Hello,
I'm writing on developers list, because I wanted to express my
disappointment with a serious problem that Jolla has and tries to hide
under the carpet. Thanks to that from a strong supporter back when Jolla
appeared on scene (almost 2 years ago) I became heavily disappointed
with this company and it impacted on my whole community activity and
caused slowly pulling away. It's important issue, because this could
have happened to anyone from developers or other Jolla contributors
community.
So Thomas Perl and I were in a conflict since beginning of 2013, before
he was a Jolla employee. From his side I've received insults (was
compared to psycho, called asshole etc.) and even threats (he was
threatening me to discredit me in Python community, also he was
threatening publish my private mails, where I've begged him to stop this
conflict). Thomas used all sorts of actions against me, including
kicking me from gPodder project to which I've previously contributed,
without any factual technical/quality reasons. I've made many attempts
to end this conflict at that time, but without any results.
At early July 2013 Thomas Perl joined Jolla. I was scared that he might
bring that conflict into the company and Jolla was very important to me.
Unfortunately he did that, somewhere on beginning of September 3rd 2013
I've sent an e-mail with questions regarding code he was author of in
Nemo mobile project as a Jolla employee (his company mail was listed as
a Jolla contact mail for the source file I was interested in). My mail
bounced, Thomas has blocked his company e-mail to my e-mail, even though
I never brought up any non-technical issues to his company e-mail (only
non-technical mail that went there on beginning of July when I wrote there:
"I've read that you work in Jolla. Congratulations and good luck!
Regards,
Filip "
So in September I felt that Thomas Perl brought the conflict into the
company, because from that time I wasn't allowed to ask questions
regarding Jolla open source or public activity that he was involved it.
It's similar situation like you would enter the shop and shop clerk
doesn't want to sell you items in store, because of his personal
prejudice/reasons (like he don't likes you, your color of skin or
gender). I've informed about that problem Carsten Munk, but he ignored
it and informed me that he is not a person to handle complains on his
co-workers.
Then later in December, there was information on Harbour that people can
help with Python support on Sailfish:
"Can I submit Python applications?
Currently not, there are some enablers missing for that. But we are
working on it, to make that happen. You can support us with that effort,
please ask in Nemo project how to help with Python."
I wanted to help (since 2007 I'm very active in Polish Python community,
even organized 6 editions of the biggest Python event in Poland - 4
days, 330 attendees, also in the past I taught students Python at
university etc.). I went there like Harbour stated to nemomobile IRC
channel. In result my questions weren't answered unless someone else
repeated them. Many people in private conversations (including some
connected with Jolla) commented Thomas Perl behavior as unprofessional.
After advice of a friend I've reported that issue to Jolla Care:
"Can I submit Python applications?
Currently not, there are some enablers missing for that. But we are
working on it, to make that happen. You can support us with that effort,
please ask in Nemo project how to help with Python.
So I went and asked in #nemomobile as it can be seen in the below log
(till 13:57):
http://www.merproject.org/logs/%23nemomobile/%23nemomobile.2013-12-03.log.html#t2013-12-03T10:45:06
The log shows that for some reason my questions were ignored, unless
someone else repeated the same question after me. I am sad that such
things happen from Jolla’s side. In my opinion someone’s personal
reasons to dislike someone, shouldn’t justify ignoring someone on
professional/company level.
I look forward to solving this amicably.
Best regards,
Filip"
The mail to Jolla Developer Care didn't receive any response for _months_!
As a result of sending above mail to developer care few days later
Carsten Munk (Thomas superior/chief in Jolla) started to ignore me. I
believe the reason is that he was covering Thomas Perl on this
embarrassing issue and tried to put pressure on me to withdraw. Carsten
even tried to discredit me on IRC channel which is clearly seen in the logs:
http://merproject.org/logs/%23nemomobile/%23nemomobile.2013-12-14.log.html#t2013-12-14T11:26:05
Why Carsten brought this on #nemomobile channel? He wanted to break me
and he succeded in that. As a result on the same day I wrote an e-mail
to Mer mailing list where I apologized everyone and took the whole blame
on myself. Deep inside I felt it was highly unfair and I felt forced to
it, especially that I was in an overall bad state and contact with
Carsten and Jolla was important to me at that time very much. Carsten
responded to me and told me that he did that for my own good. Is abusing
or discrediting someone publicly on IRC channel to break someone or make
him feel guilt and then later justifying that it was for his good is ok?
It's not, it's comparable with situation where parents beat or mentally
abuse a child and explain that it is for the child's own good.
Through next months from January I've slowly started to move out from
Jolla related topics. I still had hope that Jolla Developer Care or
Carsten will take care of the problem of Thomas Perl discriminating me
in Jolla context as mail was on Jolla Developer Care mailbox.
In April where there was already new Jolla Developer Relations Chief -
Iekku, Carsten told me that I'm free to bring up the problem again. So
I've contacted Iekku:
http://wklej.org/id/1366024/
As a response from Iekku I was apologized that the problem was ignored
by Jolla for such long time (+4 months) and I was informed that the
issue will be solved.
On 14th of April I was informed that I will be contacted on that issue
latest at the end of the following week - so in other words till
25th/27th of April.
On 15th of April Jolla introduced communication guidelines:
https://together.jolla.com/question/39552/what-is-the-participation-and-contribution-policy-for-jollas-open-source-contributors-in-open-source-projects/
On the same day there was a community IRC meeting, where the above
guidelines were supposed to be discussed. The time for this point was
cut by 13 minutes (Carsten Munk proposed to cut it, probably afraid that
I might bring the problem on community meeting). I've already wrote
about that:
https://lists.sailfishos.org/pipermail/devel/2014-April/003937.html
Guidelines were created by Jolla as I was informed as a result of the
problem I've reported in December to Jolla Developer Care. Anyway Jolla
Developer Care haven't contacted me as Iekku promised till 25th/27th of
April. They did that on 5th of May, as a result of another abuse that
happened from Thomas Perl side recently (after the guidelines already
were published on Together).
Thomas Perl wanted to exclude me from an event Hack-a-Jolla (later
renamed to Hack-a-Handy) organized by Christian Ratzenhofer (Merlin1991)
and taking place in Metalab Vienna (an open hackerspace in Vienna,
Austria). Thomas went on public IRC channel of that event and wrote that
everyone is invited but I'm excluded. Despite he wasn't the organizer
but Christian, Thomas was so arrogant to decide who is excluded or not.
Moreover he gave Christian a choice "either me or Filip" to apply
pressure on Christian and disgust me. Thankfully hackerspace Metalab
Vienna intervened in this case informing Thomas that he has no right to
exclude anyone from events taking place in Metalab, because it's against
Metalab hackerspace rules. They asked Thomas to keep his personal
conflicts to himself, out of the events that happen in Metalab. Metalab
clearly shown that for them the rules and being fair to everyone matters
and apologized for the situation and inappropriate behavior caused by
their member Thomas Perl. I was happy to participate in that event and
it went very well, especially that some new people appeared. Thomas
hasn't of course appeared or apologized for trying earlier to exclude me
from the event.
Before I've contacted Metalab I've also contacted Jolla about the same
issue, especially that Thomas told about the event on Together portal,
so according to Jolla guidelines that were already in place at that time
- he was speaking their as Jolla employee. Is that ok, that a person
talks about Jolla hacking event as a Jolla employee and then tries to
exclude (privately or not) a community member from such event? Jolla
doesn't seem to see anything wrong about that. When it took Metalab only
~2 days to examine the situation and react, Jolla needed 1 month. It
would probably took even more time, but I wrote an email to Stefano
Mosconi where I've expressed how I'm disappointed by Jolla Developer
Care lack of any action, an endless delaying finding a solution of those
raised problems and harm that was done to me. Stefano did approach the
problem seriously and did some investigation, but clearly he was
misinformed. Anyway I still count that Jolla will find courage and solve
the problem - better late than never, but for me it seems it's very hard
for them. What are the reasons for that?
Thomas Perl (without no doubt) is a very good engineer from technical
point of view, so I believe they tolerate his behavior only because they
are afraid he would leave the company if they took any actions and asked
him to behave properly and with respect to all community members. If
Thomas leaves Jolla they would have to look for a replacement in R&D and
that could slow work on SGSIII LTE port of Sailfish, Python support on
Sailfish and other areas Thomas is involved in. In my opinion Jolla is
doing unethical trade and giving up their values like respect or being
fair to community members for their business goals. Yes I remember what
Jolla said on many events and for me it weren't empty slogans, but I
took that and promises given on stage entirely seriously. This makes me
very sad and heavily disappointed.
Regards,
Filip
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