Story time. (For the record, the -swift channel is logged and I don't know of 
any private Swift IRC channels. I fully support logging every OpenStack IRC 
channel.)

I can understand why people might be hesitant to have a publicly logged 
channel. About a year ago, one of the Swift core devs said something offhand 
out of frustration in our channel. His employer, a prominent OpenStack 
contributing company, did not like what was said, and he was confronted about 
his comment in person at the office.[1]

Now, that might have been a one-time thing. And I think it was horrible and 
terrible to think that our contributors cannot be open and must self-censor in 
case something is said that can be misinterpreted or negatively used against 
them or their project. I know I personally self-sensor what I say in OpenStack 
IRC channels. Text-based mediums lose a lot for communication, even more when 
it's historical logs, and I don't want to say something that is easily taken 
out of context or used against me or Swift.

My point is that while I support logging every OpenStack channel, please 
realize that it does come with a cost. Think back to the conversations that 
happen over drinks late at night at OpenStack Summits. I've had many of those 
with many of you. What's said there is private and wouldn't be said in a public 
IRC channel. And that's ok. People need a way to brainstorm ideas and express 
frustration, and a public place isn't generally where that happens.


--John



[1] I leave it at that for now, since it was a long time ago and the details 
aren't important for the point of this email. Actually I'm glad that it 
happened briefly before our channel was logged, so you can't go back and find 
it. I've not heard of any other incidents like this happening before or since.





> On Feb 18, 2015, at 3:16 AM, Chmouel Boudjnah <chmo...@enovance.com> wrote:
> 
> "Daniel P. Berrange" <berra...@redhat.com> writes:
> 
>> Personally I think all our IRC channels should be logged. There is really
>> no expectation of privacy when using IRC in an open collaborative project.
> 
> Agreed with Daniel. I am not sure how a publicly available forum/channel
> can be assumed that there is not going to be any records available
> publicly.
> 
> Chmouel
> 
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