On Fri, Sep 05, 2014 at 11:50:44PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> Ron,
> +1 to your main point about raising the bar everywhere, starting from
> our own behavior in the Debian project.
>
> On Sat, Sep 06, 2014 at 05:36:15AM +0930, Ron wrote:
> > but clever people don't stick around where they aren't respected, so
> > anyone who has managed to attract that many clever people to
> > collaborate with them, for this long, in ever growing numbers, clearly
> > can't be the sort of bastard to everyone, all the time, that this
> > picture seems to paint.
>
> About this, however, it strikes me as a bit too simplistic.
It would have been much, much longer than a paragraph if it wasn't :)
> In
> particular, it doesn't take into account that 1) a significant majority
> of Linux kernel contributions happen on a paycheck, and 2) Linux is de
> facto the only place to go for people who want to work on an industry
> grade FOSS kernel.
There's truth in both those points, but this isn't a chicken and egg
problem, the arrow of causality has a known starting point, and the
community that made those things possible to be true evolved into
existence long before they were true. If anything, it, like us, has
mellowed over the years as that community became broader and more
responsible for more things the entire industry is built on.
Empirically, it would seem that far more people are likely to quit
the organisation that was cutting their paychecks than they are to
quit the community :) I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader
to draw their own inferences on where abusive relationships may be
more prevalent from that ...
> So certainly, in the mind of "clever people", that
> might warrant withstanding insults (which are certainly not the *norm*
> on LKML, but do happen and are tolerated) that one wouldn't withstand if
> the balance of power were a little different?
It's free software with a free licence. So if you accept they really
are clever people, and not all Stockholm Syndrome sufferers, then the
"balance of power" is no different from any of the other major projects
that have successfully forked away from an abusive "original" upstream
to continue their most successful lines under new leadership.
Even when the "old" lead clearly has the deeper pockets and employed
more of the developers doing that work "on a paycheck". (which is
certainly not the case for Linus himself).
There are plenty of large corporations, whose staff are active, and
who are governed by codes of conduct (and employment laws) which have
zero tolerance for abusive behaviour, much more strict than our own,
which could finance such a fork if they thought the situation was
unmanageable or intolerable.
Linus himself has said that he believes if he was hit by a bus there
are people who could and would fill his shoes. And he's really only
ever one email away from losing the consensus of the group that he
is the right person to be on the pointy end of it.
If there's a "balance of power", I think the onus really is quite
permanently on him to demonstrate he's the right fulcrum for it to
pivot on. He wouldn't have to fail at that for long for there to
be change, and I think he's always been aware of this, and always
encouraged other people to also be aware of this (or at least I
can recall very old emails talking about it).
If there are people in free software who think they've built an
empire that now has everyone "by the balls" (can I say that still?)
I'd guess he's pretty keenly aware that he's not one of them.
> The thing is: Linus simply doesn't have the problem that most FOSS
> projects have, i.e., that of attracting and retaining volunteer
> contributors in order to survive (we know a thing or two about lack of
> manpower in Debian, don't we?). Linus' views of how participants
> could/should behave in FOSS projects stem from that, in my opinion quite
> narrow, point of view.
There are at least as many places in the kernel that are as desperately
short of the necessary tuits as there are in Debian.
But yes, I think he's been quite open about his belief that the tuits
which *are* available should not be wasted on useless tasks or on
pointless discussion of dead end or unproductive threads. I think
that's as worthy a goal to pursue as not being needlessly abrasive
when cutting off people who insist on pursuing them anyway.
There are certainly two ends of this problem we should strive to
always get better at, neither is a complete solution for the other.
There's middle somewhere that we're searching for.
> The problem is that, given the stature of the leader-by-example, Linus'
> behavior is invariably at risk of being taken as example by participants
> in *other* FOSS projects, even for projects that cannot afford the
> luxury that the Linux kernel has. Net result: "collateral damages" for
> all of them (i.e., us).
Oh, if only that was really true!
I think it would be absolutely awesome for us if even 10% of our number
actually learned something from Linus' *behaviour* which they then took
and applied diligently to their own work.
I think the danger you fear here is people imitating Linus' stereotype,
the tiny and irrelevant part of his behaviour which some people's love
for Celebrity Drama inflates all out of proportion to a hungry audience
that isn't connected enough to the reality to know any better.
And I share that fear, but I'm less concerned about the example Linus
creates in some corners of the press than the very direct example that
some of *our* more senior members present on *our* mailing lists, with
frustrating regularity.
When someone finally finds a way to get them to clean up their acts,
I suspect you'll find it doesn't matter one whit what Linus does.
But I fear that's going to be hard when some of the worst offenders
are also some of the people screaming the loudest about the behaviour
of others, and appear to be completely oblivious to their own, even
when politely, and gently, and privately prodded about it. Repeatedly.
I don't profess to hold myself up as a saint that others should
emulate here. You don't have to look too hard to know I'm not.
But I think Linus showed a behaviour in That Talk that I wish a lot
more people would have picked up on and would join us in practicing.
To have a sense for when the room thinks you've Gone Too Far, and to
actually back down and show some repentance and regret for that.
> That is enough of a reason for not giving the man a Debian podium from
> which advertising, unchallenged, views which are not shared by the
> Debian Project --- and that they are not shared has, I think, been
> proven by several GRs over the last few years.
I wasn't in the room, but I have watched the recording, and I didn't
get the impression that things went unchallenged, or that he was
'advertising' anything that he wasn't explicitly asked to talk about.
If members of the audience were permitted to ask him inappropriate
questions, then surely it is them which should be censured, not him?
And surely that reflects more poorly on "us", not him?
It would be kind of rude to turn around and say "oh that was a trick
question, you answered it wrong you bad person!".
> That doesn't mean
> marking Linus as persona non grata, it means being clever on the event
> format. For instance, instead of a Q&A session I would have loved to see
> a *panel* between Linus and another non-Debian person that holds
> opposite views than his on both Free Software and welcoming communities.
> (I've various names in minds, in case someone wants to try to organize
> something like this in the future.)
Sure, if our attendees can't be trusted to freely ask any question,
and to defend what we think is the correct rebuttal when faced with
an answer We Don't Like, then maybe another format could work better.
It wasn't like anyone at the mike was cut off before they left it
voluntarily for the next person though, or that anyone else couldn't
rise to speak at it.
Anyway, I don't want to give the impression that I'm somehow defending
what the consensus considers inappropriate behaviour. Because I'm most
certainly not.
I am a little saddened that he wasn't actually officially invited when
the conference was held in his home town (and was originally explicitly
not invited), and having watched the video I am rather surprised at the
huge flap that's exploded from a throwaway line he already apologised
for at the time.
But most of all, I'd like us all to actually learn something from this
because I think this thread says far more about Us than it does about
Linus. There is clearly a poison here, and its antidote is neither to
ban or demonise Linus, or for people to point fingers at somebody *else*
and declare *they* are the problem.
We are the problem. All of Us. Individually.
Until people start taking individual responsibility for that. Until the
people who inflamed this thread can look at themselves and honestly say,
"Yeah, I handled that badly didn't I. I'll try not to do that again",
until we all actually grow to fit the shoes we say we want to wear, this
problem will continue.
I know I've been trying hard to do my part.
Help me out a little here :)
Ron
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