Re: Abusive language on Debian lists
Eldon Koyle wrote: I have noticed a pattern on Debian lists where we see: 1) a polarizing issue is brought up on the list 1a) (optional) there is some discussion with a few interesting points 2) people start arguing (useful debate has ended) 3) people start using offensive language somehow expecting it to help the situation (while also feeling justified in breaking the rules because someone else broke a different, "more important" rule) 4) someone points out the offensive language in #4 is, in fact, against the rules 5) someone claims that the act of pointing out the offensive language detracts from the argument^Wdiscussion or human dignity or what have you (I think it was actually the decision to break the "lesser" rule) I would like to propose that we shorten this cycle by simply adding a rule to bounce messages to public lists at #3 (ie. those containing language that is unquestionably against both the Code of Conduct and the mailing list code of conduct) with a message asking the sender to please revise their message and links to the relevant documents stating what is acceptable (as if they don't already know). The common belief seems to be that "we are all adults here", but we haven't been acting that way. If there are cries about censorship, I guess we could make the bounce a "warning: you are about to break the rules so blatantly that software can figure it out in front of the whole internet, do you want to continue?" -- but I think we should also have more deterrents for breaking the rules in this case. Can we just go back to Godwin's law? Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
Re: distributed moderation of mailinglist
On 2/23/20 6:48 AM, Geert Stappers wrote: Hi, I looking for ways to moderate a mailinglist distributed. Distributed as: serveral people do the job (not a job for a single person) Goal is a healthy (mailinglist) community. Vision I have for a healthy ML is like nice village that is becoming a nice town. Citizens are aware it is their own habitat and it is their interrest to keep in a good shape. Normal situation is lively communication on the ML. In abnormal situations gets toxic into the ML. That is what should be prevented. ML software can easily block non-subscriber postings. Software I'm looking for can delay postings based upon reputation from a subscriber. The delay allows the pool of moderators to review such posting. Posting of subscriber with establish repuation go through without a delay. It skips "review queue" New subcribers will recieve postings. Their first posting gets a delay of N minutes. The delay has a time-out. If no-one approved a posting from the review queue, the posting goes through the ML. Such "time-out-expired posting" tells that the pool of moderators is too small. Please share your idea of such mailinglist features. Foo is a placeholder We are familiar with a mailinglist like f...@lists.doman.tld Subscribe, Unsubscribe and other user requests go to foo-requ...@lists.domain.tld For the pool of moderators there is foo-rev...@lists.domain.tld where they can sent there approval (or disapproval) of postings that need review. Q: Which postings need review? A: Postings of subscribers without a established reputation. Q: How will moderators be informed about a posting needing review? A: By email from the mailinglist software at server. The moderator sends her/his judgement as a reply to foo-rev...@lists.domain.list ML S/W then distributes the posting to the whole ML (or drops the posting (like spam)) Moderators volunteer themself for the task and listmaster configures that at ML S/W. These are human actions by design. Q: Will a moderator see postings twice? A: Mostly no. Some, yes, the postings of reputation below threshold. Q: What about the regular ML subscribers? A: Yes, regular citizens. Regards Geert Stappers Pretty much any mailing list manager will let you do this. I personally swear by Sympa, but it tends to be overkill unless you're managing multiple lists. Mailman, ezmlm, etc. It all depends on how you set things up, and whether you put multiple names behind aliases like "listmaster." And then there are services like groups.io. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
Re: Debian, Totalitarianism, Thought Reform, what next?
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck On 3/26/19 3:22 AM, Ondřej Surý wrote: You are absolutely wrong and I find your email disgusting and disrespectful to all the political prisoners you mention in your email. Please do not write your hurtful emails here anymore. Ondrej -- Ondřej Surý On 26 Mar 2019, at 07:58, Robin Wheeler wrote: The humble & humiliating apology made by Comrade Preining last week smells like the confessions that political prisoners make after undergoing thought reform and coercive persuasion programs. The State 100% right and Comrade Prisoner 100% wrong. Of course. How could Preining refuse after DAM leaks his name to newspapers? So much pressure. Demotion like Chinese internment camps for muslims to get their thought reform treatment. Preinings warning looks like Chinese social credit scheme. Why not ask Chinese GSoC student to copy social credit scoreboard for Debian. The elections look like new-era Hong Kong elections, only candidates from the Party are permitted. Anybody else alert to these things? --- Take your mailboxes with you. Free, fast and secure Mail Cloud: https://www.eclipso.eu - Time to change! -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/11/19 8:28 AM, Matthew Vernon wrote: Miles Fidelman writes: On 1/10/19 5:28 PM, Matthew Vernon wrote: ...which is why, of course, the Debian project has said that we won't accept racist/sexist/homophobic/etc language in our spaces, because we want a broad range of people to feel welcome in our community. I don't get to decide what is offensive to women[0], I get to listen to women and believe them. It's one thing to have some social norms, and jump on people who go way over the top. It's quite another to have star-chamber like censorship & banning. And even more for you (a male) to take action on their behalf. It seems to be awfully arbitrary to listen to (some) women's complaints about offensive language, while not listening to other women's complaints about "white knight" behavior. A couple of things (which might as well have come after the following paragraph, but I'm trying to keep this concise): i) you appear to be arguing that as a man I shouldn't speak out on feminist topics, shouldn't take action on behalf of women. This line of argument was run when we had the weboob argument, and Miry commented on why she doesn't often join in such arguments[0] - from which it's clear that "no woman has complained about this particular thing" doesn't mean that thing is inoffensive. The geek feminism wiki has an article on this subject: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Not_a_woman ii) "White Knighting" has a specific meaning in this context, which I don't think you mean to accuse me of? http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/White_knighting You, specifically: I am not familiar enough with you, or your writings, to make such an accusation. An awful lot of calls for censorship - here and elsewhere - yes. Regards, Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/10/19 5:28 PM, Matthew Vernon wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes:
At the risk of repeating myself: I'm a firm believer in applying
Postel's law to email discussions - "be conservative in what you do,
be liberal in what you accept from others." Personally, I try to
observe both parts of it, but I see more and more people doing just
the opposite, and, if anything, leaning toward taking so much offense,
at so much, as to be offensive for that.
The effect of this maxim is that if you're someone who isn't on the
receiving end of a lot of bad language or behaviour (because, for
example, you are a white male),
White JEWISH male, who's grandparents all came from Eastern Europe -
we've been on the receiving end of LOTS of bad language & behavior.
(And it seems to be coming back.)
Also, grew up in the 60s - not a good time to look Jewish, and have long
hair (well, a bushy Jewfro) when traveling in large parts of the
country. ("Long haired hippy freak" could get you killed.)
And then, it wasn't always "age of the geek."
then it's easy to say "Oh, I don't mind
what people say about me, so no-one else should mind either". You're
speaking from a position of relatively high social position. When you
say that to someone who is often on the receiving end of abuse (because
they're queer, or black, or trans, or a woman), you're saying in effect
"if you want to stick around here, you'll have to accept the
racist/sexist/homophobic things people say to you - otherwise you're not
being liberal in what you accept".
No. I may mind, but I sure don't want others minding on my behalf. I
find THAT offensive.
To keep it personal, I mind if someone calls me a "Jewboy" or a "Hebe"
(unless, of course, it's me, or some other NY Jewboy - then it's just
fine - I'm proud of being a "New York Jew," and a Yankees fan, now
living in Red Sox Nation).
I appreciate it you don't use that kind of language, and more if you
don't think that way, but I can fight my own battles thank you very much
- I sure don't appreciate someone censoring discussion on my behalf.
(Cops stopping violence, laws against broad-based discrimination,
programs that balance the scales and redress previous grievances are one
thing - but I'm with the ACLU on on speech, demonstrations, and so
forth, or, as Lewis Brandeis put it, in a famous Supreme Court Decision,
is "the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence" -
though, strangely, in an opinion CONCURRING with suppression of speech).
I'm saying that there's a point at which one gives back as good as one
gets, rather than crying for others to protect one's sensibilities. And
I sure don't want folks stepping in, who don't have a dog in the fight.
I don't want wannabee nazis (you know, the morons who march around in
polo shirts, carrying tiki torches, chanting "Jews will not replace us,"
and generally making good targets of themselves) complaining about
Internet censorship. I want them afraid to rally, running home to
momma, because they're afraid of the "scary liberals." And maybe, just
maybe, learning something from the experience. (Have you noticed how
few "free speech rallies" we've had lately?)
...which is why, of course, the Debian project has said that we won't
accept racist/sexist/homophobic/etc language in our spaces, because we
want a broad range of people to feel welcome in our community. I don't
get to decide what is offensive to women[0], I get to listen to women
and believe them.
It's one thing to have some social norms, and jump on people who go way
over the top. It's quite another to have star-chamber like censorship &
banning. And even more for you (a male) to take action on their
behalf. It seems to be awfully arbitrary to listen to (some) women's
complaints about offensive language, while not listening to other
women's complaints about "white knight" behavior.
And I should then help ensure that language that is
offensive to women isn't used in Debian - it's not fair on women to have
to justify Every. Single. Time. why particular language is offensive or
offputting to women.
Maybe not. And good for you to refrain from using such language. But
who are you (male from your name) to be the one applying defense on
their behalf - haven't you heard enough complaints about playing "white
knight?" Personally, I find it offensive to have privileged people
whine & complain on behalf of the oppressed. (Ever notice how often
it's the white suburbanites who are quickest to take issue with
"offensive language," preach political correctness, and jump in as
social justice warriors? We used to call them "limousine liberals.")
Frankly, I don't want WASPs advocating against anti-Semitism. And I
prefer to either respond in kind, or kill-file people
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/10/19 3:02 PM, Steve Langasek wrote: On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 07:20:41PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote: On 1/9/19 5:39 PM, Josh Triplett wrote: Anthony Towns wrote: On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 10:47:05AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: People seem to feel they're unreasonably put-upon by having to think about what they're saying *at all*, but this is absurd. Everyone else in the world is doing this all the time. There are times when you don't have to think about what you're saying before you say it; that situation is often called being "among friends", or "in a safe space", or "able to let your guard down". If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a more fundamental problem. It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill. Debian is not a locker room. On the other hand, when did people get so thin skinned, and offended by everything? I came across this in a FreeBSD community discussion of similar issues: https://notablelife.com/our-generation-needs-to-stop-being-offended-by-everything-and-learn-how-to-take-a-joke/ - a good read. One paragraph, that nails it: "The thing is, people are often offended by things that are so minimal compared to the actual problems in the world to which they turn a blind eye. You don’t tend to see many people being ‘offended’ by the fact that there are starving children in third world countries, or making rambling Facebook posts about how access to clean water offends their sensibilities. Yet the second a joke or an ad is slightly offside in their eyes, they lash out like they’ve been a victim of the greatest injustice known to humankind." That's because the vast, vast majority of people have the residual decency to not open their fat mouths and argue in public that people don't *deserve* to have access to food and clean water, whereas there is a quite high number of assholes who feel no shame at treating someone as less-than on the basis of irrelevant intrinsic characteristics. Well, no. In other settings (a neighborhood list I host), I've seen perfectly reasonable, if a little heated, discussions on immigration policy - in this case on whether our city should pass a sanctuary city ordinance - get completely derailed over someone's use of the term "illegal alien," which now seems to be politically incorrect terminology (and certainly more legally accurate than "undocumented alien" - which seems to be the currently popular term. Discussion of a rather serious issue, got completely derailed over outrage over terminology, along with calls for moderation of a particular person's posts. Given that I'm a firm believer in free speech, particularly when it comes to political discussion - no censorship was imposed. So, you know, take some personal responsibility for things you say that are offensive, and everything'll be ok. At the risk of repeating myself: I'm a firm believer in applying Postel's law to email discussions - "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others." Personally, I try to observe both parts of it, but I see more and more people doing just the opposite, and, if anything, leaning toward taking so much offense, at so much, as to be offensive for that. And, of course, those who seem to be always outraged are the least aware of how uncivil and offensive their behavior is (or least least willing to acknowledge it). You know - kind of like grammar nazis. Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/10/19 12:00 AM, Ben Hutchings wrote: On Wed, 2019-01-09 at 19:20 -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote: On 1/9/19 5:39 PM, Josh Triplett wrote: Anthony Towns wrote: On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 10:47:05AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: People seem to feel they're unreasonably put-upon by having to think about what they're saying *at all*, but this is absurd. Everyone else in the world is doing this all the time. There are times when you don't have to think about what you're saying before you say it; that situation is often called being "among friends", or "in a safe space", or "able to let your guard down". If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a more fundamental problem. It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill. Debian is not a locker room. On the other hand, when did people get so thin skinned, and offended by everything? [...] That would be whenever people started complaining about "political correctness" when they were criticised for what they said. No. That's "fragility," or just plain belligerent obtuseness. Then again, as a friend recently commented, "people who go out of their way to take offense at this or that are exceptionally annoying, but it is those who go out of their way to take offense ON BEHALF of someone else who really tick me off." And that really sums up legitimate complaints about "political correctness." If you want to call it 'in bad taste' for this New York Jewboy to call himself a Hebe - you might have a point. Call me anti-semitic, and you're being a politically correct asshole - particularly if you're a WASP. (On the other hand, call me an asshole, and I'll agree with you, maybe even thank you.) There's a really large spectrum from "less than civil" or "insensitive" or "oblivious to nuance" or perhaps, to use an old fashioned word, "boorish" to racist, sexist, etc. But somehow, it seems like all too many people rush right to taking maximum offense and calling for censorship or banning. Personally, I find that highly offensive in its own right. Seems to me that all together too many people have forgotten Postel's law - "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others" - which applies just as well to conversation, particularly online, as it does to protocols. (Actually, for protocols, there are some pretty good arguments for being a bit more strict in what you accept. Not so much, for conversations.) Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/9/19 5:39 PM, Josh Triplett wrote: Anthony Towns wrote: On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 10:47:05AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: People seem to feel they're unreasonably put-upon by having to think about what they're saying *at all*, but this is absurd. Everyone else in the world is doing this all the time. There are times when you don't have to think about what you're saying before you say it; that situation is often called being "among friends", or "in a safe space", or "able to let your guard down". If you have to have your "guard up" to avoid hurting people, you have a more fundamental problem. It really *isn't* that hard to just think about the effect of your words on others *all the time*. As Russ said, that's a fundamental skill. Debian is not a locker room. On the other hand, when did people get so thin skinned, and offended by everything? I came across this in a FreeBSD community discussion of similar issues: https://notablelife.com/our-generation-needs-to-stop-being-offended-by-everything-and-learn-how-to-take-a-joke/ - a good read. One paragraph, that nails it: "The thing is, people are often offended by things that are so minimal compared to the actual problems in the world to which they turn a blind eye. You don’t tend to see many people being ‘offended’ by the fact that there are starving children in third world countries, or making rambling Facebook posts about how access to clean water offends their sensibilities. Yet the second a joke or an ad is slightly offside in their eyes, they lash out like they’ve been a victim of the greatest injustice known to humankind." Miles Fidelman p.s., Debian is a place where people get work done. Maybe it is a locker room (or more locker room than ivory tower). -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: [OT] distributions without systemd
On 1/8/19 1:34 PM, Martin Steigerwald wrote: Miles Fidelman - 08.01.19, 18:16: I would have been very surprised if you had told me 6 months ago that I would be writing this, but: Please consider Devuan as an alternative. You have probably seen awful mails from one or two very toxic trolls pushing Devuan, but the actual Devuan developers I have dealt with have been lovely, and on a technical level they seem to be doing good work. Thanks! It's actually high on my list. I've been waiting for it to mature just a bit, and it seems to have. Any observations on how it stacks up for a production server? Anything else that strikes you as a particularly strong Debian alternative for servers? (My short list, right now is Gentoo, Funtoo, Devuan, and FreeBSD. I'd been hoping that one of the OpenSolaris derivatives would look solid, but it's never really happened. Hypervisors & failover, and replicated storage are also high on my list). I suggest you take Devuan related questions to the devuan mailing list dng¹. Topic change is definitely appropriate, my apologies. Comparisons of distributions, IMHO is within bounds. One may argue whether Debian's systemd decision process was similar to what happened now, but discussing distributions and other operating systems without systemd is clearly off topic on this thread and also off- topic on the mailing list. It does not add any value to this discussion and clutters the thread with unrelated stuff. That said, two of my server VMs run Devuan since a few months and I am happy so far. [1] https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng Thanks, Thank you. -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/8/19 8:28 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes ("Re: Censorship in Debian"):
I've basically been nursing a couple of aging systems. When next I do a
major upgrade to our server farm, It will be to something other than
Debian. Until then, the pressure hasn't been there, and I've been -
I've been waiting and watching to see how different alternatives mature
(along with what direction several key server-side applications, on
which we depend, go).
I would have been very surprised if you had told me 6 months ago that
I would be writing this, but:
Please consider Devuan as an alternative. You have probably seen
awful mails from one or two very toxic trolls pushing Devuan, but the
actual Devuan developers I have dealt with have been lovely, and on a
technical level they seem to be doing good work.
Thanks! It's actually high on my list. I've been waiting for it to
mature just a bit, and it seems to have. Any observations on how it
stacks up for a production server? Anything else that strikes you as a
particularly strong Debian alternative for servers? (My short list,
right now is Gentoo, Funtoo, Devuan, and FreeBSD. I'd been hoping that
one of the OpenSolaris derivatives would look solid, but it's never
really happened. Hypervisors & failover, and replicated storage are
also high on my list).
Miles
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/8/19 4:57 AM, Jonathan Dowland wrote: On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 04:16:15AM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote: What I am asserting is that the Debian Social Contract explicitly states that: "4. Our priorities are our users and free software … I DO assert that, as one user, I don't see this being honored in the breach, with decisions around systemd, and init-system-neutrality being in direct opposition to this principal. I don't agree that those decisions were in direct opposition. There wasn't a single answer that was unanimously in the interests of all users, because all users do not agree on the desired outcome. Not even "init-system-neutrality" as you put it would be unambiguously in the best interests of all users. Clearly you would have preferred a different outcome. You aren't alone: but correspondingly, many users got the answer they wanted, and many others didn't have a dog in the race. Differing opinions here. Somehow, major changes in direction, that go against "the Unix way," and have direct impact on both systems administration & upstream development, seem not to be in the interests of many users. The systemd rollout just broke too many things. But I brought this up primarily in context of discussing Debian decision processes, and as a rebuttal to a previous statement that effectively said only contributor's opinions count - whereas the social contract explicitly says that users are a highest priority. Pretty soon, I expect I'll be migrating. Honestly I think you're very overdue to go. You've been in the Debian community for a long time. Long enough that you could have become a member (non-packaging, voting rights) if you had wanted to. I think you've made valuable contributions to our project, particularly in some of your posts to debian-user. But from what I've read from you recently, I think it would be in your own best interests to move on and establish yourself in a community more aligned with your beliefs and tastes. You wouldn't be alone, other long-time valued Debian contributors have done that in the wake of the init system decision. And in my opinion, your more recent mailing lists contributions to Debian have not been as valuable as ones from the past: case in point, this thread. We're raking over old coals here, and it's not helping you, or Debian. Well, thanks, I think. I've basically been nursing a couple of aging systems. When next I do a major upgrade to our server farm, It will be to something other than Debian. Until then, the pressure hasn't been there, and I've been - I've been waiting and watching to see how different alternatives mature (along with what direction several key server-side applications, on which we depend, go). Meanwhile, there's no reason not to continue responding to questions, where I can add value. The discussion about the censorship issues, and toxic processes, is one that's near and dear to my heart - having been involved in governance of various organizations and projects, and working professional on projects that involve online decision & deliberation support. Best, Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/7/19 11:10 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Miles Fidelman writes: On 1/7/19 10:06 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Speaking as someone who is a listed author on three published RFCs and chaired one IETF working group, I will take Debian process over IETF process any day, and find your description of the IETF pretty entertaining. :) Well yeah, but which "works" better in terms of results? Particularly, as viewed by those who are impacted by the process? Oh, Debian, by far. Debian is massively more productive than the IETF per unit of effort put in the front end. Now, some of that is the nature of standards development, which is inherently hard and much more contentious than nearly all packaging problems. But Debian puts far more work out in the world, faster, than the IETF does relative to the resources invested. That really depends on what you're measuring. Somehow, "new release of Debian" doesn't seem anywhere on the scale of "keeping global infrastructure working properly." Of course, that involves a lot more than just IETF. That's part of why I'd rather work on Debian Policy than on IETF standards. IETF standards are very valuable, but the process redefines the concept of slow and tedious. And frequently, if there's no consensus, nothing happens at all in the IETF for literally years. (Not that this nevery happens in Debian *cough*, but it's less common and it's usually only relatively less important things.) That's fine, to be clear. I don't think that's a flaw in the IETF. The IETF is trying to do one thing (create general standards for the Internet) and Debian is trying to do something far, far different and more immediate (create and maintain a usable operating system that runs on real-world computers). Obviously they will be organized differently along the lines required to achieve those goals. But the IETF, particularly in recent years, has increasingly become an industry consortium in which representatives of companies negotiate with each other over how to implement interoperable standards for their products. Not a community of hobbyists who are building something in large part for the joy of it. Well, yes, IETF is becoming more of an industry consortium - but I sure recognize a lot of the WG directors as names from the old days, who most assuredly are motivated by a lot more than a paycheck. (Though yes, most folks in academia, industry, and government do like to get paid. And to attend meetings in interesting places on the company dime.) The IETF is an excellent example of an organization where you largely have to pay people to get them to participate in it. There are certainly some people who participate in IETF working groups for fun, but compared to Debian I'm fairly sure it's limited. People largely participate in the IETF because they're trying to accomplish something specific *outside* the IETF for which an IETF standard would be useful, or because they're being paid to do so. Not, at least to the degree that is the case in Debian, because participating is *itself* fun and exciting and meaningful. Pay, yes. Create something outside of IETF - well, probably true, as well - but that something is "The Internet" - which is still, very much a work in progress. Re. Debian - I used to think that the project founders, leaders, and core developers saw Debian as something more than a hobby or pet project. These days, I'm not so sure. Linux (and Linus) certainly went from academic project to key piece of software driving much of the world's computers – and the kernel development community has organized itself with that in mind. Stallman, and the FSF, always, and still, see what they're doing as serving a broader purpose and community. Debian used to present as the serious distribution for serious people (and perhaps, as the alternative to Red Hat) - and as a platform on which people could, and did depend. These days, it sure doesn't act that way. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/7/19 10:58 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Miles Fidelman writes: I think you're minimizing the level of investment & commitment it takes to either use Debian, particularly in production, and even more, minimizing the efforts of upstream, and kernel, developers upon whom Debian ultimately depends. I really don't think I am, particularly since I've also done many of those things, but I'm also a bit baffled as to why you think that you should get to decide what I do with my volunteer time when you're not paying me. I mean, that's really what this comes down to. Of *course* the people who are members of the Debian project have the primary say it what it does. I am not asserting any right to decide what you do with your volunteer time. What I am asserting is that the Debian Social Contract explicitly states that: "4. Our priorities are our users and free software We will be guided by the needs of our users and the free software community. We will place their interests first in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users for operation in many different kinds of computing environments ... " I DO assert that, as one user, I don't see this being honored in the breach, with decisions around systemd, and init-system-neutrality being in direct opposition to this principal. I also suggest that users, and the "free software community" do not have a voice in the matter. As to "Of *course* the people who are members of the Debian project have the primary say it what it does." That does not necessarily follow. There are plenty of cases, in purely voluntary organizations, where Trustees (elected or otherwise) are expected to represent the interests of the broader community, and/or the broader mission of an organization. An awful lot of organizations fail when current office holders become to insular and unresponsive. There are also those who contribute by providing support - e.g., answering user questions on Debian lists. And those people can join the project as voting members so that they can have a say. (I would love to see more of that, in fact; it's important to include people in our community who do other things than package.) As far as I can tell, the only people who count, in Debian decision making, are packagers - which strikes me as a rather bizarre case of the tail wagging the dog. Seriously, if you want control over something that you use, you have to put resources into it, whether that is time or money. You can purchase something and have the influence of a customer and whatever contract you can get, or you can put in sweat equity and get a voice that way. Those are pretty much your choices, apart from government-controlled projects. This isn't a very radical concept. Sure. But in an environment as convoluted as the FOSS ecosystem, where and how one contributes can become pretty indirect. For example, Debian depends rather heavily on the Linux kernel, the gnu tools, hosting by the OSU OSL - do they have a seat at the table? What about people who contribute to the MoinMoin wiki, used by the Debian project? I remain amazed how much the impacts on users, systems administrators, and upstream developers were dismissed as irrelevant. You list those things as if they're somehow distinct, when many (most, probably) Debian Developers are all of those things. I was watching the discussion on systemd fairly closely. I could be wrong, but very little of the discussions over systemd seemed to reflect folks who managed production servers, or kernel developers, or developers of key backend software (Apache, MySQL, Postfix, Sympa, ...). On a larger note, I point to the IETF as an example of a much larger community, running huge infrastructure, where pretty much anyone who shows up has a voice. Do you know how the IETF funding model works, and how the Debian funding model works? You do know that the parent organization of the IETF has paid employees, right? Yes. Yes I do. I also know that that ISOC was created, nominally as a membership organization, but no more, to create a home for the IETF outside of the US Government. It's the IETF secretariat, or whatever it's called these days, that mostly has paid staff. And... so? The IETF is a lot more like the Linux Foundation than it is like Debian. And that model has its place in the world, but I wouldn't be a Debian Developer if Debian were funded and run that way. I'm sorry to say this, but the only value that Debian provides to the world, is packaging. And, personally, over time, I've found it more and more necessary to download, build, and compile from source - reducing the value of Debian. Pretty soon, I expect I'll be migrating. Okay? I mean, you say that like you expect me to be upset, but I'm totally okay with that, and I wish you the best of luck with whatever operating system you migrate to. I've said this before, but I think it's an i
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/7/19 10:06 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Miles Fidelman writes: On the other hand, the IETF seems to do just fine - with a much larger base of participants, and a lot more room for discussion and debate on contentious issues. Global infrastructure, with distributed ownership, lots of stakeholders, all held together by agreements, with the decision processes open to pretty much anybody who shows up. The process puts pretty much everyone else to shame - with lots to be learned from it. Speaking as someone who is a listed author on three published RFCs and chaired one IETF working group, I will take Debian process over IETF process any day, and find your description of the IETF pretty entertaining. :) Well yeah, but which "works" better in terms of results? Particularly, as viewed by those who are impacted by the process? In the case of IETF, it sure seems like the needs of users, network operators, and equipment makers are well represented. As compared to Debian, where I see little regard for either users, or upstream developers. The WG & IETF lists tend to have less bull twaddle - though the ICANN transition was an interesting period, and a far more open process, if somewhat a foregone conclusion. Also, please note that many IETF participants are paid as part of their job to participate in the IETF. (We keep coming back to that.) That's true of some Debian contributors as well, of course, but I strongly suspect the percentage is lower. Now that's definitely true. Back in my BBN days, I was only peripherally involved (I tended to work on projects that contributed to standards work, but generally didn't go to the meetings) - I definitely envied some of the travel opportunities afforded to the folks who went to the meetings, on the company dime. Me, I got to go to DoD meetings (though some of those were also in "interesting" places). Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/7/19 9:12 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Miles Fidelman writes: Well, first off, the process led to the resignation of the chair of the Technical Committee - out of a feeling that the process had become too "personalized." Some decisions are just hard. I think nearly all of us involved in making that decision burned out in various ways. I'm not saying we couldn't have done a better job... well, hm. Actually, I am kind of saying that, if by "couldn't" I include the people that we were at the time with the emotional reserves that we had and the understanding that we had. I could certainly do a better job *now* if I could rewind time, but that's cheating, and humans don't get to do that. We do get to learn from things, however. I'm with Steve in that I'm pretty dubious that the process was the core of why that decision was so hard. I think it was so hard because it spanned the gamut from technical to social issues, involved some issues that were relatively concrete and others that were quite nebulous (such as the interactions between the goals of the systemd developers and the broader community), and also involved deep social divisions in the project between folks who want Debian to be a platform for all things and folks who want Debian to be more tightly integrated and more technically excellent along a single axis. Well, I'd argue that part of it had to do with who had a voice, and who didn't. (More below.) This stuff is inherently very hard, particularly when friends end up on opposite sides and believe passionately in how important their concerns are. I think we sometimes analyze process to death and refight the last fourteen wars and dig up problems to argue about them some more. We're human, this stuff is hard, some things are going to be brutal to get through when we disagree, and it's okay to forgive ourselves for not being perfect. Or even being pretty shitty at it. That's not to say that we shouldn't look for opportunities to fix things that we can. For example, we certainly uncovered some nasty edge cases in the voting mechanism for the TC, which are now fixed. And many of us felt that people serving for extended periods of time on the TC wasn't socially healthy for either us or the project, so we fixed that too. But I think there's a idealistic, utopian tendency among a lot of technical people, myself included, to believe that any serious conflict or (from our perspective) incorrect decision is a bug in a process somewhere, and if we can just find the right process, we can fix the bugs. And it's just not true. Humans are messy and humans disagree, and sometimes stuff is just really hard, and is going to be really hard no matter how you do it. Beyond that, there are a rather large number of folks, impacted by the decision, who did not have a seat at the table. Those of us who rely on Debian in production, for example. Upstream developers for another. Some of us knew about the issues & debates, without having a "franchise," others found out after the fact. Seems to me that lack of representation is, in itself, a rather big failure of governance. Debian is *more* willing to try to take into account the needs of its users than most free software projects, but Debian is still a volunteer free software project, and the rule of just about every volunteer, unfunded free software project is that the people who are doing the work are the ones who are going to make the decisions. Think of it this way: the people who are sufficiently invested in the project to spend our time and energy on it over a long enough period of time to become members are deeply invested in it and want to control where it goes. Plus, we're all volunteers and don't have to work on anything we don't want to work on, which means maintaining our engagement is absolutely necessary for the project to survive. I think you're minimizing the level of investment & commitment it takes to either use Debian, particularly in production, and even more, minimizing the efforts of upstream, and kernel, developers upon whom Debian ultimately depends. There are also those who contribute by providing support - e.g., answering user questions on Debian lists. As far as I can tell, the only people who count, in Debian decision making, are packagers - which strikes me as a rather bizarre case of the tail wagging the dog. I remain amazed how much the impacts on users, systems administrators, and upstream developers were dismissed as irrelevant. On a larger note, I point to the IETF as an example of a much larger community, running huge infrastructure, where pretty much anyone who shows up has a voice. I understand your desire to have a say in something that's important to you, but, well, if it's that important to you, the New Maintainer process is right over there? We always need more help. Absent that, the people who have put their blood, sweat, and tea
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/7/19 8:48 PM, Eldon Koyle wrote:
On Mon, Jan 7, 2019 at 6:18 PM Miles Fidelman
wrote:
On 1/7/19 7:57 PM, Steve Langasek wrote:
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 01:47:41PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
On 1/7/19 10:57 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes ("Re: Censorship in Debian"):
On 1/6/19 1:38 AM, Steve Langasek wrote:
[systemd stuff]
[systemd stuff]
The process that was followed was:
- the Technical Committee was called on to make a decision about the
default init system in Debian (a technical matter).
- the TC decided.
- the Debian developers as a whole declined to overrule this decision via
GR.
I have no sympathy for people who have so little actual investment in the
Debian Project that they haven't even read the constitution to understand
that they don't have a franchise in such decisions, but then come onto the
project's mailing lists after the fact to express outrage at a technical
decision that they disagree with.
Well, first off, the process led to the resignation of the chair of the
Technical Committee - out of a feeling that the process had become too
"personalized."
Beyond that, there are a rather large number of folks, impacted by the
decision, who did not have a seat at the table. Those of us who rely on
Debian in production, for example. Upstream developers for another.
Some of us knew about the issues & debates, without having a
"franchise," others found out after the fact. Seems to me that lack of
representation is, in itself, a rather big failure of governance.
I think one of the reasons Debian is able to function as well as it has is
because they aren't required to put stuff out to a vote from the entire
planet. Having technical people (developers) make technical decisions
seems appropriate, even if you disagree with the decision as a user.
On the other hand, the IETF seems to do just fine - with a much larger
base of participants, and a lot more room for discussion and debate on
contentious issues. Global infrastructure, with distributed ownership,
lots of stakeholders, all held together by agreements, with the decision
processes open to pretty much anybody who shows up. The process puts
pretty much everyone else to shame - with lots to be learned from it.
There are just as many people who would be griping about sysvinit at this
juncture. Yes, it was nice to know what your init system was doing, but
there are a lot of features that are not provided by sysvinit but are provided
by systemd.
I'm hesitant to re-litigate the issue, but it's not about "know(ing)
what your init system is doing," it's about impacts on both those of us
who must administer systems, and on upstream developers. To an awful
lot of us, the added features of systemd add nothing, but the impacts
are major, and damaging.
It continues to amaze me how much the interests of packagers dominate
Debian, pushing aside the interests of those who actually develop code,
and those who use it. Yes, APT is great, and perhaps the primary
selling point of Debian - but only up to a point.
To suggest that a different process would have resulted in a different
outcome is to demand the Debian constitution be rewritten to let someone
else get their way.
To suggest that a different process would have made the same outcome more
palatable to those on the losing side of the decision is naive.
Maybe you personally would have felt better about the outcome, if you
personally had been consulted. But that doesn't scale, and provides no
basis for an amendment to the Debian decision-making processes.
Personally, as someone who's been involved in other organizations, and
governance processes, I disagree, on all points. I also suggest that
your categorical rejection of the possibility that things could be done
better, is illustrative of the toxicity of the current process.
I think part of the toxicity is inherent in communicating via a mailing list.
It is very easy to feel attacked when someone points out a problem with
your argument (especially if you disagree with their counterpoints) -- even
more so when you have spent hours trying to make a logical argument that
hopefully won't offend anyone.
Maybe - but we've kind of grown up in this world. A lot of us in the
networking world like to quote Postel's law: "be conservative in what
you do, be liberal in what you accept from others." I've always found
that it applies very well to email communication. Unfortunately, it
strikes me that people have become awfully touchy, and quick to take
offense, these days. Personally, I find it more uncivil when people
take offense, than when people give it.
(It's worth noting that while "fighting words" are recognized, under
some circumstances, as an exception to the 1st Amendment, it's pretty
hard to avoid legal liability for violently responding to fighting
words. "Them's fighting wo
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/7/19 7:57 PM, Steve Langasek wrote:
On Mon, Jan 07, 2019 at 01:47:41PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
On 1/7/19 10:57 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes ("Re: Censorship in Debian"):
On 1/6/19 1:38 AM, Steve Langasek wrote:
[systemd stuff]
[systemd stuff]
I appreciate that the fights over systemd have been a defining
experience for many of us. Many of us are still bitter, me included.
I also appreciate that in some respects these fights are still,
unfortunately, being fought and harm is still being done (although
things are much less bad than they were).
But I really don't think it is helpful to link the recent arguments
over behaviour in the project, with init system diversity problems.
The issues are very different. And the toxic emotional and political
baggage from the init system stuff is really bad. So bringing init
system stuff into this conversation about acceptable conduct just
increases the hurt and argument, but does not lead to any better
conclusions.
With all due respect - and recognizing your central involvement in the
init-system-neutrality issue – I have to disagree with you here.
IMHO, the issues are VERY similar - having to do with groupthink, diversion
from groupthink, and really, really poor processes (and perhaps attitudes).
The process that was followed was:
- the Technical Committee was called on to make a decision about the
default init system in Debian (a technical matter).
- the TC decided.
- the Debian developers as a whole declined to overrule this decision via
GR.
I have no sympathy for people who have so little actual investment in the
Debian Project that they haven't even read the constitution to understand
that they don't have a franchise in such decisions, but then come onto the
project's mailing lists after the fact to express outrage at a technical
decision that they disagree with.
Well, first off, the process led to the resignation of the chair of the
Technical Committee - out of a feeling that the process had become too
"personalized."
Beyond that, there are a rather large number of folks, impacted by the
decision, who did not have a seat at the table. Those of us who rely on
Debian in production, for example. Upstream developers for another.
Some of us knew about the issues & debates, without having a
"franchise," others found out after the fact. Seems to me that lack of
representation is, in itself, a rather big failure of governance.
(I have a great deal of sympathy for users who were frustrated with the
actual decision, and worried about the impact of such a major change on
their future use of Debian. I just don't have any sympathy for those who
channeled that frustration into toxic posts on the mailing lists that sought
to browbeat Debian into changing course.)
I categorically reject the notion that a different process should have been
followed. Giving a formal voice to a wider range of stakeholders in Debian
(i.e.: Debian users as opposed to Debian Developers) would not have made the
discussion less acrimonious; it would not have eliminated the feelings of
upset at the conclusion. This was a decision about a default, which there
could only be one of. There were always going to be winners and losers.
It might, however, have led to the Technical Committee giving more
weight to the impacts of the decisions.
The Debian Technical Committee voted unanimously to move away from sysvinit
as the default.
And to making systemd the default, rather than init-neutral. And Ian
resigned over the issue.
To suggest that a different process would have resulted in a different
outcome is to demand the Debian constitution be rewritten to let someone
else get their way.
To suggest that a different process would have made the same outcome more
palatable to those on the losing side of the decision is naive.
Maybe you personally would have felt better about the outcome, if you
personally had been consulted. But that doesn't scale, and provides no
basis for an amendment to the Debian decision-making processes.
Personally, as someone who's been involved in other organizations, and
governance processes, I disagree, on all points. I also suggest that
your categorical rejection of the possibility that things could be done
better, is illustrative of the toxicity of the current process.
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
Ian,
On 1/7/19 10:57 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
Miles Fidelman writes ("Re: Censorship in Debian"):
On 1/6/19 1:38 AM, Steve Langasek wrote:
[systemd stuff]
[systemd stuff]
I appreciate that the fights over systemd have been a defining
experience for many of us. Many of us are still bitter, me included.
I also appreciate that in some respects these fights are still,
unfortunately, being fought and harm is still being done (although
things are much less bad than they were).
But I really don't think it is helpful to link the recent arguments
over behaviour in the project, with init system diversity problems.
The issues are very different. And the toxic emotional and political
baggage from the init system stuff is really bad. So bringing init
system stuff into this conversation about acceptable conduct just
increases the hurt and argument, but does not lead to any better
conclusions.
With all due respect - and recognizing your central involvement in the
init-system-neutrality issue – I have to disagree with you here.
IMHO, the issues are VERY similar - having to do with groupthink,
diversion from groupthink, and really, really poor processes (and
perhaps attitudes).
It's not unlike a current issue in the church I belong to. On the one
hand, it's an issue over a change to one of the church's external signs
- but it has blown up into an issue over who gets to make decisions
(volunteer committee vs. a community-wide vote), hurt feelings among
volunteers when someone deigns to protest a unilateral action (which
seem to trump dissent), a rather authoritarian board that is currently
asserting far more power than granted by our bylaws (IMHO), a seeming
general acceptance of these authoritarian tendencies ("we don't care
about that particular issue, so we're staying out of it"), and a general
unwillingness to discuss issues via email list (leaving no other venue,
other than stage managed meetings, called by our board, at their
leisure, and at inconvenient times). People have left over this kind of
bull, and I'm thinking seriously about it myself (after 30 or so years).
Where Debian is concerned, the same set of issues are playing out - this
time over the Code of Conduct, but they also played, with (IMHO) far
more serious consequences over the systemd issues - including your own
resignation as chair of the Technical Committee. As you put it then,
"While it is important that the views of the 30-40% of the project who
agree with me should continue to be represented on the TC, I myself am
clearly too controversial a figure at this point to do so. I should step
aside to try to reduce the extent to which conversations about the
project's governance are personalized." HOW IS THIS NOT THE SAME
SCENARIO PLAYING OUT AGAIN?"
The current discussion makes it clear that we obviously didn't learn
anything from the systemd issue – to the severe detriment of the project
as a whole. It strikes me as particularly relevant to point this out –
as evidence of significant underlying pathologies that go well beyond
the narrow issue of "acceptable conduct." As you put it "the toxic
emotional and political baggage from the init system stuff is really
bad" - IMHO, the root causes are the same, and we're going through it again.
Respectfully,
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/6/19 1:38 AM, Steve Langasek wrote: On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 03:43:33PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote: It sure seems that, in some sectors, disagreement is offensive, and offense trumps substance. (One might point to our current President in that regard, as well.) I kind of wonder if Debian is headed that way - given the way the discussion on systemd went, not that long ago. I don't know where you've gotten the impression that the systemd discussion implies Debian does not tolerate disagreement. *Respectful* disagreement has always been tolerated regarding Debian's choice of default init system. What should not be tolerated (and all of these have actually occurred on Debian mailing lists, which is why this is a sore subject) is: - accusations that members of the TC have sold out to a particular commercial entity - refusal to accept the decision that was made in accordance with the Debian constitution - attempts to readjudicate the decision on Debian mailing lists (as opposed to via a GR, which Debian developers do have a right to use to override a TC decision if they believe it was wrong). - using a disagreement about init systems to justify attacks on developers' character, integrity, or technical competence There is no expectation that everyone agree with every technical decision in Debian. The only expectation is that they engage constructively in spite of any disagreements. I simply point to the number of people - including long time developers - who left the community over the issue. Not to mention a completely wrong-headed (IMHO) process & result – and the time it took to fix the long-standing bugs in the installer that stood in the way of building without systemd (which struck me as awfully passive-aggressive). It was far from a constructive process. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Censorship in Debian
On 1/4/19 2:44 PM, Russ Allbery wrote: Scott Kitterman writes: For clarification from me, I don't expect a consequence free free-for-all where anything at all can be said with no repercussions. There are absolutely things that are not acceptable, but on the other hand, I also don't think "someone was offended" is a reasonable standard (and I am not claiming that's what Debian is currently using - but there are places where things seem to me to be headed in that direction). As a reference point, let me mention a recent incident at our church. One of our committees radically changed a sign outside the building – essentially changing its use. I went to the chair of our "outreach committee" and said, in about so many words, "I protest. I don't like it. And that kind of change should be voted on by the Congregation." Apparently, that hurt the guy's feelings so much that he ignored me, and when I raised a protest on our Church-wide email list, it led to a huge bro hah hah. (And right now, the sign has been changed to yet something else, that's essentially an "f u"). No resolution in sight, on either the specific issue, or the broader issue of Church governance. We did have a Church-wide "listening session" where both the guy and his wife talked about how attacked they felt. It sure seems that, in some sectors, disagreement is offensive, and offense trumps substance. (One might point to our current President in that regard, as well.) I kind of wonder if Debian is headed that way - given the way the discussion on systemd went, not that long ago. Miles Fidelman
Re: Debian's Code of Conduct, and our technical excellence
On 12/29/18 6:51 PM, Martin Steigerwald wrote: Hello Roberto. Roberto C. Sánchez - 29.12.18, 18:12: Suppose for a moment that a project member [… hypothetical case …] […] The reason I use the above example is because it is a difficult case to handle. The cases where harm is clearly intended are comparitavely very easy to deal with. Those in which harm may or may not have been intended but in which harm may be perceived are more challenging. I wonder about what the point would be to discuss hypothetical cases like the one you mentioned. If there have been practical issues with the handling of code of conduct, the behavior of the anti harassment team or the Debian account manager team… as there appears to be from what I gathered from what I read in recent threads about that, then by all means it is good to find a solution. But I see no point in discussing difficult, completely made up hypothetical cases. Policy making is a world of hypotheticals. When writing rules, or mission plans - one always tries to think through possible scenarios, prepare for the worst, try to avoid unintended consequences. Military folks run war games. Lawyers hold mock trials. Things STILL go wrong, but without applying foresight, one is guaranteed disaster. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Are online services also software for Debian's rules?
On 8/14/17 5:42 AM, Marc Haber wrote: On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 05:29:20PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: "Dr. Bas Wijnen" <wij...@debian.org> writes: Also, I don't want to move lots of software to contrib. I would much rather have it fixed by removing the support for the non-free services, or by having plugin systems that allow only the non-free-interfacing part to be in contrib. I believe this would be hugely counter-productive for free software. It would hurt us way more than it would hurt proprietary services. Who's us? Developers? Distro managers? Packagers? Users? Somebody else? And is "who gets hurt?" really the right question? Isn't it more about who are "we" serving, and what best serves their interests. (Me, I'm primarily a user & sys admin - I care most about convenience & reliability. Hurting proprietary services is pretty low on my list of priorities.) Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Are online services also software for Debian's rules?
On 8/13/17 1:05 PM, Dr. Bas Wijnen wrote: My purpose of this thread (which is a question asked elsewhere) is to find out if there is consensus about this issue. If there isn't, I don't want to bother everyone with a mass bug report. Which, as Russ pointed out, would be a pretty large operation. Also, I don't want to move lots of software to contrib. I would much rather have it fixed by removing the support for the non-free services, or by having plugin systems that allow only the non-free-interfacing part to be in contrib. However, that is still a large operation, so I still do not want to do a mass bug filing unless there is consensus that it should be done. So far, it doesn't seem like there is consensus at all. Getting past all the obfuscatory count and counterpoint, there seem to be two clear questions on the table: 1. Given a piece of FOSS client software, that has no purpose other than to interface with a proprietary back-end service (say a FOSS twitter GUI), should that be considered "free software" for the purposes of placement in main vs. contrib vs. non-free? (Or alternatively, where should it reside?) 2. Given a piece of FOSS client software that interfaces to, among other things, a proprietary back-end service (e.g., a multi-protocol chat interface that includes AIM and MS Messenger among the back-ends it supports), be placed in contrib or non-free, simply because its description mentions those services? Personally, I don't really care, and could argue both points either way. But they are clear policy questions that might be of interest to packagers. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Would you agree - Debian is for the tech savvy
On 1/15/16 10:48 PM, Stephan Foley wrote: Hello, I'm trying to characterize Debian and have the following: Debian is for the tech savvy sys admin type and the server market Is this a good characterization or am I off base? Thanks Used to be. These days, in the wake of systemd, at least this sys admin will never install it again. The reasons are technical. -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra
Re: Can I still depend on Debian?
To the original question - I'm thinking the Jessie is going to be Debian's equivalent of Microsoft Vista. I plan to stay on Wheezy as long as LTS lets me, and wait and see how things shake out. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/546a9447.20...@meetinghouse.net
Re: Being part of a community and behaving
Matthias Urlichs wrote: Hi, Miles Fidelman: Personally, I think Ian's statement is spot on. [...] The stream of negative reactions is even more revealing of the state to which the community has devolved. Ah. In other words, basically, denying that a conspiracy is going on is in itself a confirmation of the conspiracy theory. Huh? Who said anything about conspiracy or not? Personally, I see it as arrogance, a couple of developers with an agenda and salaries behind them, pushing an agenda, and way to many fanboys and apologists, and way too many people standing aside and letting a snowball roll downhill. No conspiracy needed at all. Just the worst of human behavior coming to the fore. This is a large chunk of the reason why nobody in the systemd camp wants to listen any more. Any real problems or concerns you might have with the direction the systemd ecosystem is going in just get lost in the noise anyway, so why bother? Nah, nobody in the systemd camp was ever listening, and not enough people called them on it. It's been a long time since any of this discussion has been for them. It's been for those who might act to change things. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5465f8b0.8030...@meetinghouse.net
Re: debian-boston-soc
Sam Hartman wrote: Apologies for the debian-boston-soc mailing list going away. I changed infrastructure a couple of years ago and it made it a bit more difficult to host mailing lists. I'd be happy if someone else wanted to run a Debian Boston mailing list, and I'd be willing to make the effort to bring the list back if people would use it. It didn't get a lot of traffic. --Sam I have a list server (sympa) that's readily available to host a list - if there's interest. Were there many folks on the list when it was shut down? Would it make sense to post to debian-users and/or debian-devel to assess interest? Miles Fidelman p.s. I should add the caveat that, in a couple of years, I may no longer be a Debian user, depending on the outcome of the systemd battles - though happy to continue to support a list (I still support a list for Boston Latin parents - even though my daughter is long graduated). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/54654f82.4070...@meetinghouse.net
Re: Being part of a community and behaving
Gunnar Wolf wrote: Ian Jackson dijo [Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 04:53:30PM +]: The correct reaction to people not adopting your software is to make your software better, not to conduct an aggressive marketing campaign aimed at persuading upstreams to built it in as a dependency, nor to overrun distro mailing lists with advocacy messages. Ian, You are one of the people I most respect and admire in this project. And that, believe me, is no small feat. Your contributions, socially and technically, are tremendous. But the style of communication you have taken on this debate is very toxic and very not constructive. Please, *please* consider not sending messages that have as their only goal to state again what has been stated so many times. Repeating them will not make them more palatable. I don't know (nor really care) whether this could be put formally as a complaint regarding CoC abuse. But please, human to human: You have made your point. We are halfway through a GR on the topic. Let it rest. We don't need more poison in the lists. Personally, I think Ian's statement is spot on. It states very clearly what is so very wrong with what's happening with systemd, Debian, and large chunks of the Linux ecosystem. And perhaps why some (many?) of us are actively looking at alternatives. The stream of negative reactions is even more revealing of the state to which the community has devolved. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/546588da.6020...@meetinghouse.net
Re: The proper place to announce GRs (was Re: piece of mind (Re: Moderated posts?))
Kurt Roeckx wrote: On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:32:35PM +0300, Lars Wirzenius wrote: On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 07:30:43PM +0100, Jonathan Dowland wrote: I think we should clearly indicate where GRs should be announced. (Should, I suppose I'm arguing, not must). I think we don't need to name the place in the constitution. I don't think we need a hard rule about where the announcement happens. I do, however, think it would be good to announce all proposed GRs on debian-devel-announce and debian-vote, with Reply-To to debian-vote. This would ensure all DDs hear about every proposed GR. There's not enough of them to cause a lot of d-d-a traffic. If the proposer of a GR forgets to do that, the secretary or some other DD could do it for them. If on -vote the required amount of seconds have been reached, I will announce that the GR process has been sarted on debian-devel-announce. Isn't the point of posting on debian-devel-announce to increase the visibility and liklihood of seconds in the first place? -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/543d1dee.6050...@meetinghouse.net
Re: The proper place to announce GRs (was Re: piece of mind (Re: Moderated posts?))
Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 07:30:43PM +0100, Jonathan Dowland wrote: Whilst researching for a reply to a different post in this thread on -user (the thread sadly spans at least three lists), I realised that the constitution doesn't say where GRs should be announced, and I couldn't find any advice on the subject in a scan over policy, either. FWIW, Constitution §4.2.5 says: 5. Proposals, sponsors, amendments, calls for votes and other formal actions are made by announcement on a publicly-readable electronic mailing list designated by the Project Leader's Delegate(s); any Developer may post there. Cheers, Ahhh... this is like RFPs and legal announcements - as long as you post it somewhere, you're covered. As opposed to requiring posting in a highly visible place. -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/543c320c.2020...@meetinghouse.net
