think the reply that Evan got was completely 
> inappropriate and unfair.  He was just trying to be helpful.  When I see some 
> concern over this, then I'll be glad to reconsider.

I agree that Evan was trying to be helpful and I noted his contributions
to the discussion as positive.

The two points that worried me were the general question about our
default expectations and the tone that became personal.

Have a great day,
 Daniel

-- 
Get involved with Ubuntu Development: http://identi.ca/ubuntudev
http://twitter.com/ubuntudev http://facebook.com/ubuntudev