On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 12:56 PM, William A. Rowe Jr. <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote: > To the list; I'm sorry about the tone of this discussion. I'm sorry > about the hostility embedded in my response. For the list participants, > Branko and Jeff are right, it doesn't need to be here. I'd respond to > one point Stefan raises and then have nothing more productive to add > to this dialog. > > > On 4/9/2012 11:03 AM, Stefan Fritsch wrote: >> >> Bill, I think your criticism is completely out of proportion to the >> issue at hand, namely not including the trunk revision number in the >> log message. Other commiters produce broken log messages now and then, >> too. > > We aren't discussing whether the original commit number belongs, because > the project adopted the convention of including the original commit number > and we have thousands of backports to document that practice. We aren't > discussing whether automake solves problems, because the projects' committers > have experiences that it introduces more portability issues than it solves > in this very broad portability scope when extended beyond the use of gnu > toolchains. We aren't discussing if mistakes will or won't be made, because > we know they will be... > > I'm the first to acknowledge hundreds of mistakes out of thousands of > commits I've made here and on other ASF project repositories. The modulo > is this; if you or any other list participant corrects me, I fix it. If > one of you correct it for me, I thank you. If I argue the point and then > you prove me wrong, I thank you after I apologize. > > I don't observe a similar level of courtesy from this committer towards > others at this project. I'm largely ignoring that committer's code, in > the hopes that he responds better to other committers' feedback and > criticism, and don't enter technical conversations, because I don't want > to distract and to rub him the wrong way. I understand our lingering > animosity, and accept part of the responsibility for our ineffective > relationship. > > But despite my hopes, I don't see him responding better to criticism and > correction by other colleagues either, and that is why I'm concerned. > My email yesterday was in direct response to the pattern of intractable > and oppositional-defiant participation which makes the very act of > technical discussion impossible. I'd been disconnected, watched a very > long thread about nothing escalate for no good reason. I took away from > that thread a theme of "The Project is Wrong, I'm Right". > > I'm immediately answering your message that yes, my post was unreasonably > harsh and I'm sorry for poisoning the conversation. I'd like to see a > return to the mode where all arguments are based in substantive, technical > justification, and the mode where precedent and the choices that were made > before by the project as a whole are given the courtesy of a presumption > that they were well considered and are serving our fellow project members > well. I'd like a return to raising corrections that don't escalate to > belligerent argument where there is no point to an argument. > > I don't know if that will happen; certainly I'm sometimes part of the > problem, so I can say nothing more about this. I hope others such as you > and Jeff can more gently redirect colleagues when folks descend into being > obstinate, and head off such escalations. I can't have a part in that > discussion because I lack the diplomacy to have a productive impact. > > Again, to you and the list, sorry for my tone. I can't find an apology > for my frustration, however, and simply hope for the situation to improve.
FWLIW, I think the opportunity for learning in this thread was compromised from the start due to the fact that the initial objection was out of sync with normal practice. I believe that more and different people need to be involved in such discussions in order to better communicate group understanding (or occasional lack thereof) and even to point out that one behavior or another is making it harder to resolve the problem at hand or to work together in general.
