Sitting out for Hardy

[Scott Kitterman]

Most of you probably already know this from IRC, but ...

I don't plan on much involvement during the Hardy developement cycle.  MOTU 
has gotten to stressful for me for the stress to be worth the enjoyment I get 
out of it.

There are a number of reasons that I hope that by sharing, I can hope make 
things better for everyone.

1.  It seems like we've quickly evolved from the idea of people are expected 
to generally know what they are doing, think things through, and quickly fix 
mistakes when they are made to the idea that it's not wrong to do anything 
that isn't explicitly prohibited in some documentation.

This rules oriented mindset makes it harder to get stuff done, harder to get 
mistakes corrected, and is, IMO, either the effect or a cause of an 
increasing level of defensiveness and reaction in the community.

I think it works better to expect that people won't do things they don't know 
enough about (ask first) and fix stuff when they mess up.  Having to have a 
written rule that SRUs should be tested before uploading is bizarre.

2.  Both our processes and our tools (I'm thinking LP here) are evolving in 
ways that from my perspective make work harder, not easier.  Tools and 
processes should support work getting done and I think things are not 
evolving for the better.

3.  The seeming limitless tolerance for people to come back again and again 
with disruptive, incorrect advice, bugs, proposed uploads that has at times 
been an effective denial of service attack on MOTU.  I can't work in this 
environment.  People need time to learn, but there's a point beyond which 
they need to learn not to do damage and cause trouble for other people.

During Hardy, I will not be reviewing sponsored uploads (I've subscribed from 
the motu-reviewers list on tauware.de and deactivated myself from UUS).  I 
won't take on any 'management' roles like motu-uvf.

I will still mind the packages I've been minding.  I will still hang out on 
IRC (unless the atmosphere just gets too stressful for me) and help answer 
questions and be part of the community.  I will also work on helping (not 
leading or doing) with things that can improve the problems that have led me 
to sit this one out.

Scott K