On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 10:19 PM, Matt Turner <matts...@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 7:15 PM, R0b0t1 <r03...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What I wanted to avoid was something I encountered on the GCC mailing
>> list: When I asked why GCJ was removed, I was told that it was hard to
>> maintain. When I asked for an example of past maintenance issues (and
>> made it clear I had no interest in disputing whether the issues were
>> valid or not) I received no reply from the maintainer except his
>> original answer, leaving me to wonder whether GCJ was actually hard to
>> maintain.
>>
>> I have seen similar exchanges associated with other projects.
>
> When you have no standing in the project, there's little incentive to
> justify one's actions and decisions to you.
>
No, but common courtesy would be to provide a short answer. If what I
have requested is more work than the individual wants to undertake
they would be free to say so (which is why I was confused, I only
expected a sentence or two, and this is why I felt I should explain
robbat2's answer was better than I expected). At the same time, I aim
to only ask questions that I feel the other person would have already
considered. In this case, if the decision is the right one, then a
coherent explanation of why the actions being taken are being taken
should already exist in some form.
If they don't, then why is action being taken?
There is another comment of mine on this list where I asked a
developer why a package was being dropped. I had no intention of
disputing their decision, but I felt the given reason was too vague to
be useful. Their response was maybe two sentences and added something
like "upstream is being difficult." That seemed fine.
Cheers,
R0b0t1
