Re: A summary of some open discussions
On Thu, 2020-01-16 at 18:33 +0100, Mark Wielaard wrote: > Hi Siddhesh, > > On Wed, 2020-01-15 at 23:19 +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote: > > I continue to express support for a more open governance model > > with the understanding that it probably means nothing since I > > am not a GNU maintainer. > > Of course it means something! You are the glibc release manager. > Responsible for the next version of the core of the GNU system. We have started to recognize people as having release-upload rights, even if they aren't formal maintainers (this is really fairly recent and so far has been handled on a case-by-case basis). Siddhesh, if this applies to you in your current role, please get in touch at maintain...@gnu.org (ideally CC'ing one or more maintainers who can confirm). "Upload rights" isn't much of a title, though, so I would be interested to hear more about what a release manager does (although Mark gives some hints and I think I can make a reasonable guess from the name). It's something that could be formalized / officially recognized if it's generalizable to other packages. Thanks, -brandon
Re: posts by non-members
Ludovic Courtès writes: > I’ve subscribed now, but I do find it a bit inconvenient; it’s also one > of the few public GNU mailing lists I know of (perhaps the only one) > where posting is now restricted to members. Ok upon further thought I'm convinced that the list-members-only rule wasn't a good one due to the other ways people are accessing the list that I hadn't considered. So, nevermind, back to the way things were. Sorry for any inconvenience it may have caused. -- -brandon
Re: A summary of some open discussions
Samuel Thibault writes:
> Yes, it means that people have to follow what was decided. That's also
> what a community is about.
>
>> and they broke off and forked over distros
>
> Yes, that's unfortunate, but that can't be helped with. Different goals,
> thus different projects.
Exactly. Their goals weren't approved according to the structure of the
project, they didn't like the result, and so they left (well, some did,
others I hope stayed on and adapted). Nobody saw it as their
responsibility to subvert the project to impose their goals.
> Linus gives a lot of delegation. In the end he is the last merge point,
> but he completely trusts direct subtree maintainers, who can work the
> way they wish.
As does Richard. He largely only retains responsibility for
project-wide decisions while the rest is delegated. In the overwhelming
majority of cases he lets the maintainers, webmasters, etc. do their
jobs independently. Many of the email exchanges I have with him end up
with "DTRT" ("do the right thing", meaning, use my judgment). He very,
very rarely intervenes in the development of individual packages (other
than Emacs, of course).
--
-brandon
Re: A summary of some open discussions
On Mon, 2020-01-06 at 14:05 +, Brandon Invergo wrote: > In fact, consent is reversed from that of governments: the volunteers > participate at the consent of the organization. And before anyone tries to misinterpret what I wrote, I will clarify "the volunteers participate at the consent of the *existing governance of the* organization." But, I hope that my intentions were clear from the rest of my email. -brandon
Re: posts by non-members
Ludovic Courtès writes: > As you’ve probably seen in your moderator queue :-), I’m a former > non-member: I used to read via Gmane.org, and thus posting as a > non-member. Some of my previous messages are lost in limbo, it seems. > > I’ve subscribed now, but I do find it a bit inconvenient; it’s also one > of the few public GNU mailing lists I know of (perhaps the only one) > where posting is now restricted to members. > > No big deal, but I thought I’d mention my use case. Noted, thanks. I may reverse this policy. I will have a think and I'll discuss it with Mike. -- -brandon
Re: A summary of some open discussions
Ludovic Courtès writes: > As a side note: I think authority is not something one should take for > granted. We’re a group of volunteers, and each one of us has just as > much authority as the others consent to give them. No. When you join an organization, you implicitly or explicitly agree to work within the existing structure of that organization. There is nothing inherently wrong with trying, within those confines, to effect change in the organization. However, to say that as a volunteer one can simply start doing things differently, against the existing structure, because one's opinion changes amounts to subversion. In this case, the existing structure is that Richard is the leader of the project. Richard granted me authority to appoint new maintainers for existing projects. That authority is not contingent upon the consent of other volunteers, because that simply is not how the project is structured. I will remind you that GNU is not a government. "Consent of the governed" arguments do not make sense in a voluntary organization. In fact, consent is reversed from that of governments: the volunteers participate at the consent of the organization. -- -brandon
Re: A summary of some open discussions
Mark Wielaard writes: >> There is no such thing as a FSF steward, GNU maintainers are appointed >> by RMS/GAC. The FSF has no say in the topic. You've keept >> misrepresenting this over and over again. > > This is just a legal technicallity. The FSF has oversight > responsibility over the GNU project. That means that the FSF needs to > determine that GNU maintainers operate in a manner consistent with > FSF's exempt purposes, have the needed expertise and that their > activities can be monitored by the FSF board. So GNU Maintainers and > Steering committees are technically appointed by the FSF (previously > RMS when he was FSF president and board member) as stewards of GNU > packages. Basically GNU maintainers serve at the pleasure of the FSF. This is absolutely false. As a member of the package evaluation team and as an Assistant GNUissance (maintain...@gnu.org), I have personally been involved in many appointments of new maintainers at every step of the process, from first contact with GNU through to post-appointment bureaucracy and occasional check-ins. I also have the authority to appoint new maintainers of existing packages myself (only Richard can appoint maintainers of new packages). In fact, I personally appointed some new co-maintainers of Guix back in September, two weeks *after* Richard resigned as president of the FSF, which Ludovic can confirm. I can categorically say that the FSF is not involved whatsoever in the appointment of new maintainers. Please do not spread misinformation about the GNU project. -- -brandon ps - To correct Alfred: the GAC is also not involved in the appointment of maintainers (unless Richard were to ask them for advice in specific cases).
Re: posts by non-members
On Fri, 2020-01-03 at 13:53 +0100, Mark Wielaard wrote: > > In general it is somewhat inconvenient if you can only post to the > list from the address with which you are subscribed. In practice, with only one or two exceptions from what I have seen so far, this would only affect people whose messages tend to be rejected for content anyway. If anyone is particularly inconvenienced by this change and they genuinely intend to contribute to the discussion, they are welcome to get in touch. I can either make a (mental) exception or we can find an alternative solution for them. For example, you can change your account settings in Mailman not to send messages to your "sending only" account. If things cool down, we can be more lenient again in the future. -brandon
posts by non-members
Apologies for the recent backlog of messages under moderation. Please note: until now, we have been lenient about letting through posts by non- subscribers to gnu-misc-discuss. In order to reduce the burden of moderation (and to ensure that all relevant messages are let through without delay), we shall discard all posts by non-subscribers without any further consideration. If you want to ensure that your messages get sent to the list, please subscribe. Again, to stress: this was already the list policy, but now it will be enforced more strictly. -brandon
Re: Setting up a wiki for GNU Project volunteers?
In the interest of public transparency and honesty, you should have
mentioned that Richard has already explicitly and unequivocally rejected
the proposal for a public, project-wide wiki. Therefore, the following
question must be emphasized:
> Where could we host a wiki like this without causing confusion with
> official project content?
Unless that decision changes, any wiki discussed here is necessarily
unofficial and any proposed content is in no way implicitly endorsed or
supported by the GNU Project.
Personally, I've found that in most cases wikis are an inefficient means
of active collaboration and discussion, that they accumulate outdated
cruft too quickly for casual documentation to be anything more than
ephemerally useful, and that they're too mutable for maintaining
important documents. Any best practices, advice, etc. would be better
placed in the coding standards or maintainers documents. Active
collaboration of small teams does not need a project-wide wiki and can
be more efficiently achieved by ad hoc methods. Core documentation of
the project should only be on the main website, and by definition it
should not be easy to change.
Gnome's wiki is a perfect example of why it's a bad idea. It's filled
with outdated information, half-baked ideas, etc that, to the user, look
like official documentation. E.g., a user might be disappointed by the
choice of email clients in GNOME ("outdated" Evolution or "limited"
Geary...(not my actual opinions!)) and will find this nice page[1]
describing the design of "a simple, streamlined, and beautiful email
client designed for GNOME3", whose "design is in progress". They scroll
through all the great mock-ups only to get to the bottom to see that the
last-edited date was 2013 and that the software is vaporware. Or
there's the misleading design notes for a nominal Gnome Shell 4[2] from
2017 that, as far as I can tell, isn't official and is in no way
indicative of actual development. All this makes finding current and
correct information about any details about Gnome to be too difficult
without having to carefully vet everything against other sources.
--
-brandon
Footnotes:
[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Mail
[2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/Wayland/GnomeShell/GnomeShell4
Re: A GNU “social contract”?
Jean Louis, I stepped over a personal line in writing my message on Friday. I am moderating myself on this list now. > That is hypocrisy. The public shamings page as published by Guix and > Ludovic states "Joint statement on GNU project" while you are thinking > Dr. Stallman. You speak about Stallman, yet you focus on GNU project. Your email consists mainly of attacking Ludo and defending rms, two things that Mike recently reiterated are off-topic for the list. I'm placing you under moderation right now so we can avoid more of this coming to the list. Everyone (myself included): please refrain from further personal attacks/defense. -- -brandon
Re: A GNU “social contract”?
Alfred M. Szmidt writes: >Of course, it is no coincidence if you have a déjà vu feeling when >looking at the proposed GNU Social Contract. It is intended as a >base for going forward with the GNU Project, but of course it takes >the existing into account. > > I do not see how it does anything of the sort, it is a partial summary > of the project. It doesn't bring anything new to the table, or moves > anything forward, so far it is a TL;DR note... A social contract is only a necessity in a community-run organization because it helps prevent the organization from moving off-course. When the moral compass of the organization is set and maintained by a leader or group of leaders, then it is completely unnecessary. If you believe GNU should be community-run, then you'll want to see a social contract; if you think it should be run as it currently is, then it's impossible to see a use for it. Given that nothing has changed in how GNU is being run, it appears that the cart is being placed well before the horse. However, I would be shocked if they didn't already expect rms not to step down and therefore to reject their Social Contract out-of-hand. Given that it is nevertheless still being written (in public) under conditions where it will be rejected with almost certainty, I wouldn't be surprised if they are in fact counting on this to happen. That would give another opportunity to publicly shame rms and the GNU project as it actually is: "Look at this beautiful document that rms refused to implement for GNU! The fact that he *disagrees* with these points shows that he is not fit to lead GNU anymore!". Nevermind that the rejection is due to its utter superfluousness given the structure of the GNU project and is not due to disagreement with the contents. With that said, I am fully in support of having a couple of succinct documents that describe the structure and mission of the GNU project. Richard has also expressed interest in that. I just don't see any need of enacting them as the basis of a formal pledge. -- -brandon
Re: A GNU “social contract”?
Jean Louis writes: > "Social contract" has etymology coming from France, Given that language evolves and contemporary connotation can differ significantly from the original meaning, no argument can be won through weaponized etymology. It's more important to understand the intent of the speaker than to try to force an archaic meaning on their words. The former progresses the discussion, the latter diverts it. Anyway, you've already made exactly the same argument to exactly the same people not too long ago, so I'm sure they remember it. -- -brandon
Re: A GNU “social contract”?
Andreas Enge writes: > Hello, > > I will reply once more, but it may be the last time in this thread. Please, > Alexandre and others, if you wish to contribute, stop rambling and come to > the point, and actually try to stick to a point that is raised and avoid > going off on lengthy tangents that I (and probably others) have no time > to read. Speaking entirely as a reader and not a moderator: agreed. Finding a way to make your point in as few words as possible is an essential skill, but it takes practice. If you find that you are tending to produce stream-of-consciousness / free-association style texts, I encourage you to slow down, figure out the precise "killer points" you want to make and say the minimum necessary to convey those points. If your email is long, don't send it yet. Chop away at it to remove the fat so that your real point is unmistakable. If your text instead simply exhausts your reader, they won't know what you are even trying to argue. Then they'll tend to a) get progressively more annoyed with you and / or b) start to outright ignore your responses. -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Ludovic, Ludovic Courtès writes: > I feel bad that you’re characterizing us this way. You’re talking about > people who’ve dedicated many years or their lives to GNU (more than you > did!) and still pour huge amounts of energy into it. > > That you disagree with what we do is fine; that you accuse us of > attacking GNU is not. It’s not even plausible to anyone who’s been > following along. We all *are* GNU. > > As for the disagreement itself: it’s also a surprise to me. We met on a > couple of GHMs. In particular, in 2011 in Paris, we had discussions > about governance not unlike those we’re having now; at the time I recall > you were part of the discussions and not seeing anyone “taking arms.” > > It’s OK if you view things differently now, but I would prefer if you > would use more nuanced wording when describing the actions of others. > We have different views, but we’re working for the betterment of GNU. I'm sorry I chose the wording "taking up arms" as it was a blunt mischaracterization. There is a lot of emotion right now and it is difficult to express it properly sometimes. I have made better responses to your actions elsewhere. Those still stand. Overall, I will now just add to those my supreme disappointment at the level of divisiveness within the GNU community now compared to two months ago. Also, it is true that you and the others have been involved longer than me, but please do not in turn minimize the time and effort I have invested in GNU, especially in the thankless, mundane, boring behind-the-scenes work that I've been doing (at the constant edge of burnout) so that everyone else can just keep on hacking. And yes, my views have evolved since I have become more involved in GNU in non-maintainership tasks and I understand more about the overall project and the reality of keeping it running. I would hope that those views are valuable to others, should anyone be curious to listen. And that's the last I'm going to say on this list about the current situation. -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Andy Wingo writes: >> Who is “we” in “we have decided” above? > > I don't think this question has been answered. Brandon, could you > clarify please? >> Can you explain how “moderation was being used in a biased manner”, >> giving specific examples? > > I am also interested in answers to this question. I do not intend to discuss internal GNU matters on a public mailing list. > For what it is worth, until now I could understand that you were > operating in good faith in your various roles in GNU, that you were > genuinely working for the benefit of GNU, even if we disagreed on the > advisability of different options. I am sad to say that I no longer > feel this way. It's not impossible to work together, but something has > broken. I'm sorry you have interpreted it that way. I have been working tirelessly to keep peace since you created this mess a few weeks ago. Please keep in mind that "something was broken" for me the moment all of you took up arms against GNU. I have nevertheless tried to work around that feeling on order to find some common ground. I firmly believe in the importance of being able to work with people with whom one fundamentally disagrees. But ironically, in working to maintain peace, I cannot please everyone all the time. I will continue to act toward the betterment of GNU, and sometimes that might conflict with your own interpretation of the situation. I am sorry for that but I hope that we can eventually navigate our way towards a resolution. -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Thompson, David writes: > I hope you can see the terrible optics this has. Something has > happened behind the scenes, shortly after you and Mike became > moderators, that makes it appear as though Carlos and Mark were > retaliated against for being critical of GNU leadership. Optics are funny...there are just so many angles to consider. > I appreciated what they were doing and think they should be reinstated > as moderators. I find it difficult to trust the current moderators as > things stand now. Aside from turning off the global "emergency" moderation bit, I've stuck to the same general guidelines that they were using. Since I started actively moderating yesterday morning (GMT), the only person being attacked on-list is me, which I am taking in stride. I've even allowed through posts by non-subscribers to allow the criticism of me. If there's anything else that you think I'm coming up short on in my moderation, please tell me and I'll try to improve. We do have a problem with someone under moderation who is sending messages off-list. It probably would have happened eventually anyway, no matter who was moderating. Anyway, I do not know how to moderate that. If you have suggestions on how to handle it, I'm all ears. -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Dora Scilipoti writes: > How and by whom they were appointed remains unknown. Certainly not by > the GNU project. So the most plausible answer is that they took it by force. That is not true, and it is an unfair accusation of Carlos and Mark. As I just wrote in another message, unfounded accusations will get us nowhere. Please let's refrain from building up false narratives. -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Thompson, David writes: > So you ousted the moderators that added you as moderators? How > lovely. The discourse here has gotten considerably worse since. > Surely a coincidence. As I have made abundantly clear, I do not intend to discuss internal GNU matters on a public list. I invite you to engage with me elsewhere. However, because this is the second time this charge has been raised, there appears to be some confusion that needs to be cleared up. Moderators of mailing lists that use the Mailman software are not capable of changing the administrators or moderators of a list. They can only moderate incoming messages. So, you have made a false characterization of the situation by implying that I tricked them into giving moderation rights so I could turn around and use those to oust them. Also, please be kinder in the way you discuss on GNU lists. Sarcasm and accusations are rarely the most effective way to engage in fruitful conversation. -- -brandon
Re: Is negative publicity always harmful? (was: Women and GNU and RMS)
Dmitry Alexandrov writes: > Sandra Loosemore wrote: >> The absolute worst thing the public-facing representative of *any* >> organization can do is bring negative publicity to the organization >> about things that are irrelevant or contrary to the organization's >> mission. > > Iʼm afraid, you conflated two points. Publicity that undermine the > core competency of an organization — yes, is perhaps is the most > harmful thing for it. > > While negative publicity on irrelevant topics is either much less > harmful, or sometimes even beneficial. > >> As a result of RMS's comments, all of a sudden the public >> conversation about the GNU project was not about how good our >> software is and how free software is taking over the world and >> beneficial to everybody > > Dr. Stallman has been always, in almost every his speech, pointed out, > that in terms of publicity everything is still so bad, that he has to > struggle to make it known that GNU and free software movement in > general merely exist. And that they are not the same as Linux® and > ‘open source’, in particular. > > Under that conditions, any kind of public attention to GNU should be > welcoming. > >> It's been a public relations disaster for the GNU project. :-( > > Time will tell. As I previously requested, please let's drop discussions of particular people, especially when it comes to what they said or did outside of GNU. I know you are not attacking but standing in rms's defense, however at this point it's only going to stir up dying embers. Can we just leave it there? -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Samuel Thibault writes: > Wow, this is so welcoming a community... > > Samuel Ruben has been placed under moderation and I rejected the message that you are referring to. If you received it, it's because he sent it to you personally (I guess by scraping the email addresses of everyone who has participated). I will see what options are available to us. -- -brandon
Re: list moderation
Ludovic Courtès writes: > A bit more than 24 hours later, two things have become clear to me: that > Mark and Carlos were indeed doing a good moderation job, and that by not > doing any moderation, you’ve opened the flood gates and silenced the > rest of us. > > In that time we got ~100 messages, the majority of which were written by > the same 3 people. Worse, many of those messages were personal attacks, > and many others were off-topic for this list. Don't misrepresent the situation. Ruben was placed under indefinite moderation for his attacks. The attacks took place overnight while I was asleep (he's obviously in a different time zone). So, since I started actively moderating, which requires being awake, things have been pretty peaceful. Another user is under moderation for incessant off-topic, hateful posts as well as a lot of cross-posting (which we depend on the other subscribers to help fight; some of his moderated messages were quoted anyway due to cross-posting and/or CC'ing others). That's it. If someone attacks, harasses or is otherwise abusive towards anyone, be it another subscriber or rms (let's not have elephants in this room), they will be placed under moderation until the situation cools down. This is not a place to discuss other people. This is a place to discuss GNU. The previous moderation efforts failed in that regard, and did so in a particularly biased manner. I will not place the list back under emergency moderation unless everyone collectively loses their minds. Everyone has a chance to prove themselves to be civil, and even those who have previously been unkind can have the chance to show that they can improve. Your messages require moderator action simply because you're not actually subscribed to the list. I have not silenced you but if you want your messages to go through quicker, I invite you to subscribe. You are welcome to continue to discuss whatever "governance" issues you would like here, but we are under no obligation to cultivate that as the new raison d'etre of gnu-misc-discuss nor to acknowledge it as carrying any priority over any other discussion that takes place here. -- -brandon
Re: Women and GNU and RMS (was Re: something else)
Ruben Safir writes: > The hell with that. She and our Bordeaux fiends should be sued and > shunned. > > Get on the right side of the ethics here. > > I don't care about your threats of moderation. I understand your points, but right now I have zero tolerance for this low level of discourse. We will never reach any resolution if we continue in this way. I've put you under moderation. I will happily let through any messages from you that do not contain attacks and abuse. -- -brandon
Re: Women and GNU and RMS (was Re: something else)
Ruben Safir writes: > On 11/3/19 11:51 PM, Mike Gerwitz wrote: >> This is unkind and unconstructive. > > No it is not. It is SPOT ON and constructive. > > Lieing about Richard Stallman, that is unkind and fucked up. > > I don't care what your moderation is. I will just copy to places that > don't moderate this truly fucked up situation where RMS was ruthlessly > attacked, and kicked out of his home at the age of 66 becuase of vicious > lies like the kind that Sandra Loosemore (my God strike out her name) > spread around I was asleep when all of this went down, but I agree with Mike. This kind of approach doesn't belong in a discussion. You are welcome to post it elsewhere, but we won't have it on this list. I understand your position here, but please find a way to make your point without insulting others. Please consider this your only warning: if you continue to be abusive, I will put you under moderation. Also, speaking as a reader and not a moderator, will everyone please stop getting bogged down in pedantic discussion of the meaning of words? It's tiresome and unproductive. Finally, may I also suggest that everyone take a self-imposed cool-off period? I think everyone would benefit from taking some time to reflect, regrouping and approaching any further discussion with clear heads. -- -brandon
Re: Women and GNU and RMS (was Re: something else)
Hi Kaz, Kaz Kylheku (gnu-misc-discuss) writes: > I'm afraid I don't agree. Firstly, anyone who is grown up and halfway > intelligent already knows that those comments don't have anything > to do with the GNU project; and that there is a lot more to > GNU than just one person. This, in particular, is very unkind. Do not assume that someone is unintelligent just because they hold different views. You can make exactly the same point without saying that. -- -brandon
list moderation
Hi everyone, For the past month or so, every message to the list has been subject to moderation, so-called "emergency moderation". It has become clear that the moderation was being used in a biased manner. We have decided to remove Mark and Carlos as moderators/admins and to turn off the emergency moderation. We will not place any restriction on the topic of discussion beyond what is outlined in the pre-existing list guidelines. This is *not* an invitation for open flames. Please continue to abide by the Kind Communication Guidelines. We will closely monitor the discussion and we will take appropriate actions as necessary. -- -brandon
Re: Turning GNU into a bottom-up organization
On Mon, 2019-10-21 at 17:08 +0200, Mark Wielaard wrote: > In practice GNU already is mostly a bottom-up organization, where the > GNU hackers that do the actual work shape the project, but it would be > nice to make it more formally so. As I have already described to you and the others elsewhere, this is a false depiction of how GNU is organized. I'll copy the text below as a reminder. The main message of that original text was that if you are genuinely worried about GNU there is a ton of stuff that you can do today, no revolution necessary. However, the general problem is that everyone is more interested in talking about the future of GNU than doing the actual work to keep it alive today. Also, Richard has already stated that he will not enact any radical changes, so this discussion is moot anyway. What I wrote previously: - I keep seeing the comment (including on the wider web) that GNU is nothing more than a bunch of packages with maintainers and, somewhere floating in the ether above them, rms. As a result, the perception is that GNU is somehow organizationally undefined. While package maintainers undoubtedly comprise the bulk of formal volunteers to the GNU project, saying that they are the entirety outside of rms is disrespectful to the hard work put in by all the volunteers that help the good ship GNU keep afloat through other means. Off the top of my head: gnueval: They tirelessly evaluate all of the software that gets offered to GNU. This is a long and arduous process for each package. gnueval-security: They evaluate any particular security-related matters in new software offered to GNU. Again, this can be a lot of work. gnu-advisory: They handle difficult and sensitive cases of conflict within the project. They often occasionally are given in-depth research tasks by rms. They must generally be on-hand for rms as needed. maintain...@gnu.org: They handle appointing new co-maintainers, finding new maintainers for packages when old maintainers step down, chasing down maintainers of stale/moribund packages, diffusing conflicts, monitoring the health of packages in general, keeping an eye on major breaks from policy by packages (e.g. recommending non-free software), and lots of other things that I'm forgetting at the moment. webmasters: Obvious Translators for gnu.org: Obvious Savannah hackers: They keep a core part of our infrastructure running. They also have to evaluate new non-GNU software that wishes to be hosted on Savannah. They interface with maintain...@gnu.org to make sure that maintainers are fully set up on Savannah to carry out their jobs. GNU Education Team: They are working towards adoption of GNU & Free Software in schools. GNU Hacker Meeting organization: Generally done by whoever steps up to organize in any given year, but someone needs to do it. GSoC organization: As with GNU Hacker Meetings (but usually the same people) Yes, granted, in many cases those jobs are carried out by people who are also maintainers, but the point is that there is much more to keeping GNU running than just maintaining a collection of software packages. I don't expect people from outside of GNU to be aware of it but it would be nice if maintainers didn't spread the impression that there is no work going on in GNU other than software maintenance. Unless perhaps all of that work happening in the background is going so smoothly and the maintainers are able to focus so peacefully on their own projects that it goes completely unnoticed and unappreciated? :) Of course, if I told the 400+ maintainers just how much overlap there is in volunteers between those various teams and how high the attrition rate is due to burnout...
Re: Python question
> How, in Python, can I execute a string as a shell command?
You should use the 'call' function of the 'subprocess' module. You can
either pass it a string with the full command or a list of strings
comprising the command (like execv in libc). You must pass the
'shell=True' option if you are passing the full string; otherwise it can
be omitted.
import subprocess
subprocess.call("ls -l /home/rms", shell=True)
subprocess.call(["ls", "-l", "/home/rms"])
-brandon
--
Brandon Invergo
http://brandon.invergo.net
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Re: M$ Has Stooped To A New Low
>> Dressing up the fact that they're behind the times: >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkM6RJf15cg Wow...it's official, our society officially deems us old when advertisers see fit to appeal to our sense of nostalgia. But anyway, that ad had nothing to do with IE until the very end, so it's not even worth responding to as anything more than advertising drivel. -brandon ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
