Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 10:52:50AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 08:55:30PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: On Wednesday 23 February 2005 7:09 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Where has he been rallying support? Where is he an announced candidate? http://wiki.debian.net/?DraftBranden That wiki page was not created by Branden, it was created by people who think Branden should run. Branden's only message to debian-vote this month has been to explain the conditions under which he would run for DPL again, in direct response to duplicate questions from DDs. They (and he) are courteous enough to not fill this mailing list with irrelevant drivel about a non-candidate; why aren't you? Is being an ass to your peers really the only strategy you find effective in life? Steve, i have to disagree with you about that, Branden's post here, altough he didn't declare itself as candidate, clearly put him on the rank of potential candidates, and as far as i know, it could be a clever trick to start some campaigning before the official campaigning deadline. Now, this is in no way a judgement one way or the other on the validity of Ean's claims. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 03:08:52PM +, MJ Ray wrote: It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. Good point; it would probably be a good idea to announce them on d-d-a. Cheers, Nick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 09:07:37PM +1300, Nick Phillips wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 03:08:52PM +, MJ Ray wrote: It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. Good point; it would probably be a good idea to announce them on d-d-a. I would be happy to do that, if there is some wider consensus (on -project perhaps?) that this would be desired, as opposed to unwelcome noise. I have added this page to the site: http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meetings It explains that meetings are usually held at 1900UTC on the first Tuesday of every month. Since they were predictable, in the past, I haven't thought it merited a post to d-d-a. But I'm happy to do that if people would find it helpful. What do you think? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 10:30 pm, John Goerzen wrote: I looked at your wiki page. The only items that look relevant going forth are I outlined next steps to correct procedures going forward and Checks are now once again being processed by volunteers in two assorted places with no secure storage and no professional accounting help. Regarding the first point, could you post a URL to these suggestions of yours? The discussions were on the SPI board list and are not publicly available. My general suggestions were: We should pay an actual person to perform clerical services for SPI. For $18,000 we could have paid a trained office temp to do 50 hours of clerical work a month for the next three years. 50 hours a month should safely allow that person to: - Open all the mail, scan it and upload it to a secure web server. - Sort and file all the materials. - Take all materials older than 12 months and send it to a permanent, secure document archive service such as iron mountain. 50 hours, actually, is probably way, way to much time. I would imagine typical traffic load will require no more than 10 hours a month. I would be happy to host the files and the temp at my office facility but we could have backups. I'm sure Progeny, Ubuntu, HP or even the government of Brazil would help us come up with something more secure and professional than having all Debian's legal documents sitting at someone's house. I'll add this stuff to my Wiki entry. Regarding the second point, I agree with you that professional accounting help should be found. However, simply saying, see, we're paying someone to help! doesn't magically make things better. As you know, there has been some resistance to spending money on this. It doesn't really take a pro to write log transactions and send things off to a bank, either. It is taking a long time. Any reasonably conducted business should be able to cut a check on a 30 day cycle. It should also be totally possible for most businesses to expedite a check in 24 hours. I know I waited six months and I know of at least one other person who is more than a year out. I'm certain that there are other Debianers who have had problems but aren't talking about it. Regarding secure storage: what is there to store? Checks are being sent off for deposit almost as soon as they come in, and bank statements, canceled checks, etc. are made available electronically. Having an Internet bank is, I think, a great benefit there -- and the geographical proximity to Branden probably helps, too. Businesses should store five years of financial transactions in case there is an audit. At Brainfood we store seven. How good do you feel about SPI going through an IRS audit right now? I've been through them and it wasn't fun and we were well prepared. We probably have some non-treasurer things -- incorporation papers, etc -- that should be in a safe deposit box somewhere. I'm aware of that. It just hasn't been at the top of the list given all the other urgent needs we have around here. Or are you aware of things I don't know of? Where is the correspondence for that lady that brought charges against SPI being stored? With Greg? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Thursday 24 February 2005 5:48 am, MJ Ray wrote: Can you add references for some of the claims? It's hard for anyone to take that page and run with it. Also, not setting a white background would make it easier to read. I can. I'll fill it in. Do you have any response to the claim that your invoice was in a box of papers for filing? Yes. The invoice was included in the box I sent to Branden. The box was not full of papers for filing, but rather filed papers. Branden sent me 15 pounds of unopened mail and I sent back those papers filed by account and year with photocopies of the checks that were returned to the donors. The invoice was on top of the filed papers. Branden took a picture of what he received and sent it to the board. The board had requested that the files be sent to Branden since he was still the only person who had permission to sign checks even though he was no longer treasurer. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 08:55:30PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: On Wednesday 23 February 2005 7:09 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Where has he been rallying support? Where is he an announced candidate? http://wiki.debian.net/?DraftBranden That wiki page was not created by Branden, it was created by people who think Branden should run. Branden's only message to debian-vote this month has been to explain the conditions under which he would run for DPL again, in direct response to duplicate questions from DDs. They (and he) are courteous enough to not fill this mailing list with irrelevant drivel about a non-candidate; why aren't you? Is being an ass to your peers really the only strategy you find effective in life? -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Thursday 24 February 2005 12:52 pm, Steve Langasek wrote: That wiki page was not created by Branden, it was created by people who think Branden should run. Branden's only message to debian-vote this month has been to explain the conditions under which he would run for DPL again, in direct response to duplicate questions from DDs. The net effect is that he is campaigning early with assistance from 3rd parties. They (and he) are courteous enough to not fill this mailing list with irrelevant drivel about a non-candidate; why aren't you? Is being an ass to your peers really the only strategy you find effective in life? Of course, you would never stoop to such tactics, would you? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 03:51:52PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: On Thursday 24 February 2005 12:52 pm, Steve Langasek wrote: That wiki page was not created by Branden, it was created by people who think Branden should run. Branden's only message to debian-vote this month has been to explain the conditions under which he would run for DPL again, in direct response to duplicate questions from DDs. The net effect is that he is campaigning early with assistance from 3rd parties. The only one campaigning is you, and what you're doing suspiciously looks like a slander campaign. Branden has as far as I can see, nowhere done any public DPL-platform like statements in this month. --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
For it to be slander I would have to be lying. How would you cope with a genuine slander campaign if I was conducting one? Am I lying? How do you know? What resources can you use? Will one of you prove that I am lying or do you just prefer to go on your instincts? Moreover, lying aside, do you even really care about Debian misplacing its funds? On Thursday 24 February 2005 3:54 pm, Jeroen van Wolffelaar wrote: The only one campaigning is you, and what you're doing suspiciously looks like a slander campaign. Branden has as far as I can see, nowhere done any public DPL-platform like statements in this month. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Branden, and the SPI board, need to stop side stepping issues. Why are you discussing this on debian-vote? Still? Why not? -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Ultimately the question still stands, have operations been repaired? I doubt anyone would take a yes here now, quite rightly. We need to watch and decide for ourselves. Would it have been better to let me execute a rapid and forceful reorganization of SPI's operations in order to set its house well in order? No and I think you've demonstrated why not very well. I would hope that there are laws against presidents doing that, but US company laws seem very lax to me. [...] Branden inherited a huge mess and the task was difficult but that doesn't change the fact that he failed at the task and blames everyone but himself. In SPI's minutes, I see Branden being appointed (September 2001), working for a while (to mid-2002), flagging up the problem (January 2003), trying to get help to deal with the problem (July 2003) and resigning (January 2004). I have seen him being a bit annoyed with the other people in the mess with him, but I can understand that. Can you tell me where to see him blaming everyone else? This seems similar to an earlier situation where a secretary was appointed, couldn't fill in past holes and resigned, although you didn't give any time between pointing it out and resigning. Maybe you gave up too quickly and Branden gave up too slowly? Also from the minutes, it looks like SPI was slowly failing from mid-2002. Branden was part of the board, but so were you. Who should we blame? Is there any point blaming anyway? Show me where he ever said I screwed up because I didn't do my job and it cost Debian a lot of money. A leader must take responsibility. Branden wasn't leader of SPI. You were. [...] Number one, Branden isn't ready to be DPL because he won't accept responsibility and he is not sufficiently organized. Can you substantiate that claim besides trying to blame him for the SPI bug? His packages don't seem to be worse than a few other people I've looked at, although it seems his upstreams aren't particularly cooperative. Number two, Debian needs to take some formal action with regard to assuring that the SPI role is executed properly. Whether that means killing SPI, reorganizing its staff or providing fault tolerant redundancy is an open matter. Not really a Branden/DPL issue, but more a DPL question in general: Will the DPL go to many SPI board meetings or appoint a delegate? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 01:07:16PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Ultimately the question still stands, have operations been repaired? I doubt anyone would take a yes here now, quite rightly. We need to watch and decide for ourselves. Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. Every Debian developer is entitled to vote in SPI general elections, yet if memory serves, SPI has about one fifth the participation that DPL elections get. And that's counting not just Debian SPI members, but all SPI members that vote. That's an important first step. But as I've mentioned before, one of our other problems is a chronic lack of manpower. We're slowly getting better there. The SPI board actually makes quorum for its meetings these days, for one visible sign :-) There are two people working on the treasurer tasks. It doesn't take much to help out. Just join a mailing list or attend a meeting and you'll see what things we need to work on. Volunteer, and chances are people would jump at the opportunity to have help. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. For example, I just looked for the next meeting date. I looked at http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/agenda/ and saw the meeting agenda for 1 February, where it was proposed that the next meeting is 1 February(?). I looked around the site and found the general meeting is on 1 July, but no date for the monthly meetings. I'm sure there's some page for members, but I didn't find a link to it on the membership page. Looking at spi-announce archives (Mailing Lists link), I didn't find it in there. Finally, I went into irc.oftc.net#spi and found it in the topic: Next Board Meeting is here on 1 March 2005 at 1900 UTC. I'll forward a copy of this to the webmaster address on the pages. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 03:08:52PM +, MJ Ray wrote: John Goerzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. It would help if SPI announced its board meeting dates more widely. I do e-mail spi-general with the info about 2 weeks in advance. Here's the most recent notice: http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-general/2005-February/001224.html You're right about the website. We've had continuing trouble keeping it up to date. I'll talk to spi-www folk and see what I can do to fix that. It's about time I learn how to edit the SPI site, I suppose. In general, meetings are at 1900 UTC in irc.oftc.net #spi on the first Tuesday of the month. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 08:26:00AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 01:07:16PM +, MJ Ray wrote: Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Ultimately the question still stands, have operations been repaired? I doubt anyone would take a yes here now, quite rightly. We need to watch and decide for ourselves. Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. Every Debian developer is entitled to vote in SPI general elections, yet if memory serves, SPI has about one fifth the participation that DPL elections get. And that's counting not just Debian SPI members, but all SPI members that vote. Notice that for non-US developers, i think that SPI is not all that interesting to get involved with actively, that is at least the impression i get from it. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 04:17:19PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 08:26:00AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. Every Debian developer is entitled to vote in SPI general elections, yet if memory serves, SPI has about one fifth the participation that DPL elections get. And that's counting not just Debian SPI members, but all SPI members that vote. Notice that for non-US developers, i think that SPI is not all that interesting to get involved with actively, that is at least the impression i get from it. Probably the interest level is about the same for everyone. If you are bored with what SPI does, it probably doesn't matter where you live :-) We have three non-US people on the SPI board: David Graham (Canada), Ian Jackson (UK), Joey Schulze (Germany), if I remember correctly. We also have non-US people that occasionally help us translate web pages. As far as I know, we have no rules regarding the nationality of members or officers of SPI. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 09:36:38AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 04:17:19PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote: On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 08:26:00AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote: Ean is right that Debian needs to be more active with SPI. I wish many more Debian developers were actively watching SPI. Every Debian developer is entitled to vote in SPI general elections, yet if memory serves, SPI has about one fifth the participation that DPL elections get. And that's counting not just Debian SPI members, but all SPI members that vote. Notice that for non-US developers, i think that SPI is not all that interesting to get involved with actively, that is at least the impression i get from it. Probably the interest level is about the same for everyone. If you are bored with what SPI does, it probably doesn't matter where you live :-) Well, i guess US residents are probably more used with the abysmal banking system you have there, and so don't dispair when the lost-checks-horror-story get regularly posted on the mailing lists. We have three non-US people on the SPI board: David Graham (Canada), Ian Jackson (UK), Joey Schulze (Germany), if I remember correctly. We also have non-US people that occasionally help us translate web pages. Yeah, but there is also ffis or whatever its name was in germany. As far as I know, we have no rules regarding the nationality of members or officers of SPI. Probably. Still you are subject to laws of NY or something such in the SPI bylaws, and really most of those talks are really really tedious. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 7:07 am, MJ Ray wrote: I doubt anyone would take a yes here now, quite rightly. We need to watch and decide for ourselves. Hey. I agree. No and I think you've demonstrated why not very well. I would hope that there are laws against presidents doing that, but US company laws seem very lax to me. As I've said, I can be combative, irrational and mean tempered. At the same time, I was able to get a few years of accounting problems cleared up in a week or two. I think it is great that we are focused on group concensus in Debian but I think everyone can agree that we paralyze ourselves with that focus at times. If you look underneath the skin, most interesting things in Debian get done by individuals who work without permission to build something interesting. Fundamentally, all I was trying to do was hack on SPI because it was broken. Think of it like this. If the Debian mailservers were broken, how long would Debian wait for the official mailserver guy to fix them if it became clear that he didn't really know much about mailservers? How long would keep someone who knew exactly how to fix the problem from doing so in the name of an official title? I may be a pain in the ass but I do run a business and have a full time accountanting help. I also write ecommerce websites for a living. Fixing the SPI accounting is kiddie stuff. In SPI's minutes, I see Branden being appointed (September 2001), working for a while (to mid-2002), flagging up the problem (January 2003), trying to get help to deal with the problem (July 2003) and resigning (January 2004). I have seen him being a bit annoyed with the other people in the mess with him, but I can understand that. Can you tell me where to see him blaming everyone else? When I say that he blames everyone I mean just those defenses. That the job was more than one person can do, that no one would help him. When raising that argument he fails to include the fact that it took months for him to ship the paperwork even at my expense. Also, the job just isn't that hard. It's tiresome, boring and detail oriented but not overly time consuming. Its only when it is neglected that the backlog becomes difficult to deal with. Even then, with an enormous back log, it wasn't that hard for us to iron out. This seems similar to an earlier situation where a secretary was appointed, couldn't fill in past holes and resigned, although you didn't give any time between pointing it out and resigning. Maybe you gave up too quickly and Branden gave up too slowly? Could be. I have a short attention span. Also from the minutes, it looks like SPI was slowly failing from mid-2002. Branden was part of the board, but so were you. Who should we blame? Is there any point blaming anyway? Blame me for sure! I am not good at getting volunteer hackers to participate in a bureaucracy. I've learned that the hard way in flying colors. I can get things done with my normal team. I wanted to use that team to clear up SPI's problem but that meant breaking stride with the existing processes. The existing processes weren't working and, to my way of thinking, are only barely limping along now. I didn't see the harm. That, of course, is part of why I failed. Branden wasn't leader of SPI. You were. See above. I failed to lead SPI effectively. (I did, however, alert hundreds of people that their donations to Debian had failed to complete because of ineffective processes and returned their checks to them and I did that by myself. Not that I'm complaining. It wasn't that hard.) Can you substantiate that claim besides trying to blame him for the SPI bug? His packages don't seem to be worse than a few other people I've looked at, although it seems his upstreams aren't particularly cooperative. Well. I would like to make the bold distinction that hacking on software is not the same thing as maintaining a bureaucracy and that assumption is why we have failed to make SPI work again and again and again. Not really a Branden/DPL issue, but more a DPL question in general: Will the DPL go to many SPI board meetings or appoint a delegate? Debian money held by SPI is still Debian's money. SPI is a corporation and Debian is its main customer. If I had a bank mislay checks constituting 50% of my account holdings I would take a very active interest in its operations. I don't think its a question of who will represent Debian in SPI but rather the level of performance Debian expects. The representative is irrelevant so long as results are achieved. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Please take this off debian-vote. It is not on-topic here and belongs elsewhere. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
I will continue to respond to inquiries on this topic on Debian -vote. You have expressed your opinion that this is off topic for vote. Since Branden is running for DPL (or has, at least, begun rallying support) and since the topic of discussion is his success as an officer of SPI, I modestly submit that you are wrong. For the time being I have sufficiently stated the facts, unquestionable as they are, and am content to wait for further discussion. If you want to keep noise down then you can at least refrain from these obviously ineffective requests to cease the discussion. Especially since such requests ironically continue the very thing you are trying to end. Uh, so there. Nyah. etc. On Wednesday 23 February 2005 4:35 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Please take this off debian-vote. It is not on-topic here and belongs elsewhere. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I will continue to respond to inquiries on this topic on Debian -vote. You have expressed your opinion that this is off topic for vote. Since Branden is running for DPL (or has, at least, begun rallying support) and since the topic of discussion is his success as an officer of SPI, I modestly submit that you are wrong. Where has he been rallying support? Where is he an announced candidate? For the time being I have sufficiently stated the facts, unquestionable as they are, and am content to wait for further discussion. What you have stated are not the facts. Are you afraid to bring them up on the SPI mailing lists where they belong? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Please take this off debian-vote. [...] Please stop cc'ing me on list, at least. I read debian-vote. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 7:09 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Where has he been rallying support? Where is he an announced candidate? http://wiki.debian.net/?DraftBranden What you have stated are not the facts. Are you afraid to bring them up on the SPI mailing lists where they belong? SPI is not in a position to change its own behavior. :-D -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] As I've said, I can be combative, irrational and mean tempered. At the same time, I was able to get a few years of accounting problems cleared up in a week or two. [...] Huh? If you cleared up the accounting problems, why did you come into this thread claiming that there are accounting problems? Did SPI undo all the process changes you put in place in another week or two? Maybe you cleared up some accounting symptoms but not the problems. I mean, that's good too, but who's fixing the problems you left? [...] I may be a pain in the ass but I do run a business and have a full time accountanting help. I also write ecommerce websites for a living. Fixing the SPI accounting is kiddie stuff. Sure, but you have no fine clue how to work with people you can't raise or fire, as far as I've seen. [...] When raising that argument he fails to include the fact that it took months for him to ship the paperwork even at my expense. Erm, *I* raised the argument and I didn't include that as I didn't notice mention it in the record. Wasn't there any problem with the president taking control of financial office? If not, I'll wait for some other of SPI board to comment. [...] Its only when it is neglected that the backlog becomes difficult to deal with. Even then, with an enormous back log, it wasn't that hard for us to iron out. How long was it neglected when Branden took the post? Can you substantiate that claim besides trying to blame him for the SPI bug? His packages don't seem to be worse than a few other people I've looked at, although it seems his upstreams aren't particularly cooperative. Well. I would like to make the bold distinction that hacking on software is not the same thing as maintaining a bureaucracy and that assumption is why we have failed to make SPI work again and again and again. Sure, fine. So no, you can't substantiate it beyond trying to blame the whole SPI thing on Branden? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Subscribed to this list. No need to Cc, thanks. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wednesday 23 February 2005 9:05 pm, MJ Ray wrote: Huh? If you cleared up the accounting problems, why did you come into this thread claiming that there are accounting problems? Did SPI undo all the process changes you put in place in another week or two? As a service to mailservers everywhere I'll put up a permanent page outlining my complaints: http://www.eanschuessler.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=SPIAccounting Maybe you cleared up some accounting symptoms but not the problems. I mean, that's good too, but who's fixing the problems you left? I didn't leave any problems that I was able to fix. I left a lot of neatly sorted and labled files in a box, safely delivered to the person the board demanded. I wasn't allowed to do anything more than that and my official term had expired. I did leave a half finished end-of-year report but since I wasn't the Treasurer and since I had no end of year financial summary that seemed a difficult proposition at best. I did leave a significant portion of the material that was in the final end of year document. Still, that effort was a failure and I will accept responsibility for it. I could have dogged people for content even after my term was up. Sure, but you have no fine clue how to work with people you can't raise or fire, as far as I've seen. That much appears to be true. Erm, *I* raised the argument and I didn't include that as I didn't notice mention it in the record. Wasn't there any problem with the president taking control of financial office? If not, I'll wait for some other of SPI board to comment. Open to interpretation. The President *not* taking control of the financial office (at least temporarily) has certainly allowed problems to continue. How long was it neglected when Branden took the post? A period of years. We corrected portions of that task as well. Sure, fine. So no, you can't substantiate it beyond trying to blame the whole SPI thing on Branden? It depends on what you mean by the SPI thing. If you mean not processing hundreds of donation checks, then yes, I blame that on Branden. If you mean a generally confused organization that is marginally fulfilling its charter and endangering the resources of the projects it serves, then no. That problem belongs to all of us. The above statement is way letting Darren Benham off the hook but he isn't running for DPL. If he ran for DPL then I would put on a display that makes this look like Sunday school. Branden knew that Darren had cocked things up terribly when he took the task on. Let me be clear. The fact that he failed isn't the problem. Branden is a stand up guy but we're talking about running for DPL. When addressing his failure he can't say things like I didn't lose the funds, they were sent back to the donors. That's not DPL behavior. That's not showing problems at face value. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 09:41:05PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: On Wednesday 23 February 2005 9:05 pm, MJ Ray wrote: As a service to mailservers everywhere I'll put up a permanent page outlining my complaints: http://www.eanschuessler.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=SPIAccounting [ snip ] Open to interpretation. The President *not* taking control of the financial office (at least temporarily) has certainly allowed problems to continue. Trying once again to make something productive out of this little discussion... I looked at your wiki page. The only items that look relevant going forth are I outlined next steps to correct procedures going forward and Checks are now once again being processed by volunteers in two assorted places with no secure storage and no professional accounting help. Regarding the first point, could you post a URL to these suggestions of yours? Regarding the second point, I agree with you that professional accounting help should be found. However, simply saying, see, we're paying someone to help! doesn't magically make things better. As you know, there has been some resistance to spending money on this. It doesn't really take a pro to write log transactions and send things off to a bank, either. Regarding secure storage: what is there to store? Checks are being sent off for deposit almost as soon as they come in, and bank statements, canceled checks, etc. are made available electronically. Having an Internet bank is, I think, a great benefit there -- and the geographical proximity to Branden probably helps, too. We probably have some non-treasurer things -- incorporation papers, etc -- that should be in a safe deposit box somewhere. I'm aware of that. It just hasn't been at the top of the list given all the other urgent needs we have around here. Or are you aware of things I don't know of? -- John Goerzen Author, Foundations of Python Network Programming http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590593715 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler wrote: You guys knew this was coming. When I shelved this flamewar months ago I made it clear that the problem would be revisited at a future date. That future date is here and I want to know how SPI has corrected its accounting problems. I want to know the filing procedures. I want to know why I can't Please send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with detailed questions. Feel free to copy the spi-general list. I don't think problems in SPI need to be discussed on debian-vote. get paid for six months and why SPI's officers badmouth my company when we Because SPI was switching banks as can be read in the meeting minutes (I hope they're online...) ask to get paid. These are reasonable questions. Debian should be curious Because at that time the cheque was just sent and your company was just reimbursed the money you thrust out? about how its monies are managed. How any DPL candidate can ignore the fact that SPI misplaced $18,000.00 of donation checks this year is beyond me. I think it is a valid and reasonable topic for discussion in this DPL race. This is something you haven't brought up until now. :) (In this thread, I mean, I know that you've brought it up before.) Regards, Joey -- Of course, I didn't mean that, which is why I didn't say it. What I meant to say, I said. -- Thomas Bushnell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
John, I must commend you on this excellent summary of the current goings-on with SPI. My only regret is that it takes my nasty tempered flame whipping to get something this informative out of the board. I know that you guys are trying and doing what in each of your minds you feel is the most productive. Obviously there were disagreements between us about what constituted effective action. I'm willing to make a vocal nuisance of myself and fight dirty if I believe no other actions will be effective and that tends to make me look evil. Hell, maybe I am evil or even just simply annoying. For a moment, let's try to look past the fact that I'm an aggressive dickhead and get to the root of my complaint. The SPI board blocked my efforts to repair SPI's logistics because my manner was too dictatorial. That may or may not have been a sound decision. Ultimately the question still stands, have operations been repaired? Would it have been better to let me execute a rapid and forceful reorganization of SPI's operations in order to set its house well in order? The productivity of the organization and the results of the board's decisions need to be judged, my sins aside. Branden, and the SPI board, need to stop side stepping issues. Making me the villain is not a cure all, no matter how well I fit the role. Branden inherited a huge mess and the task was difficult but that doesn't change the fact that he failed at the task and blames everyone but himself. Show me where he ever said I screwed up because I didn't do my job and it cost Debian a lot of money. A leader must take responsibility. I am not, however, placing blame for the whole situation on him. There are two messages mixed in with the noise and blather of my attacks. Number one, Branden isn't ready to be DPL because he won't accept responsibility and he is not sufficiently organized. Number two, Debian needs to take some formal action with regard to assuring that the SPI role is executed properly. Whether that means killing SPI, reorganizing its staff or providing fault tolerant redundancy is an open matter. Cheers. ~Ean On Saturday 19 February 2005 5:41 pm, John Goerzen wrote: It is true that SPI still is not performing like it should be. It is also true that SPI has never performed like it should in its entire history. SPI has been dysfunctional from its very beginning. It's also been short on manpower through its entire lifespan. For whatever reason, SPI has not been of much interest to many Debian folks for most of the time, except for the occasional flamewar. Some of us are trying to make SPI better. It is a difficult thing to do, given the magnitude of the problems in the past, the lack of volunteer manpower (our single biggest problem), general lack of interest, and disagreements about the best way to proceed. Since your term as president of SPI ended, I have seen nothing but trolling from you. SPI sucks, SPI sucks, you suck sort of thing. Yes, we all know there are problems -- big ones, even. Yelling about them doesn't fix them. It is unfair to lay all of SPI's ills at Branden's feet. If memory serves, the treasurer before him literally *disappeared* for long periods of time. The board at that point often failed to meet due to so many members failing to show up. Branden inherited a huge mess. Yes, he made mistakes, but I think you are misconstruing this incident and incorrectly magnifying it as part of some sort of vendetta. In this particular instance, if memory serves, you sent the invoice to Branden inside a large box of other papers -- even though Branden had already resigned as treasurer by that time. The rest of us were not aware of it until later, and you had given mixed signals previously about whether or not you would charge SPI for your helpful efforts. It is unfair to lay all this at Branden's feet for another reason. While preside, you tried to usurp the authority of the SPI treasurer, a move that put SPI itself in quesitonable legal waters. While you were ultimately stopped, by the rest of the board and the expiration of your term, your actions led directly to Yet Another SPI Treasurer Crisis, not to mention one of the nastiest flamewars in SPI history. While it is true that Brainfood provided valuable help processing part of the accounting backlog, it is also true that the manner in which you handled it caused huge problems that linger today. Finally, you argue that Branden said nasty things about you publically. What you didn't state was that there was not one single active person in #spi at the time, and, again if memory serves, probably fewer than 20 the entire time. So, while technically true that #spi is not a private channel, you made the comments far more public than he did. I suspect that nobody paid much notice to them, and that Branden expected as much. Let's talk about some of the good things happening at SPI, too. David Graham has
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Branden, and the SPI board, need to stop side stepping issues. Why are you discussing this on debian-vote? Still? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The obfuscation continues! Let's not get caught up in the actual problems I'm trying to put on the table. Let's stay focused on the fact that discussing mistakes and the efforts to correct them makes you persona non grata. When you were appointed President in July 2003, Branden had found an accountant to help with the work. From the minutes, it seems the SPI board did not revisit this topic before Branden's resignation is mentioned in January 2004. By May 2004, the apologies are being sent out. In general, status reports seem few and far between in the minutes. Aren't they meant to be part of the normal order of business under the SPI by-laws? As you were so happy to point out last summer, doesn't the president have some responsibility for checking SPI follows the by-laws? There do seem to have been problems with SPI. I don't think one member of the board can put the blame solely on one other member of it without clear evidence. At best, your abrasive hectoring conduct as SPI president did not seem to help. I don't think you should be so keen to raise this topic again. I don't think the SPI problems makes transparency and accountability any more or less of an issue in the DPL elections than it would have been otherwise. I would like to ask all candidates about them, but let's wait for campaigning to start. -- MJR/slef http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The obfuscation continues! Let's not get caught up in the actual problems I'm trying to put on the table. Let's stay focused on the fact that discussing mistakes and the efforts to correct them makes you persona non grata. I don't think Branden has even announced candidacy for the DPL. Doesn't this rather make it seem like you're pissing in the wind? Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: You guys knew this was coming. When I shelved this flamewar months ago I made it clear that the problem would be revisited at a future date. That future date is here and I want to know how SPI has corrected its accounting problems. I want to know the filing procedures. Tough. You were obstructionist when you were the SPI President, and you don't get to play obstruction now. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 11:39:16AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: You guys knew this was coming. When I shelved this flamewar months ago I made it clear that the problem would be revisited at a future date. That future date is here and I want to know how SPI has corrected its accounting problems. I want to know the filing procedures. I want to know why I can't RTFM: http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/minutes/ http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/minutes/20041207.txt If you don't understand what's there, ask. You obviously have logs of #spi, soyou know what's been discussed. In a nutshell: 1. A regular treasurer's budget has been established 2. The treasurer has adopted a more informative reporting system 3. An assistant treasurer (Branden) has been selected 4. Banking is now done in a more convenient way for geographically disparate people Obviously the work is incomplete. But progress is being made, despite your efforts to ignore it. Jimmy or Branden can probably speak more to this. If you want to engage in a discussion about this, I submit that spi-general is a more appropriate forum than debian-vote. Of course, this is not the only business that SPI must attend to, and we've had other things to deal with also. get paid for six months and why SPI's officers badmouth my company when we It would have helped if: a) you had sent the invoice to the SPI treasurer b) you hadn't sent it in the middle of a box of papers that otherwise needed only to be stored c) you hadn't made contradictory remarks about whether or not you desired payment at all Branden is not an SPI officer. Jimmy is the SPI treasurer. Branden is a member of the board only. ask to get paid. These are reasonable questions. Debian should be curious about how its monies are managed. How any DPL candidate can ignore the fact that SPI misplaced $18,000.00 of donation checks this year is beyond me. I think it is a valid and reasonable topic for discussion in this DPL race. Actually, this year would be inaccurate. last year would even be inaccurate. This would have to be 2003 and before, right? Maybe a very small part of the beginning of 2004? -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Monday 21 February 2005 1:38 pm, MJ Ray wrote: When you were appointed President in July 2003, Branden had found an accountant to help with the work. From the minutes, it seems the SPI board did not revisit this topic before Branden's resignation is mentioned in January 2004. By May 2004, the apologies are being sent out. It took some number of months for me to extract the records. In general, status reports seem few and far between in the minutes. Aren't they meant to be part of the normal order of business under the SPI by-laws? As you were so happy to point out last summer, doesn't the president have some responsibility for checking SPI follows the by-laws? It is also the responsibility of the SPI President to see that records are accounted for properly and legally. However, it wasn't possible for me to do this because the new Treasurer (Jimmy Kaplowitz) would be told how to do his job. While I admire his chutzpah, his timing was not ideal. So, responsibility yes... capability no. There do seem to have been problems with SPI. I don't think one member of the board can put the blame solely on one other member of it without clear evidence. At best, your abrasive hectoring conduct as SPI president did not seem to help. I don't think you should be so keen to raise this topic again. Hey, I suck! I'm the first to agree. That's why I didn't run as President again. Jimmy, Branden and the rest of the SPI team have now had a six month crack at sorting it out on their own without my badgering. That doesn't seem to have working well either. I don't think the SPI problems makes transparency and accountability any more or less of an issue in the DPL elections than it would have been otherwise. I would like to ask all candidates about them, but let's wait for campaigning to start. I disagree. This is the first time SPI misplaced $18,000.00 of Debian's money. That's a pretty spectacular screw up. Without Debian's money and trademarks SPI is largely irrelevant. I think its all good food for thought. I do agree about the campaign though. I'm just warming up a little, since Branden has been doing the same. Speaking of... I'm not running for DPL but here is something almost as good for you: http://www.eanschuessler.com/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=ShutUp -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Monday 21 February 2005 2:26 pm, John Goerzen wrote: In a nutshell: 1. A regular treasurer's budget has been established 2. The treasurer has adopted a more informative reporting system 3. An assistant treasurer (Branden) has been selected 4. Banking is now done in a more convenient way for geographically disparate people There is improvement. The reports are vastly more informative than the complete lack of information we had seen previously. However, there is still no line-item information on how SPI is receiving and spending project monies, just high-level summaries. I am also concerned about the security and organization of the filing system and how paperwork is being disposed of. If we could get the invoicing cycle down from 180 days to 30 or something then we would be getting somewhere. I'm also curious to see whether reports continue since the January '05 report is the first and only one ever delivered. But hey! I'm behind you guys 100%! Obviously the work is incomplete. But progress is being made, despite your efforts to ignore it. Jimmy or Branden can probably speak more to this. If you want to engage in a discussion about this, I submit that spi-general is a more appropriate forum than debian-vote. Of course, this is not the only business that SPI must attend to, and we've had other things to deal with also. get paid for six months and why SPI's officers badmouth my company when we It would have helped if: a) you had sent the invoice to the SPI treasurer b) you hadn't sent it in the middle of a box of papers that otherwise needed only to be stored c) you hadn't made contradictory remarks about whether or not you desired payment at all Branden is not an SPI officer. Jimmy is the SPI treasurer. Branden is a member of the board only. Well, since Branden sent the board a picture of my invoice sitting on top of the sorted papers I assumed you were aware of it. Of course, maybe that wasn't procedural enough for you guys to take any action on it. Actually, this year would be inaccurate. last year would even be inaccurate. This would have to be 2003 and before, right? Maybe a very small part of the beginning of 2004? Last DPL duty cycle then. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There is improvement. The reports are vastly more informative than the complete lack of information we had seen previously. However, there is still no line-item information on how SPI is receiving and spending project monies, just high-level summaries. I am also concerned about the security and organization of the filing system and how paperwork is being disposed of. You want a line-by-line of each expenditure? You aren't going to get it. I'm part of many non-profit organizations, some with big budgets. Line-by-line expenditures are simply never reported, but I'm sure the Treasurer could get you information on any particular question if you asked nicely. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 01:15:42PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: You want a line-by-line of each expenditure? You aren't going to get These actually are often posted by Jimmy or Branden to spi-private. They are not posted to spi-general due to privacy concerns. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Monday 21 February 2005 1:38 pm, MJ Ray wrote: [...] In general, status reports seem few and far between in the minutes. Aren't they meant to be part of the normal order of business under the SPI by-laws? As you were so happy to point out last summer, doesn't the president have some responsibility for checking SPI follows the by-laws? It is also the responsibility of the SPI President to see that records are accounted for properly and legally. However, it wasn't possible for me to do this because the new Treasurer (Jimmy Kaplowitz) would be told how to do his job. While I admire his chutzpah, his timing was not ideal. So, responsibility yes... capability no. [...] I'm not surprised you weren't capable of the bigger task of handling this crisis if you couldn't even complete the smaller task of routine meeting tasks that presumably existed before everyone took office. Hey, I suck! I'm the first to agree. That's why I didn't run as President again. Jimmy, Branden and the rest of the SPI team have now had a six month crack at sorting it out on their own without my badgering. That doesn't seem to have working well either. When there has been an emotional vampire sucking the enthusiasm out of the project, which is largely administrative anyway, it takes the patient a while to recover. From experience of other groups, I will be dead impressed if it's anything like working smoothly by July. I don't think the SPI problems makes transparency and accountability any more or less of an issue in the DPL elections than it would have been otherwise. I would like to ask all candidates about them, but let's wait for campaigning to start. I disagree. This is the first time SPI misplaced $18,000.00 of Debian's money. That's a pretty spectacular screw up. Without Debian's money and trademarks SPI is largely irrelevant. I think its all good food for thought. If the checks and balances were broken, this was an accident waiting to happen. Not necessarily your fault. What we can do is form an opinion on how you handled the accident. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Blaming operational failures on emotional factors is a recurring theme in both Debian and SPI. Operational results are by no means the guaranteed result of a good vibes culture. On occasion, nastiness can be very efficient no matter how much you wish it weren't so. Still, pleasant attitude, egalitarianism and nurturing can all improve productivity. They just can't be a replacement for knowledge, skill or discipline. If pleasant environment becomes the priority over results then failure is certain. There's $15 worth of corporate management buzzwordery for you. On Monday 21 February 2005 4:38 pm, MJ Ray wrote: When there has been an emotional vampire sucking the enthusiasm out of the project, which is largely administrative anyway, it takes the patient a while to recover. From experience of other groups, I will be dead impressed if it's anything like working smoothly by July. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO [EMAIL PROTECTED] 214-720-0700 x 315 Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Still, pleasant attitude, egalitarianism and nurturing can all improve productivity. They just can't be a replacement for knowledge, skill or discipline. If pleasant environment becomes the priority over results then failure is certain. But you didn't bring knowledge, skill, or discipline either. This thread is an excellent example. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] On occasion, nastiness can be very efficient no matter how much you wish it weren't so. [...] In a dozen years, I've not been part of a volunteer project where nastiness brought better results. Results are needed, but SPI's not a for-profit company to be bossed. Is Brainfood ironic? Bye. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Vote Zadka for DPL! (was Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!)
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 09:01:47AM -0800, Jonathan Walther wrote: Your comment was mildly funny, but I'd like to remind you of the importance of solidarity in a project like this. Moshe said to love thy neighbor via constructive acts, even if you personally hate him. Brainfood, and Ean personally, have contributed a lot to Debian over the years. OK, so, vote Moshe Zadka for DPL! (though I suspect I missed something) Bill. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler wrote: On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:30 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Branden's implication on IRC was that he had already paid it when he got the note from your mother, and that you had already said Huzzah! when your mother sent the reminder, suggesting that you and she don't communicate very well about business. A strained suggestion at best. A promise from SPI to pay is not the same as a check in hand. My Mom doesn't read spi-private. Worst case scenerio, I did not run into my Mom's office and shout they paid! the second I read Branden's post. It mostly indicates that Branden did not copy my Mother on his message announcing payment. Otherwise, why would he write her? In any case, my beef is that he is publicly talking about the incompetence of my organization for totally unsubstantiated reasons. That's bad behavior. Ironically, he did so in a relatively small forum without public archive (iirc) but you brought the issue up yourself on a mailing list, with 400 people subscribe and a public archive that will end up on Google. So, if you only want to document bad behaviour in connection to Brainfood, you did well, Google will catch up on this. If you just wanted to get the issues straight you seem to have failed and created an interesting connection on search engines. See, there are reasons private mailing lists exist, and they don't violate the DFSG. Even more so since my organization is a long-time, reliable and well behaved donor and supporter of the Debian project. If this is how Branden treats friends I'd hate to see how he treats enemies. *sigh* And you've got this documented publically. Well done... Regards, Joey -- Life is a lot easier when you have someone to share it with. -- Sean Perry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler wrote: On a single day: - My mother sent Branden another reminder to pay SPI's very late postage bill. - Branden posted a message to the list saying he finally paid it. - I read Branden's message and said huzzah!. I really wonder why you posted this and started yet another flamewar (well, it was time anway, since the other one was just about to come to an end). Why not just feel happy that these things are finally resolved. (It can happen all the time that reminders and invoice payments overlap.) Regards, Joey -- Life is a lot easier when you have someone to share it with. -- Sean Perry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A strained suggestion at best. A promise from SPI to pay is not the same as a check in hand. My Mom doesn't read spi-private. Worst case scenerio, I did not run into my Mom's office and shout they paid! the second I read Branden's post. Branden, it seems, announced that it had been paid well before you said Huzzah and well before your mother asked. He provided me the proof in email, and I'm sure will give it to anyone else who asks him. The question is: why didn't she ask you directly? You're an officer of the organization? According to http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/board Ean isn't anymore. Regards, Joey -- Life is a lot easier when you have someone to share it with. -- Sean Perry -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I think it really embodies the professional tone and spirit that Branden brings to all of his endeavors and may help you when you are making your DPL decision. Are you still bitter that we don't love you after you made a meal of cleaning up after SPI treasurer resignations? Everyone makes mistakes. It's not about never making mistakes, but about learning from your own and those of others. I'm not sure that Branden handled the SPI situation he found himself in brilliantly, but it looks a lot better than it could have been. I think he's learned, although he has yet to learn about the damage that backstabbing IRC loggers can do. I don't think that you've learned about volunteer leadership from SPI and I wouldn't vote for you any time soon. Converselly, I'd like to see what Branden can do working for a larger project. I find your rephrasing of his words into personal attacks quite sad, though. I hope you find your object soon. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Truly, there is no justice. I love this project! On Friday 18 February 2005 09:31 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Thanks Ean. I read this and figure that you are certainly someone who shouldn't get my vote, since you can't keep someone with the same last name, who you recruited, aware of what's going on, when you have all the relevant information right at hand. By contrast, I find the exchange demonstrates that Branden does indeed make a fine candidate, frustrated by the difficulties in getting SPI to function effectively (and I recall you as a key obstruction a while ago), and yet doing lots of very important work for the project. Which packages do you maintain, by the way? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Truly, there is no justice. Justice? You didn't answer the basic point, which I find interesting, since, after all, you brought it up. Why didn't the payee of this check ask you instead of Branden? Do you not communicate? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 09:00:55PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: All of you volunteers just remember: If you spend money out of your own pocket to help Debian and want to be repaid you are an evil idiot. If you complain after not getting paid for six months you are a naggy grouser. If you inquire about these topics regularly and comment on them then your organization is incompetent and so are you! 6 months!?! Lucky you. Christian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 11:12:59AM +0100, Christian T. Steigies wrote: All of you volunteers just remember: If you spend money out of your own pocket to help Debian and want to be repaid you are an evil idiot. If you complain after not getting paid for six months you are a naggy grouser. If you inquire about these topics regularly and comment on them then your organization is incompetent and so are you! 6 months!?! Lucky you. Your comment was mildly funny, but I'd like to remind you of the importance of solidarity in a project like this. Moshe said to love thy neighbor via constructive acts, even if you personally hate him. Brainfood, and Ean personally, have contributed a lot to Debian over the years. Cheers! Jonathan -- It's not true unless it makes you laugh, but you don't understand it until it makes you weep. Eukleia: Jonathan Walther Address: 12706 99 Ave, Surrey, BC V3V2P8 (Canada) Contact: 604-684-1319 (daytime) Contact: 604-582-9308 (morning and evening) Puritan: Purity of faith, Purity of doctrine. Sola Scriptura! Patriarchy, Polygamy, Slavery === Fatherhood, Husbandry, Mastery Matriarchy, Monogamy, Prisons === Wickedness, Stupidity, Buggery signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Jonathan Walther [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Your comment was mildly funny, but I'd like to remind you of the importance of solidarity in a project like this. Moshe said to love thy neighbor via constructive acts, even if you personally hate him. Brainfood, and Ean personally, have contributed a lot to Debian over the years. And so has Branden Robinson. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 02:04:48AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: Truly, there is no justice. Of course not, don't be silly. Justice is an excuse used by people seeking revenge; the universe has no real interest in it. Neither is there such a thing as fair. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 02:04:48AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: Truly, there is no justice. Of course not, don't be silly. Justice is an excuse used by people seeking revenge; the universe has no real interest in it. Neither is there such a thing as fair. From the fact that the universe has no interest in justice (what *does* the universe have an interest in? nothing, it would seem), it hardly follows that justice is an excused used by people seeking revenge. Methinks Thrasymachus here wants to look important. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 10:49:05AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 02:04:48AM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: Truly, there is no justice. Of course not, don't be silly. Justice is an excuse used by people seeking revenge; the universe has no real interest in it. Neither is there such a thing as fair. From the fact that the universe has no interest in justice (what *does* the universe have an interest in? nothing, it would seem), it hardly follows that justice is an excused used by people seeking revenge. I didn't even put them in that order, why on earth would anybody think that one follows from the other? That's a semicolon, not a colon. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I didn't even put them in that order, why on earth would anybody think that one follows from the other? That's a semicolon, not a colon. So there is no connection between the two as far as you're concerned? Do you have an argument for either? Or are you just blustery Thrasymachus? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On a single day: - My mother sent Branden another reminder to pay SPI's very late postage bill. - Branden posted a message to the list saying he finally paid it. - I read Branden's message and said huzzah!. What is your question? ps. This is all after repeated reminders and invoices by physical mail, e-mail and IRC for more than six months. I mean, wouldn't you say huzzah! too? On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:10 am, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Justice? You didn't answer the basic point, which I find interesting, since, after all, you brought it up. Why didn't the payee of this check ask you instead of Branden? Do you not communicate? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: - My mother sent Branden another reminder to pay SPI's very late postage bill. - Branden posted a message to the list saying he finally paid it. - I read Branden's message and said huzzah!. What is your question? Branden's implication on IRC was that he had already paid it when he got the note from your mother, and that you had already said Huzzah! when your mother sent the reminder, suggesting that you and she don't communicate very well about business. But my question is: why did you not discuss this privately with him, instead of bringing it to a public mailing list? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 11:48:50AM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I didn't even put them in that order, why on earth would anybody think that one follows from the other? That's a semicolon, not a colon. So there is no connection between the two as far as you're concerned? Only that which is normally implied by a semicolon: independent statements on the same subject. Do you have an argument for either? Points that stand unchallenged do not require arguments. To do so would be a waste of valuable time. Figure it out for yourself, anyway. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Do you have an argument for either? Points that stand unchallenged do not require arguments. To do so would be a waste of valuable time. Figure it out for yourself, anyway. Having just challenged the one and pointed out the irrelevance and obviousness of the other, and asked a direct question on the topic, I think your answer to my question is apparently none that I'm willing to share. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:30 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Branden's implication on IRC was that he had already paid it when he got the note from your mother, and that you had already said Huzzah! when your mother sent the reminder, suggesting that you and she don't communicate very well about business. A strained suggestion at best. A promise from SPI to pay is not the same as a check in hand. My Mom doesn't read spi-private. Worst case scenerio, I did not run into my Mom's office and shout they paid! the second I read Branden's post. It mostly indicates that Branden did not copy my Mother on his message announcing payment. Otherwise, why would he write her? In any case, my beef is that he is publicly talking about the incompetence of my organization for totally unsubstantiated reasons. That's bad behavior. Even more so since my organization is a long-time, reliable and well behaved donor and supporter of the Debian project. If this is how Branden treats friends I'd hate to see how he treats enemies. But my question is: why did you not discuss this privately with him, instead of bringing it to a public mailing list? Because his performance and behavior as SPI Treasurer continues to be the single best criteria to measure his ability to function as DPL. Remember that Anita's inquiry was totally private. IRC is public and IRC discussions about my organization should and do concern me. Branden is the one who continues to publicly antagonize me on this topic for no apparent reason. I am discussing it on this list because his behavior reflects on his suitability as a candidate. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 12:34:34PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Andrew Suffield [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Do you have an argument for either? Points that stand unchallenged do not require arguments. To do so would be a waste of valuable time. Figure it out for yourself, anyway. Having just challenged the one and pointed out the irrelevance and obviousness of the other, I think you forgot to write that mail. Not that I really care. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: A strained suggestion at best. A promise from SPI to pay is not the same as a check in hand. My Mom doesn't read spi-private. Worst case scenerio, I did not run into my Mom's office and shout they paid! the second I read Branden's post. Branden, it seems, announced that it had been paid well before you said Huzzah and well before your mother asked. He provided me the proof in email, and I'm sure will give it to anyone else who asks him. The question is: why didn't she ask you directly? You're an officer of the organization? Remember that Anita's inquiry was totally private. IRC is public and IRC discussions about my organization should and do concern me. Branden is the one who continues to publicly antagonize me on this topic for no apparent reason. I am discussing it on this list because his behavior reflects on his suitability as a candidate. So why didn't you bring it up with him privately first? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Whoops. I misworded that. Branden must have failed to copy my Mother about cutting the check. He only told the list. Otherwise, why would she write him an email? Sorry. On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:48 pm, Ean Schuessler wrote: It mostly indicates that Branden did not copy my Mother on his message announcing payment. Otherwise, why would he write her? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Branden must have failed to copy my Mother about cutting the check. He only told the list. Otherwise, why would she write him an email? Because she didn't bother asking you? But that's not the point. The question is, why didn't you clear this up directly with Branden? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Saturday 19 February 2005 03:31 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Because she didn't bother asking you? But that's not the point. About sending the check? The question is, why didn't you clear this up directly with Branden? Ok, I'm game. Why? ps. Who's on first? -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ok, I'm game. Why? I know you want this to be all about Branden. But what I see is that you took a brief thing on IRC, and decided it was a Big Issue. Indeed, you didn't have all the facts straight when you did so, and you proceeded to try and get people riled up on debian-vote. If you want to say that Branden is a sucky treasurer of SPI, and therefore shouldn't be DPL, you have chosen an amazingly poor way to say that. Instead of making me think what you want me to think, I decided that you were telling us nothing useful about Branden, but you were telling us something about your ability to be a leader effectively. You may not be running for DPL, but you are serving in a position of responsibility for SPI, and you don't seem to have the things needed to do that well. You aren't playing nice. You are trying to solve inter-personal problems by bringing them up on big group mailing lists instead of talking directly with the person concerned. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
I don't see a conclusion anytime soon here but I'll try once more. - Branden failed to cash hundreds of donation checks for Debian. - I spent money out of my own pocket to mail apologies to the people who donated the money in the first place. - Those letters were in fact sent. - SPI would not reimburse the postage for the mailing (more than $100) for over six months. - When at last a check was cut Branden made it a point to complain publicly about how incompetent my company was because it asked for a check to be cut. My problem is that SPI is still non-performant to any reasonable professional standard and that I am being bad-mouthed publicly by its representatives when I ask for simple tasks to be performed. I think it is perfectly reasonable to complain about that publicly considering that Branden is the person who is failing to perform well in that core task, bad-mouthing Debian donors publicly and running for DPL all at the same time. The exact timing of me saying huzzah! and my mother saying pay up! in email seems tiresomely inconsequential. It also doesn't seem to change any of the basic facts about the money I laid out, the amount of time it took to get paid back and the baselessness of the complaints about my organization's competence. If my organization is so incompetent then why did SPI owe it the postage money for sending apology letters in the first place? You've made it clear that you have different priorities than me when it comes to leadership. Fine. I think my concerns are cogent and I hope there are others in the project who feel the same way. On Saturday 19 February 2005 03:59 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: I know you want this to be all about Branden. But what I see is that you took a brief thing on IRC, and decided it was a Big Issue. Indeed, you didn't have all the facts straight when you did so, and you proceeded to try and get people riled up on debian-vote. If you want to say that Branden is a sucky treasurer of SPI, and therefore shouldn't be DPL, you have chosen an amazingly poor way to say that. Instead of making me think what you want me to think, I decided that you were telling us nothing useful about Branden, but you were telling us something about your ability to be a leader effectively. You may not be running for DPL, but you are serving in a position of responsibility for SPI, and you don't seem to have the things needed to do that well. You aren't playing nice. You are trying to solve inter-personal problems by bringing them up on big group mailing lists instead of talking directly with the person concerned. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:30 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Branden's implication on IRC was that he had already paid it when he got the note from your mother, and that you had already said Huzzah! when your mother sent the reminder, suggesting that you and she don't communicate very well about business. A strained suggestion at best. A promise from SPI to pay is not the same as a check in hand. My Mom doesn't read spi-private. Worst case scenerio, I did not run into my Mom's office and shout they paid! the second I read Branden's post. It mostly indicates that Branden did not copy my Mother on his message announcing payment. Otherwise, why would he write her? In any case, my beef is that he is publicly talking about the incompetence of my organization for totally unsubstantiated reasons. That's bad behavior. Even more so since my organization is a long-time, reliable and well behaved donor and supporter of the Debian project. If this is how Branden treats friends I'd hate to see how he treats enemies. And that's my beef my Branden. I do appreciate his work as a maintainer, but he's overly brash in his interactions with other people. As the DPL is exposed to a lot of public attention, I think Branden's personality is not suited to the position. That's very unfortunate because I think his energy would bring a lot of good things to the helm of the project. Hi Branden :-) Flame on! Phil. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean, It is true that SPI still is not performing like it should be. It is also true that SPI has never performed like it should in its entire history. SPI has been dysfunctional from its very beginning. It's also been short on manpower through its entire lifespan. For whatever reason, SPI has not been of much interest to many Debian folks for most of the time, except for the occasional flamewar. Some of us are trying to make SPI better. It is a difficult thing to do, given the magnitude of the problems in the past, the lack of volunteer manpower (our single biggest problem), general lack of interest, and disagreements about the best way to proceed. Since your term as president of SPI ended, I have seen nothing but trolling from you. SPI sucks, SPI sucks, you suck sort of thing. Yes, we all know there are problems -- big ones, even. Yelling about them doesn't fix them. It is unfair to lay all of SPI's ills at Branden's feet. If memory serves, the treasurer before him literally *disappeared* for long periods of time. The board at that point often failed to meet due to so many members failing to show up. Branden inherited a huge mess. Yes, he made mistakes, but I think you are misconstruing this incident and incorrectly magnifying it as part of some sort of vendetta. In this particular instance, if memory serves, you sent the invoice to Branden inside a large box of other papers -- even though Branden had already resigned as treasurer by that time. The rest of us were not aware of it until later, and you had given mixed signals previously about whether or not you would charge SPI for your helpful efforts. It is unfair to lay all this at Branden's feet for another reason. While preside, you tried to usurp the authority of the SPI treasurer, a move that put SPI itself in quesitonable legal waters. While you were ultimately stopped, by the rest of the board and the expiration of your term, your actions led directly to Yet Another SPI Treasurer Crisis, not to mention one of the nastiest flamewars in SPI history. While it is true that Brainfood provided valuable help processing part of the accounting backlog, it is also true that the manner in which you handled it caused huge problems that linger today. Finally, you argue that Branden said nasty things about you publically. What you didn't state was that there was not one single active person in #spi at the time, and, again if memory serves, probably fewer than 20 the entire time. So, while technically true that #spi is not a private channel, you made the comments far more public than he did. I suspect that nobody paid much notice to them, and that Branden expected as much. Let's talk about some of the good things happening at SPI, too. David Graham has made tremendous work catching up with old never-posted minutes and resolutions. Several people have helped with that effort by updating many pages on the website. Several new projects have joined SPI. Jimmy Branden recently produced the closest thing we've ever had to a true treasurer's report and successfully migrated to a more useful bank. The trademark committee has been actively working on projects in multiple countries. Wichert has migrated some of the SPI services to a new machine. I produced the first ever (as far as I can tell) annual report last year (a responsibility you neglected). In short, I think that SPI is finally *starting* to act like a real, competant organization, after almost 8 years. These are tentative baby steps, of course, and much remains to be done. I hope that 8 years from now, we can look back and see how far we've come, rather than continuing to point fingers. Maybe then, you, me, Branden, and everyone else can take some pride in the little contributions we have made to make SPI better, and SPI's past will no longer haunt its present and future. -- John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Ean Schuessler [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: - When at last a check was cut Branden made it a point to complain publicly about how incompetent my company was because it asked for a check to be cut. That isn't what his complaint was. We can all read what he said. My problem is that SPI is still non-performant to any reasonable professional standard and that I am being bad-mouthed publicly by its representatives when I ask for simple tasks to be performed. You are one of its representatives. I think it is perfectly reasonable to complain about that publicly considering that Branden is the person who is failing to perform well in that core task, bad-mouthing Debian donors publicly and running for DPL all at the same time . You should have started this by talking to him. You haven't given any explanation beyond your insistence that throwing a temper tantrum is right. It's not. You've made it clear that you have different priorities than me when it comes to leadership. Fine. I think my concerns are cogent and I hope there are others in the project who feel the same way. You didn't express any of these concerns in the appropriate way at all. Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
I haven't been on the SPI board since July. On Saturday 19 February 2005 05:56 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: My problem is that SPI is still non-performant to any reasonable professional standard and that I am being bad-mouthed publicly by its representatives when I ask for simple tasks to be performed. You are one of its representatives. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
On Sat, Feb 19, 2005 at 02:48:36PM -0600, Ean Schuessler wrote: On Saturday 19 February 2005 02:30 pm, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Branden's implication on IRC was that he had already paid it when he got the note from your mother, and that you had already said Huzzah! when your mother sent the reminder, suggesting that you and she don't communicate very well about business. In any case, my beef is that he is publicly talking about the incompetence of my organization for totally unsubstantiated reasons. Overfiend So apparently even Ean and his mother don't practice the sort of vaunted levels of communication that Ean vowed to bring to SPI. Er, so the only alternatives here are practicing the sort of vaunted levels of communication that [you] vowed to bring to SPI and organizational incompetence? I would have suspected your black-and-white existence to be rather bleak, but clearly you find ample cause for excitement... Or perhaps you're referring to some accusation of incompetence that *wasn't* quoted in your message to debian-vote? Something less balanced and defensible than Branden expressing irritation at being called (in his words) an ungrateful bastard? That's bad behavior. Pot, meet the kettle. You accuse him of publicly talking about Brainfood incompetence, when for most people on this list, *your post* made his comments far more public than Branden himself did. Oh, and I'm sure your mom is also sure to appreciate what your post has done for the results of a google search on her name. This all seems a rather contrived justification for posting such a bewilderingly off-topic message to debian-vote about someone who hasn't even nominated himself as a candidate. I agree with Thomas: your post says much more about you than it does about Branden. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Vote Robinson for DPL!
Thanks Ean. I read this and figure that you are certainly someone who shouldn't get my vote, since you can't keep someone with the same last name, who you recruited, aware of what's going on, when you have all the relevant information right at hand. By contrast, I find the exchange demonstrates that Branden does indeed make a fine candidate, frustrated by the difficulties in getting SPI to function effectively (and I recall you as a key obstruction a while ago), and yet doing lots of very important work for the project. Which packages do you maintain, by the way? Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
