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I'm sorry

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Re: I'm sorry

#201

Post by oaiey »

sorenjan wrote: post #160
Aaronontheweb wrote: post #24

Context: https://github.com/dotnet-foundation/Home/discussions/38

So it seems that the root of the whole mess is that the .NET Foundation demands that every project lets a centralized and anonymous committee enforce their code of conduct by banning users from all member projects. https://github.com/dotnet-foundation/projects/issues/174 https://dotnetfoundation.org/about/code-of-conduct

No, that was not their problem. CoC violations have not been a problem here. It is the complete lack of communication and a enforcement of other things (the .NET Foundation things they should do), like account management, code ownership and collaboration model.

All of that is however, quite debatable whether it should or should not done by the foundation, but the utterly lack of communication and community participation is the problem here.

Re: I'm sorry

#202

Post by oaiey »

zb wrote: post #168

I don't know anything about the .NET Foundation or much about this particular situation, but I know a little about open source governance. It appears that Novotny believed she was acting in her capacity as a (long-dormant) maintainer of the project when she merged the PR in question. It was clearly wrong to do so without following the process set down by the other maintainers, and she was right to apologise. However,…

This is the exact summary of what is wrong and need to be improved. Thanks for that.

The .NET Foundation needs a revitalization and maybe a split into a ".NET Foundation" and a ".NET Community Foundation" to separate the .NET and the .NET community. The F# community is much better in this separation of community and Microsoft.

Re: I'm sorry

#203

Post by oaiey »

bingohbangoh wrote: post #55
llacb47 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/reactiveui/splat/pull/778

Wow. That’s very brazen to force a PR in like that. The apology made it sound like a small change that didn’t follow protocol. I didn’t realize it got called out as it happened and she pushed it through anyway.

What especially strange is, when you are one of multiple maintainers ... how the hack you are not communicating with them. Multiple maintainers = they need to have shared principles on the projects = they need to talk.

Ignoring this, is the strangest thing I have seen in this PR ... and a clear indicator, that this is not only about this project. This was a nuclear action by the .NET Foundation.

Re: I'm sorry

#204

Post by cormacrelf »

dgb23 wrote: post #196
satisfice wrote: post #89

I don’t know enough about this to comment, except to say, gee, isn’t the social and business life of human adults complicated? Yes it is. It is complicated. How strange, then, that so many people seem to jump with both feet into complicated shared ownership arrangements with near strangers— leading to the absurdity of public messages flying around instead keeping these communications private to the specific people wh…

Because it is a public open source project?

They're discussing this on a public forum, but only sharing screenshots of small sections of PDFs which remain private. The CLAs are the governing documents here, and nobody except the people who have access to those agreements in full have any business even forming an opinion as to what rights are held by whom. Posting selected parts (literally just the definitions section, the non operative part!) for public point-scoring is pretty ridiculous. Either shut up and email them privately, or post the entire thing so people can see what you've signed up for.

(The outdated copy of the agreement that's available online is not good enough.)

Re: I'm sorry

#205

Post by pizza234 »

RedShift1 wrote: post #170
avsteele wrote: post #152

I am not versed in all the details here, but it is clear there is a diverge of expectations between MS and some of the repo owners. This is just part of business. Legal agreements and projects are complicated. Not everything is going to be spelled out. In a good business relationship you acknowledge this and work in good faith to resolve differences when they occur. However, top comments make clear there is a dire ne…

I don't see anything wrong with that quote. Can it be expressed more "softly"? Sure. But that person is expressing his opinion and I don't see any problem with that. You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO. There seems to be a more general trend going on, some think themselves or others must be protected from "harshness" (even though I consi…

(Rationally) making a point, expressing emotions, and being offensive/insulting are entirely separate things.

There are a few misconceptions at play:

  1. that expressing negative emotions implies being offensive

  2. that being offensive strengthens an argument
In my experience, being able to separate the offensive part, which is certainly difficult, leads to much more productive outcomes, without losing argumentative strength - besides, being also (considered) more professional.

> some think themselves or others must be protected from "harshness"

In the above perspective, harshness is simply improductive in any context - being firm and persuasive is always a better choice. It's just very difficult :^)

> I'd rather be told I'm working on a dead end than a "nice comforting letter" explaining how my patch can't be accepted _right now_ because of x and y with wording that could be interpreted as "it could be accepted later"

This is a dichotomy between an arguably harsh approach and a false/polite one. There are other different approaches (besides, I think that there's nothing offensive/harsh in being told that one is working on a dead end).

> I don't see anything wrong with that quote. Can it be expressed more "softly"? Sure. But that person is expressing his opinion and I don't see any problem with that.

Being considerate towards other people leads to a much more productive collaboration. This vision:

> You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO.

is indeed non-collaborative - essentially, not being interested at all about the other person. The point is then just venting frustration rather than communicating (in general, not the specific case).

I doubt that anybody can hold a lead/management position with this attitude (without being considered at least an unpleasant manager).

> For example Linus Torvalds gets a lot of flak for his opinions on some pieces of code he doesn't like but every time I read those emails, I feel like people are blowing it way out of proportion. I'm sure it's not fun to be on the receiving end but his arguments are typically sound and likes to write a lot to really drive his point home.

This argument actually proves the point. Torvals made a public apology:

  http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1809.2/00117.html
so definitely there is something (to say the least) inappropriate with that attitude. There are indications that he went to therapy specifically because of that:

  https://twitter.com/lexnfx/status/1409185767348310020
All in all, I definitely support (in a more verbose way :^)) the argument:

> top comments make clear there is a dire need for professional communications training among these programmers

Re: I'm sorry

#206

Post by oaiey »

Aeolun wrote: post #129

This whole thing just screams clusterfuck to me. Don’t trust Microsoft or give anyone admin access to your repos if you won’t want them to do bad shit. I guess they technically own Github, so don’t use that if you don’t trust them either.

I think there is very little intent on Microsoft behalf in this. This is a OSS foundation which enforce their (understanding of) ownership. What is horrible is the absolute lack of transparency, communication and community in this foundation.

What they have done happens also in the Apache, Eclipse or whatever foundation as well. Just that these are communities which are mature and composed of experienced open source people which know how to address and communicate with other maintainers/egos/people. Open Source Communities are about people. Not the tech. You are only successful if you are good with people. What they did there multiple times was pulling nuclear options without telling people.

The .NET Foundation is run by Microsoft MVP program (Claire, Ben, others) which live in their own dimension which is different from the rest of the community. They are supported by lawyers/managers of Microsoft trying to protect the brand and the core of .NET. That is a setup for failure without any malicious intent.

Disclosure: .NET Fanboy + (successful) open source maintainer (not .NET foundation related)

Re: I'm sorry

#207

Post by psysharp »

emodendroket wrote: post #195
gatlin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more highly of people who are honest about their emotions and express them, instead of pretending that the motivating force behind almost all of our personal behavior isn't "relevant." Emotional ≠ unproductive.

I don't. The essence of civilization is suppressing animal instincts in service of a higher goal.

No, it's abstractions of animal instincts, and that difference is huge.

Re: I'm sorry

#208

Post by vcmak »

emodendroket wrote: post #195
gatlin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more highly of people who are honest about their emotions and express them, instead of pretending that the motivating force behind almost all of our personal behavior isn't "relevant." Emotional ≠ unproductive.

I don't. The essence of civilization is suppressing animal instincts in service of a higher goal.

I've been around long enough to know that the higher goal is to line the pockets of those who establish and enforce the "polite" interaction rules. They give orders to the workers (in the broadest sense, workers can be productive professors) and skim off a percentage of the output.

Re: I'm sorry

#209

Post by BurnGpuBurn »

Years ago I heard Microsoft was open sourcing .Net. and I thought that was a clever idea. But with all the drama coming out of the community now for years and years I seriously question the intentions behind that move. It seems to me Microsoft just wanted a bunch of free coders on their .Net projects.

And it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft set out to destroy a community of volunteers either.

Re: I'm sorry

#210

Post by rocqua »

pizza234 wrote: post #205
RedShift1 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything wrong with that quote. Can it be expressed more "softly"? Sure. But that person is expressing his opinion and I don't see any problem with that. You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO. There seems to be a more general trend going on, some think themselves or others must be protected from "harshness" (even though I consi…

(Rationally) making a point, expressing emotions, and being offensive/insulting are entirely separate things. There are a few misconceptions at play: 1. that expressing negative emotions implies being offensive 2. that being offensive strengthens an argument In my experience, being able to separate the offensive part, which is certainly difficult, leads to much more productive outcomes, without losing argumentative s…

> making a point, expressing emotions, and being offensive/insulting are entirely separate things.

Whilst true, what often happens is that people emotionally express disapproval. This then often includes harsh judgement not just of someones work, but of their person as well. At that point it becomes insulting. Even when not moving on to harshly judging a person, totally destroying someone's work is likely to put them on the defensive. For the purposes of keeping up conversation, it can be equivalent to being insulting.

Consider remarks like.

"This code is riddled with bugs and lacks insights form the last 10 years. Whomever wrote it must be willfully ignorant or a total moron with their head in the sand".

It reads like a statement made from emotion, it technically only includes "making a point" but it goes so far as too become insulting. Even if you drop the second sentence it can still be insulting.

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