Re: [gentoo-dev] Stepping down as a proxy maintainer + packages up for grabs.

[Brendan Horan]

I have also opened a bug to be removed from the meta data
https://bugs.gentoo.org/651824

Thanks

- On 25 Mar, 2018, at 9:38 AM, brendan bren...@horan.hk wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> It has become quite obvious to me I do not have the time for Gentoo package
> maintenance any more.
> As of today I am stepping down as a proxy maintainer and offering all my
> packages up for grabs.
> 
> I'd like to extend many thanks to Amynka for all her extensive help and
> guidance, and wraeth for his ability to explain anything :)
> 
> My packages are :
> app-benchmarks/stress-ng
> app-cdr/cdrdao
> app-i18n/ibus-cangjie
> app-i18n/libcangjie
> dev-python/cangjie
> dev-embedded/libftd2xx
> media-sound/fmit
> net-misc/redir
> net-misc/s3cmd
> net-misc/ser2net
> sci-electronics/quartus-prime-lite
> sys-apps/intel-performance-counter-monitor
> sys-apps/likwid
> 
> I really hope at least the Cangjie packages are picked up, but its a very
> specific use case so..
> There is an open PR for likwid, version bump.
> Intel performance counter monitor, is now called Processor Counter Monitor
> Quartus prime lite, is ugly, needs a version bump too. Or maybe just dropped.
> 
> Thanks everyone for all the help via IRC,
> Brendan

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Michael Orlitzky]

On 03/28/2018 12:41 AM, Stephen Christie wrote:
> 
> These are now the majority of the emails I've now received. The first
> reply was essentially "We've already talked about this, can we just
> move on?".

In our enthusiasm to defeat wltjr, we have let ourselves become wltjr.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 2:33 AM, Martin Vaeth  wrote:
> Rich Freeman  wrote:
>>
>> Fred is a community member.  Fred consistently harasses and trolls new
>> contributors in private.
>
> Sure, it's a problem. But not a problem which can be solved by
> closing the mailing list, in no step of the issue.
>
> First of all, this happens in private, so you cannot prevent it
> by closing a mailing list.

Certainly.  Closing lists won't stop the private abuse, nor is it intended to.

What it would stop is this particular thread talking endlessly about it.

>
>> No mention is made of why Fred as booted out, because everything
>> happened in private.
>
> That's the mistake which is made in this example. Be open in the
> decisions. If you cannot be open in order to protect other people's
> privacy, be open at least by saying exactly this.

In the example I can think of this was done, and yet people still
endlessly argued about it, because simply stating that you can't be
open about something won't satisfy people who want there to be
openness.

> Closing a mailing list
> will not close such a debate; it will then just happen elsewhere.

And that is the goal.

> Anyway, such a debate does not belong to dev-ml. The correct solution
> is to continue to point people to have this debate on the appropriate place,
> not on the mainly technically oriented dev-ml.

Could you take this debate to the appropriate place then?


> Making the posters silent
> by blacklisting even more is contra-productive and will give the
> impression that they are actually right.

If the goal is to make them silent on the closed list it is completely
productive.

Nothing can prevent people from getting the impression that there is
some kind of cover-up.  Certainly the last time this sort of thing
happened having hundreds of emails posted on the topic on the lists
didn't do anything to convince the few posters that the right thing
was done.

Now, I do like something that Debian did in this situation which was
to give the person who was booted the option to have the reasoning
disclosed or not.  If they refuse and people question why they were
booted, you can simply state that all people who are booted are given
the option to have the reasons disclosed, and the person leaving made
the choice not to have this done.  IMO something like this would tend
to reduce the legal liabilities.

>
>> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors
>> aren't getting driven away.  They can't explain that because then they
>> create potential civil liability for the project.
>
> Why not? Is it against a law to exclude somebody who is hurting a
> project?

Not at all.  Booting somebody from an organization like Gentoo creates
no liability, unless it was based on discrimination/etc.

The liability comes from saying negative things about somebody.

Kicking out Fred is fine.  Stating publicly that Fred was kicked out
for sexual harassment would allow Fred to sue, and then you have to
pay to prove that he was sexually harassing somebody.

>
>> The problem is that
>> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and
>> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away.
>> What solution would you propose for this problem?
>
> How would closing the mailing list solve the problem? It will give
> the impression that you want to close the debate by taking away the
> medium where people can argue. And the impression is correct, because
> this actually *is* the intention if you are honest.

Certainly this is the intention, at least for my part.  There is no
benefit in arguing about this for more than a year, especially if
those who made the decisions get re-elected to their posts.

> Of course, it will not close said debate. The debate will just happen
> on another channel. (Which in this example might be appropriate, but
> pointing to the proper channel is what should have happened and not
> closing a mailing list and thus excluding random people from posting
> things about clompletely different topics which *are* on-topic on dev-ml).

People have repeatedly pointed out the correct places for such
debates, though honestly if it were my call I'd not allow this debate
to go on further anywhere that Gentoo operates.

People post this stuff on the -dev list for the same reason that
protesters block public streets.  They want to make it hard to ignore
them.

>
>> Sure, but we can at least force the negative advertising of Gentoo to
>> go elsewhere, rather than basically paying to run a negative PR
>> campaign against ourselves.
>
> Closing dev-ml will not help here. If people have a strong
> disagreement with a decision, this will happen on gentoo channels.
> If you want to prevent it technically, you have to close all channels.

Agree.  But, I don't make the decisions.  If it were up to me this
topic would be closed everywhere.

> BTW, I do not think that contributors are that blue-eyed that 

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:55 PM, R0b0t1  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 11:39 AM, Rich Freeman  wrote:
>
>> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors
>> aren't getting driven away.  They can't explain that because then they
>> create potential civil liability for the project.  The problem is that
>> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and
>> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away.
>>
>
> This is insane. If they sue produce the emails. At least in the US,
> the suit will be thrown out, as truth is a defense to defamation.

There are several problems with this:

First, as soon as a suit reaches a courtroom you're spending thousands
of dollars on attorney fees, which you typically will not get back if
you win in the US.  If the case isn't dismissed almost immediately
you're spending tens of thousands of dollars.

The next problem is that there is a matter of proof.  Suppose the
harassment happened in private IRC conversations.  The only logs
you'll have are those provided by random contributors.  They might not
even be admissible in a court unless the random contributors want to
appear publicly to testify to them.  Also, this all requires sharing
this stuff with the person who was harassing them.

If all we do is quietly kick somebody out with no indication as to
why, they don't really have any grounds to sue in the first place, and
since nothing negative was said about them there are no statements to
defend.

This is why most organizations/business/etc don't disclose why they
terminate employees.  They don't have to, and doing so just exposes
them to liability.

> As I have tried to explain my issue with the closure of the mailing
> list is not the removal of a user, but the lack of openness with which
> decisions are made.

Sure.  Everybody wants to see the info so that they can judge for
themselves and not have to trust somebody else's judgment.  It is only
natural.  This is why courts operate openly for the most part.

However, unlike courts we don't have budgets to pay professionals to
spend extensive time on process, and we also don't have the power to
issue subpoenas and wiretap communications.

So, ultimately we're probably just going to have to live with not
knowing the truth behind why people get booted once or twice per
decade, which seems to be the current rate.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] [PATCH] eclass: freedict: require EAPI=6

[Ulrich Mueller]

> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Marty E Plummer wrote:

> How's this:

Looks good to me.

> ---
>  eclass/freedict.eclass | 18 ++
>  1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

> diff --git a/eclass/freedict.eclass b/eclass/freedict.eclass
> index 06419626d34..7c598aa6eaf 100644
> --- a/eclass/freedict.eclass
> +++ b/eclass/freedict.eclass
> @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
> -# Copyright 1999-2014 Gentoo Foundation
> +# Copyright 1999-2018 Gentoo Foundation
>  # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
 
>  # @ECLASS: freedict.eclass
> @@ -21,21 +21,23 @@
>  # @DESCRIPTION:
>  # Please see above for a description.
 
> -inherit eutils multilib
> -
> -IUSE=""
> +case ${EAPI:-0} in
> + 6) ;;
> + *) die "${ECLASS}.eclass is banned in EAPI=${EAPI}" ;;
> +esac
 
>  MY_P=${PN/freedict-/}
 
> -S="${WORKDIR}"
>  DESCRIPTION="Freedict for language translation from ${FORLANG} to ${TOLANG}"
> -HOMEPAGE="http://www.freedict.de;
> +HOMEPAGE="http://freedict.sourceforge.net;
>  SRC_URI="http://freedict.sourceforge.net/download/linux/${MY_P}.tar.gz;
 
> +LICENSE="GPL-2+"
>  SLOT="0"
> -LICENSE="GPL-2"
 
> -DEPEND="app-text/dictd"
> +RDEPEND="app-text/dictd"
> +
> +S="${WORKDIR}"
 
>  # @FUNCTION: freedict_src_install
>  # @DESCRIPTION:
> -- 
> 2.16.3

Re: [gentoo-dev] [PATCH] eclass: freedict: require EAPI=6

[Marty E. Plummer]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 11:20:08AM +0200, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> While at it:
> - Drop the IUSE="" assignment, it is useless (pun intended :)
> - Update HOMEPAGE, freedict.de is dead
> - LICENSE should be "GPL-2+" (sources say "GNU General Public License
>   ver. 2.0 and any later version")
> - DEPEND is not needed (should be RDEPEND instead, I guess)
> - Use canonical ordering of variables (DESCRIPTION, HOMEPAGE, SRC_URI
>   in first block; LICENSE, SLOT in second; then dependencies; then S)
> 
> Ulrich
>
How's this:

---
 eclass/freedict.eclass | 18 ++
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/eclass/freedict.eclass b/eclass/freedict.eclass
index 06419626d34..7c598aa6eaf 100644
--- a/eclass/freedict.eclass
+++ b/eclass/freedict.eclass
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Copyright 1999-2014 Gentoo Foundation
+# Copyright 1999-2018 Gentoo Foundation
 # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
 
 # @ECLASS: freedict.eclass
@@ -21,21 +21,23 @@
 # @DESCRIPTION:
 # Please see above for a description.
 
-inherit eutils multilib
-
-IUSE=""
+case ${EAPI:-0} in
+   6) ;;
+   *) die "${ECLASS}.eclass is banned in EAPI=${EAPI}" ;;
+esac
 
 MY_P=${PN/freedict-/}
 
-S="${WORKDIR}"
 DESCRIPTION="Freedict for language translation from ${FORLANG} to ${TOLANG}"
-HOMEPAGE="http://www.freedict.de;
+HOMEPAGE="http://freedict.sourceforge.net;
 SRC_URI="http://freedict.sourceforge.net/download/linux/${MY_P}.tar.gz;
 
+LICENSE="GPL-2+"
 SLOT="0"
-LICENSE="GPL-2"
 
-DEPEND="app-text/dictd"
+RDEPEND="app-text/dictd"
+
+S="${WORKDIR}"
 
 # @FUNCTION: freedict_src_install
 # @DESCRIPTION:
-- 
2.16.3

[gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Martin Vaeth]

Rich Freeman  wrote:
>
> Fred is a community member.  Fred consistently harasses and trolls new
> contributors in private.

Sure, it's a problem. But not a problem which can be solved by
closing the mailing list, in no step of the issue.

First of all, this happens in private, so you cannot prevent it
by closing a mailing list.

> No mention is made of why Fred as booted out, because everything
> happened in private.

That's the mistake which is made in this example. Be open in the
decisions. If you cannot be open in order to protect other people's
privacy, be open at least by saying exactly this.

> Now a bunch of community members get upset about Fred being booted out
> without reason.  Fred claims it is because he disagrees with the
> leadership on something.  People start arguing endlessly about
> openness.

Yes, this might happen due to the non-openness. This might happen even
if you are open. And nothing will prevent it. Closing a mailing list
will not close such a debate; it will then just happen elsewhere.
Anyway, such a debate does not belong to dev-ml. The correct solution
is to continue to point people to have this debate on the appropriate place,
not on the mainly technically oriented dev-ml. Making the posters silent
by blacklisting even more is contra-productive and will give the
impression that they are actually right. As it is a commonplace:
You cannot solve social problems by technical measurements.

> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors
> aren't getting driven away.  They can't explain that because then they
> create potential civil liability for the project.

Why not? Is it against a law to exclude somebody who is hurting a
project? If it is (or if there is a danger that it is), then the
problem is not that they cannot explain it but that they must not
do it in the first place.
In any case, this is a different problem and cannot be solved by
closing a mailing list.

> The problem is that
> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and
> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away.
> What solution would you propose for this problem?

How would closing the mailing list solve the problem? It will give
the impression that you want to close the debate by taking away the
medium where people can argue. And the impression is correct, because
this actually *is* the intention if you are honest.
Of course, it will not close said debate. The debate will just happen
on another channel. (Which in this example might be appropriate, but
pointing to the proper channel is what should have happened and not
closing a mailing list and thus excluding random people from posting
things about clompletely different topics which *are* on-topic on dev-ml).

> Sure, but we can at least force the negative advertising of Gentoo to
> go elsewhere, rather than basically paying to run a negative PR
> campaign against ourselves.

Closing dev-ml will not help here. If people have a strong
disagreement with a decision, this will happen on gentoo channels.
If you want to prevent it technically, you have to close all channels.

> And what about the freedom to endlessly troll and harass you and
> others? [...]

Closing a mailing list will not prevent this.
Somebody who behaves this way (or feels being treated wrong) will not
stop this only because one channel is closed for him.
What is really happening by closing the mailing list is that you stop
innocent contributors.

In any case, that's the discussion blacklisting vs. whitelisting:
To stop one specific single poster, blacklisting is enough,
at least for the beginning. Sure, technically it can be circumvented,
but you will not stop this social problem anyway by technical means.

> Surely Gentoo's mission isn't to run completely unrestricated forums
> for discussion of anything and everything.  Our main purpose here is
> to maintain a Linux distro, not provide a platform for anybody who has
> an opinion on anything.

Sure, pointing to the right channel is appropriate. This is something
completely else than to prevent posting *by default*.

> without being endlessly trolled and harassed.

This is unrelated about closing the mailing list. Especially if this
happened in private, anyway.

BTW, I do not think that contributors are that blue-eyed that they
will stop contributing only because one person does not know how to
behave. Especially if it is made clear somewhere that this happens
in disagreement with gentoo as a whole. *This* might be a way how
one might react to such a problem. Anyway, this discussion now is
getting off-topic: All these problems have nothing to do with
closing a ml and cannot be solved by this.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Mailing list moderation and community openness

[Dawid Weglinski]

2018-03-27 18:39 GMT+02:00 Rich Freeman :

> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 12:12 PM, Martin Vaeth  wrote:
> > Rich Freeman  wrote:
> >> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 3:34 AM, Martin Vaeth  wrote:
> >>>
> >>> It is about openness vs. isolation.
> >>
> >> I'm pretty sure most developers, myself included, want to welcome
> >> contributions.
> >
> > Closing of the mailing list does not sound like that.
> >
>
> Sure, but it is actually part of the motivation.
>
> Consider this scenario.
>
> Fred is a community member.  Fred consistently harasses and trolls new
> contributors in private.  New contributors end up leaving because of
> Fred.


> Fred gets booted out as a result.  No mention is made of why Fred as
> booted out, because everything happened in private.
>

And how this work on forums?  Do moderators have the ability to ban Fred
for his harrasments on private channels?


>
> Now a bunch of community members get upset about Fred being booted out
> without reason.  Fred claims it is because he disagrees with the
> leadership on something.  People start arguing endlessly about
> openness.
>

Very same efect you will get when Fred is whitelisted by a developer, and
kicked out when he starts acting inappriopriate. Please kindly show me the
difference.


>
> Ultimately the leaders just want Fred gone so that new contributors
> aren't getting driven away.  They can't explain that because then they
> create potential civil liability for the project.  The problem is that
> the debate goes on for over a year despite intervening elections and
> now this becomes the issue that is driving new contributors away.
>

Please explain. I can imagine a troll on some #gentoo-${ISO3166-1_alpha-2}
who
is banned by channel operator. Does this create potential civil liability
for the project?


>
> What solution would you propose for this problem?  It isn't
> hypothetical at all - I can think of one case in Gentoo's past where
> this happened that I'm aware of, and I'd be shocked if it were the
> only one.
>

Saying as an ex-dev and community member by last 12 years - banning trolls
and explaining reasons to others is always better solution.


>
> > And anyway, you can be sure that the problem will appear again,
> > no matter how closed the list will be.
>
> Sure, but we can at least force the negative advertising of Gentoo to
> go elsewhere, rather than basically paying to run a negative PR
> campaign against ourselves.
>
> >> A lot of this comes down to considering that most people in these
> >> debates probably are well-intended.
> >
> > Taking away freedom is never justified by good intention.
>
> You might want to choose a BSD-based distro then.  :)
>
> And what about the freedom to endlessly troll and harass you and
> others?  Is this truly a freedom we want to stand for?  How about the
> freedom to harass members of legally-protected classes (something that
> also has happened historically in the community)?
>

Trolls are trolls, and when banned/blacklisted by default THEN, they will
start
their trolling on private channels.


>
> Surely Gentoo's mission isn't to run completely unrestricated forums
> for discussion of anything and everything.  Our main purpose here is
> to maintain a Linux distro, not provide a platform for anybody who has
> an opinion on anything.  Free expression has to be balanced against
> the interests of people who want to actually contribute to the distro
> without being endlessly trolled and harassed.
>
> --
> Rich
>
>


-- 
Pozdrawiam
Dawid Węgliński