Hi Stefan, Thank you for this well written and thought out email, I agree with you on everything you said (even the bits in which you criticize me), so thanks again for that. I would just like to add a few explanations, you seem to see me as someone who barks up at raster and tries to change him by forcing him into a corner, and you are right to believe that because I guess that's what I show somehow. However that is and was not my initial intention, so here is "my story" : Initially, I've had a few interactions with raster which always seemed to end up with me feeling bad because of how he talks to me, I kept feeling almost bullied, but I didn't give it too much attention, I was told by others not to take it personal as that's just how raster is. My excitement for the project was getting hit everytime I spoke to raster. I cannot point out a log and say "this sentence was harsh", it was just the general mood of the discussions, the way he talks to you makes you feel dumb and he seems condescending, even if he's trying to be nice. And while I understand the stress issues you've brought up, I did not take these into consideration at the time, as all I could see was someone's attitude being that of a condescending leader who takes charge, is very stubborn, and doesn't accept any criticism. As a side joke, someone told me that he was able to change raster's opinion "once", and it was an accomplishment. So I believe he is stubborn, he sees his designs, his ideas as better than everyone else's and he understands everything while others cannot understand what he knows, so when you give a suggestion, he turns it down in such a way that it feels "I know better, you are stupid, your intellect cannot begin to grasp the infinite knowledge needed to understand the issue at hand, so I will tell you what to do and you must accept it".. this is not what he says, but this is what it feels when you talk to him, and in the end, he looks arrogant and almost like a bully. I'm not saying that's who he is, I'm just saying that's what it feels like to others who talk to him (ie. me in this case). This attitude made me feel bad a few times and demotivated me, thankfully, I've had some excellent chats with other devs in #e.fr and the community there is warm and welcoming and now I usually just hang there instead of #edevelop. Now I've seen many people talk the same about raster, many feel the same way, and many simply tell me not to talk to him, or that we shouldn't discuss anything with him, and I've seen a lot of 'hate', anger, disappointment with some of the things he does, but noone seems to just tell him. One thing I really hate, it's that excuse of "he is like that, so let him". That sentence pisses me off to no extent and I usually reply with "he's a pedophile, so let him rape children because that's just how he is?", it's an extreme counter example, and that's how I always feel when people have to tiptoe around someone else's defects. If someone is being an ass, you tell him he's an ass and he must fix himself, you should not have to endure him just because it's his personality. Everytime, the pedophile example pops to my mind, and I get frustrated when I see people tiptoeing around others. I have a lot of respect for raster, I know his skills and I'm the first to say that he is a very talented developer. But that talent does not excuse his behavior, if I feel offended by someone, I will tell them, I will not keep it to myself just because I respect his programming skills. But either way, I decided not to confront raster because it is simply not my place to do so. Then we've had that discussion about the release, and while I was politely trying to explain my point of view, I get increasingly pissed at raster (and his faithful followers) ignoring some of our arguments and concentrating on the simple "I do not like/want this" but what ticked me off is when raster, the master of being rude, tells me that I'm the one being rude because I give my opinion, and he has the audacity of basically saying my opinion means nothing because I'm not a major contributor (== I'm not him). I am usually nice and polite, but when someone pisses me off and I reach a certain threshold (which I admit, is often quite low), I explode, at which point, there is no limits to what I can say. So when raster yelled at me and said that I'm rude, I did not accept that so I decided to let him know what I think of him exactly. He ignored pretty much everything I said though. In this specific thread, I did not start the drama (I don't believe I did), one of the new contributors says he is also pissed at raster for the way he spoke to him, and I replied to raster basically telling him "hint, hint, read back what I wrote in anger last time, because you ignored it, but now maybe you'll realize there was truth in it", at which point he finally decides to snap at me and start yelling and taking it personal (which he refrained from doing in the initial outburst email).
Now, I'm not trying to change raster or to force him into a corner. I'm trying to make him realize what he's doing because I honestly believe that he's killing the project in some way. He's building the project, but killing it at the same time. I don't think he has much leadership skills, he demotivates people, he drives away contributors, he makes decisions that are what he thinks is right and you cannot contradict it even if you know it's the wrong move. It's a double edged sword, E17 wouldn't be where it is today without him, but at the same time, it might have been in a better state without him (more contributors, huge community, main WM in a major distro, etc...), you never really know how it could have turned out. Either way, the issue here is not him being in charge of the project, I have zero personal issues with raster, honestly. The only thing that I decided to do was not to keep my mouth shut only to avoid drama or to avoid offending raster. Like in this mail, I see a contributor offended, I poke at raster for it. I feel like everyone decided to let it go, to shut up and let raster be raster, in my mind, I cannot accept that. And this would apply to anyone, not just raster of course. I don't want to force him into a corner so he apologizes, I just want to tell him "if you got nothing good to say, then don't say anything" and I hope he's smart enough to realize that and understand that he's poisoning the project and put his pride aside for the benefit of the project, but I know it's almost impossible for someone (especially stubborn like him) to see his own faults and accept them. I think that's pretty much "my story" as to this whole deal and I hope you can understand me better, I'll answer your specific comments inlined below. On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Stefan Schmidt <ste...@datenfreihafen.org>wrote: > Hello. > > I have not joined any of these flame wares before as I don't think to > change anything significant but only start to hurt peoples feelings > for each other. But I had to join here as it started to look like a > witch hunt on raster here. Please take a moment when reading this. > Thanks for your time. > Not a witch hunt on raster, honestly. Simply frustration at a dying community. If someone else is causing issues, I will speak out just the same (and if I am the one causing issues, I would not want it any other way than people calling me out for my mistakes). > > On Sat, 2011-11-12 at 13:43, Youness Alaoui wrote: > > > > you don't seem to read what I wrote, you ignore the facts.. the facts are > > not the commits or how bad they were, the facts were your attitude and > > condescending bullshit. but yeah,you don't seem to be able to acknowledge > > that, since you're perfect and everyone else is wrong. > > Great, personal insults are getting us really forward here. This is > one of the social skills you are calling here for. Discussing with > others without getting into personal insults. Given this mail and the > long rant where you "behaved like a dick" (citation from you) are > letting me wonder if you are able to call others for things you do not > handle very well on your own. Something to thing about. > Sorry, I don't see the personal insult in the quoted text. I do see sarcasm though. I know quite well my issues, I am usually a nice person until you make me snap, at which point, you won't recognize me. I have absolutely no problem in being a dick towards people who, I believe, deserve it. I'm a "reactionary dick" if you want.. I see raster as being a dick by default. However, I am pointing out what annoys me in raster's behavior, and I believe I am entitled to do that without the need for me to perfect.. noone is perfect anyways, so no reason for me to shut up until I fix my own personal issues. > > > Thank you Vincent and Gustavo for sharing your concerns about this, and > > it's too sad that the new contributor has become another victim of > raster's > > poor social skills. That's what I wanted to avoid, that's what I wanted > > raster to understand, and I was hoping for him to reply with something > like > > "sorry if I offended you, that wasn't my purpose" and that's it, the guy > > stays with us, but I guess raster has too much pride and is too > > self-centered to recognize his own faults. > > And you wanted that to happen by forcing him into a corner? > > That is almost always the best recipe to get the opposite of what you > wanted. Forcing people trigger over reactions from them. Self > protection, naturally for humans. Changing the behaviour of people is > a long and exhausting process. Nothing you can do by sending of > several mails. And before people even accept what they here from > others they need to respect them. Respect them for their doings and > ideas they have come up with over time. Again nothing you can achieve > in some weeks. > He may not respect me, so he has no reason to listen to me and change his behavior. But I was hoping to maybe trigger others to finally speak out. I see a lot of people angry at raster but noone talks, if I can get people he knows and respect to finally speak their mind, maybe he'll listen to them. I know I'm the cause of drama here (I hate drama but I often find myself at the center of it), and I have no issues with appearing like the villain, if it is for the betterment of the community. But my outbursts have been, quite selfishly, more about venting out, than trying to change him.. I know it's hard to change people, maybe he'll just realize his defects from what I tell him.. he doesn't need to respect me, he doesn't need to believe me, he doesn't know to accept what I say as being true (it may not be true at all), but he just needs to recognize that that's how he appears to others (at least to 'someone'). > > > I think I will follow Vincent's advice and not reply to this thread > > anymore, raster clearly showed he has no comprehension of what people are > > trying to tell him here, so this is just an endless drama with no > possible > > resolution. > > Black and white thinking all around. Sadly we live in a grey world. > Nothing is only black or only white. Lets have a look at what problems > we have here and what possible solutions we can come up with. (That > what we should aim for in the end, a solution bringing the project > forward). > I've been told that before :) > > Raster is stressed out. Short on time and running at the edge of what > is possible for him all the time. Thats a fact and on of the biggest > problems here. Stress calls out on people making hard decisions and > one of this is being brusque to others. I have observed this a lot at > myself when being in stressful times. Family and friends had the > pleasure to get me in such a mood. And even after I recognized this > at myself (the first step, you know), it is very hard to change at > all. Again, behaviour changes are the hardest. > Agreed > > The work part of raster stress we can't influence much. He has to > handle this on its own. And I personally hope that he realizes how > near he comes a actual burnout if he keeps going like this for more > months. > > But now to the things we can change. You and Gustavo are trying to > change this project in a direction that should be more welcoming for > developers and users. Making the community grow. I welcome this move, > but doing something like this can not happen by bringing everything > down that happened so far. Raster brought this all to the point what > we have today. Motivating people on the road and de-motivating people > on the road. Again, very natural as we don't live in flower-power > land. :) > /me wants to live in flower-power-land :) > > So to change to bring in change to this community you need to earn the > respect of the other developers here before steering the way forward. > Bluntly speaking nobody wants to accept orders from people he does not > respect or being paid by. And even the last part may be very hard > sometimes. ;) Agreed, I don't want to give orders, maybe I did unintentionally, but I'm pretty sure all my mails have been about "discussions" rather than "decisions". I give my opinion, and I want to see people reply to it, good or bad doesn't matter, as long as you have a compelling argument.. I have seen a lot of "I don't like it" as arguments, and that's unacceptable for me. Convince me I'm wrong, no problem, if you can't, then convince me it's a matter of choice, then no problem, you chose.. but if I make a point and you have nothing against it, then you have no reason to reject it (other than being stubborn and using your veto power, which I think is damaging the project). > > For the matters at hand the following could be done: > > o Tarballs: Everyone seem to speak about daily tarballs. What I read > from the openbsd guys have not been daily tarballs but tarballs for > an alpha or rc to check if everything is fine beofre the actual > release. Such tarballs are fine and have already been acknowledged > and done before. They will even get some QA. And QA is something > that differs from daily tarballs, like your script or a simple make > disctheck, will produce. SOLUTION: Wait for the alpha and rc > tarballs. > Tarballs as is are important, even non-QA-ed daily tarballs. And like I told Jonathan, if he wants a guarantee that the tarball is good quality, then he can just assume it is. > > o OpenBSD patches: Vincent asked raster to have a look at the patches. > He did look and pointed out what was wrong. Agreed, a bit to blunt > maybe. He did mention better options though. Something that people > like to ignore in this thread. (BSD specific malloc changes in > mempool instead on every file using it, not changing API/ABI without > discussing it here). SOLUTION: To calm this down you or Vincent or > someone else can keep working with them to gte the changes in. That > involves understanding why so much changes are needed and bringing > it up here to discuss about a solution. Uninteresting work like > reviewing patches from the ml and putting them into svn. But it > helps to balance the load. Raster is nobody who calls others for > doing things for him. He waits until he comes to it and does them > alone. To me that looks like he lost his faith in this because it > did not work out well in many cases. Sure, that is something he > needs to improve. That is nothing that stops others from stepping up > and doing it without being asked for though. Mike, Vincent, Cedric > and others are reviewing patches here on the ml. That takes of load > from raster. He did not ask them to do it. > For your tarball script you could do the same. Why must it happen on > the main machine? You can host them yourself and when they are > really becoming popular they can get moved. Not enough capabilities > for hosting? I bet e.fr or others can help out there. > I just think if the tarballs need to be public, they'd better be on a public machine. I was thinking one of the e.fr machines out there or whatever. I don't know yet how you guys would like to set it up. > Phew, long mail. To long actually. The main point here is that it does > not help to forcing raster into a corner here. He is the main driver > of the project and if people like to expand it need to be done in a > way that do not offend the people that are already working on it. > People earn respect and faith of others in their work by actual > doings. There must not be a leader who is always right and delegates > work into his hierarchy of minions. You have a pet peeve topic? You > want to improve it? Don't ask for permission, do it and improve the > situation gradually. > Not very long email (I've seen and done worse) :) As explained above, I just speak my mind, if I see something that bothers me, I will do it, if I am asked to do something (nicely), and I have time for it, I will try to help out. Having a leader is not a bad thing, but the leader needs to listen to what the others say, and I don't believe in having someone have veto power. An example is that edje sound API, I've seen many people really angry at raster's commit and people were talking of reverting it and saying that it would have been reverted instantly if the commiter name wasn't "raster", and I've even seen talks (more like jokes) about forking the project... I see a community, and a leader, and I don't see why the community would continue following this leader if everyone is angry at him and I don't see the community respecting the leader if he himself does not respect the community. I believe in brainstorming, I believe in people contributing as a group, but I've learned in the short time I've been here, that the consensus is "if you want something done, do it without telling anyone". I find it sad. That's it for my long email, sorry for taking up your time reading all of that, I hope you can understand my motivations and my feelings a bit better. Thank you again for your email, I really enjoyed reading your opinion on the subject. Regards, KaKaRoTo > > regards > Stefan Schmidt > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > RSA(R) Conference 2012 > Save $700 by Nov 18 > Register now > http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev1 > _______________________________________________ > enlightenment-devel mailing list > enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RSA(R) Conference 2012 Save $700 by Nov 18 Register now http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev1 _______________________________________________ enlightenment-devel mailing list enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel
