Re: Politics [was: Re: Possible WM Documentation Project]

On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Alex Perez wrote:

>> For the record, your comments and attitude towards the Window Maker 
>> developers have already gotten you into trouble within the GNUstep 
>> development team for misrepresenting the GNUstep project.
>
> That was not intentional, and the site was updated within 24 hours, so 
> please, do not blow that aspect of it out of proportion.
>
>>  Your unilateral decision to frame Window Maker as not having had any real 
>> ties with GNUstep was largely unsuccessful.
>
> This is a gross misinterpretation of what we said. First of all, it was not 
> unilateral. It was agreed upon between several individuals, but not OK'd by 
> Adam. From your perspective, it might appear as unilateral, however, from 
> mine, it was anything but. All of the wording was a collaborative effort, and 
> it was only done because there was a lot of misunderstanding as to what 
> GNUstep was. I /never/ attempted to frame Window Maker as not having had any 
> real ties with GNUstep. That is a patently false accusation. I myself am 
> fully aware of the origins of Window Maker as well as the relationship that 
> historically existed between the two projects. You seem to assume I do not, 
> which is completely incorrect.
>

Sorry, but I can only go by your actions.  As you say, they speak louder 
than words.  You reworded things on the wiki only because we complained 
and brought them to the attention of others who had authority.  Whether it 
was your intent or not to frame things, that was the outcome.  If you had 
the knowledge you say you possess, and given your access to the wiki, you 
would have been more accurate with the wording in the first place.

And no, I'm not blowing this out of portion.  You'd prefer that this be 
kept private so as to keep you looking like a saint.

>>  Window Maker has a lot of history in supporting and promoting the GNUstep 
>> project.
>
> While this may have been historically true, it's not been in the recent past. 
> Actions speak louder than words in this case.
>

Excuse me?  Have you looked at our website?  We have numerous links to 
GNUstep's website and programming documentation.  The developers still 
strive to keep Window Maker compatible with GNUstep.  I think the rub 
here is that they no longer give it exclusive attention as they did in the 
past.  This is in large part due to the user base that also demands KDE 
and GNOME compatibility.  Supporting those environments has 
understandably shifted some of the development focus.

> Is the patch applied? No. Why (this is not a rhetorical question)? I even 
> sent it twice, once months ago and one much more recently. There's been no 
> explanation, no "we will examine this later", nothing. Actions speak louder 
> than words, and there has been zero action on this front. Does this mean that 
> the WM devs are harboring something against me personally? Not necessary, but 
> it's entirely possible. Clearly, there is a problem, and clearly, that 
> problem is not being addressed. There need to be a few more people who have 
> review and commit privs for trivial stuff like my patch which currently are 
> lost on the cutting-room floor. This is the underlying issue, and it's not 
> even being recognized as an issue by Alfredo or Dan. This is a very common 
> problem with open source projects whose core developers decide to enjoy real 
> life instead, and instead of responsibly delegating to others who are 
> interested in continuing to actively contribute to and manage the project, 
> just disappear and come back to "their baby" whenever they feel like it, 
> choosing to let it languish the rest of the time. This is not responsible.
>

So, the real problem here is that you are personally pissed that your 
patch didn't get reviewed.  Tell me, does every patch that gets submitted to
GNUstep get reviewed and commented on in a timely fashion?  Does every 
relevant patch get accepted?  Who decides what's relevant and what's not? 
The contributor?

If you're looking for a public admission that there are problems, well 
here it is.  Sure, there are problems.  Every project has them.  You seem 
to imply that nothing is being done about them, which is categorically 
false.  There are a lot of changes in the works that will improve upon the 
patch submission process, among other things.  Guess what?  Sorry if 
you've been the poor victim of a broken process.  Whaaa, *hands 
you a tissue*.  Get over it.

> I agree completely. It's best to not do so, but clearly the core developers 
> did not learn anything from that debacle, because they've reverted right back 
> to their same old behavior. Sometimes forks are unavoidable, in order to 
> force political changes. (see egcs for an example of an ultimately positive 
> outcome if such a process)
>

Apparently you're an expert on how to manage a project.  Are you stepping 
up to the plate to take on a fork?  You seem determined to prove a point, 
so put your money where your mouth is.

> If they bothered to even review my patch, which *I EXPECT*, and have no 
> problem with, I could revise it and make the required changes which they feel 
> should be necessary to apply the patch. They didn't even grant me a virtual 
> audience, so to speak, and that's what irritates me more than anything else. 
> If they want to do other things, that's perfectly fine, they are free to do 
> as they wish with their own time, but as I stated earlier, it's irresponsible 
> to not delegate. That is what has been happening for the last several years. 
> (no form of delegation)

Where is the doctrine that guarantees you an audience?  And delegation 
comes with responsiblity.  As I said.. no one has stepped up to the plate 
to seriously take on that responsiblity.  So, who do you propose we 
delegate to?  To become a patch reviewer, you would need to screen for the 
same standards that Alfredo and Dan use, which requires quite a bit of 
intimate knowledge of the code base.  It also requires a significant 
commitment of time, because you have to apply the patch, and test it on 
multiple platforms to ensure it doesn't break things and actually does 
what it's supposed to.

We don't have people knocking down the door to do this.  If you know of 
anyone, please send them our way.  Seriously.

>
> My patch was not rejected. It was not accepted. This argument completely 
> misses the point. My patch was never reviwed by anyone. This is the problem. 
> It's not some big huge complicated patch which requires days of thoughtful 
> contemplation.
>

Just because you haven't received a response does not mean it won't be
or hasn't been looked at.  You're implying that because you haven't 
received a response, that's it, end of story, it will never be looked at 
or accepted.  If you want to use rhetoric, at least be consistent.  The 
size of the patch doesn't matter.  Time and energy matter.

> Of course they do. We all do. That's fine; As I said, I have no right to 
> demand that they spend more time on the project, but I do have a right to 
> expect that /someone/ might be able to review and apply a trivial patch in 
> under four+ months, and I do have a right to expect that the core developers 
> to whom we are all beholden act responsibly and delegate to others if they 
> know they are too busy to work on this project on a regular basis. Nobody 
> made them Gods.
>

You have no rights.  You can expect all you want, but there is nothing 
that says anyone has to accept anything from anybody.  So far, all you're 
convincing anyone of is that you're pissed that you haven't received a 
response about your patch, and you're throwing a hissy fit about it.

So, like I said, we admit there are problems.  We're working on them. 
Sorry no, we don't have an ETA for you because it depends on the amount of 
time we can devote to the project, which varies wildly from day to day.

The fork option is on the table.  It sounds like you're a good candidate 
to lead it, since you are a disgruntled contributor that doesn't 
appreciate the current state of affairs.  But let me just say that you're 
wrong when you imply that nobody listens.  If that was the case, we'd 
simply can you for being a troll, and we wouldn't be having this 
discussion.

>>  To date, nobody else has proven they have the ability to take on large 
>> portions of the code and do so in a responsible manner without radically 
>> changing the goals of the project.
>
> It's a nice convenient excuse, however it rings pretty hollow.
>

Oh please.  Tell you what.. we'll let the next random person who 
contributes a patch take the reins.  After all, it's easy to manage a 
large complex project!

> Some of WM's current Net_WM support is very broken (it's new, so this is to 
> be expected, but needs to be resolved, and new releases made which address 
> the known NET_WM problems) and nothing is being done about it. More WM 
> integration with GNUstep is not a "trivial doodad" to any GNUstep user. This 
> is a continuous problem, where any Window Maker team member just dismisses 
> relevant patches as "little doodads" which are not relevant to them 
> personally, and as such are not worth their time.
>

And what evidence do you have that nothing is being done about it?  What, 
no CVS commits?  That doesn't mean the problem isn't being worked on or 
that a problem hasn't been acknowledged.  A lot of the NET_WM code was 
patches that got reviewed and incorporated, but it took time.  What's 
this?  A patch made it in?  Oh my goodness, how did that happen?!?!

If it makes you feel better, this is what Alfredo says about your patch:

<alfredo> i was going to consider applying after the previous release
because it'd break some stuff
<alfredo> it's trivial anyway, will just be incompatible with previous
installations of wmaker
<alfredo> it's in cvs already
<alfredo> it's not a conspiracy, i just forgot it

There, happy?  It was reviewed, and will be included in the next release.
Now you're probably going to swear up and down that we're only looking at
it now because you complained about it.  Sheesh.  Yeah right.. we are 
patch nazis.. we never apply any patches for anyone unless we like them.

> Your e-mail has for the most part only served to reinforce the position of 
> the Window Maker team that they don't need to adjust their behavior, that 
> they've done nothing wrong in irresponsibily failing to delegate, and that 
> patches they personally don't find important are "little doodads" which are 
> unworthy of their time (even just to review them and provide feedback).
>

Uh huh, right.  Let's review.  You're crying wolf over your patch not 
being reviewed.  I'm publically admitting that the process is not as good 
as it could and should be.  We're actively working to correct the problem, 
but want to ensure the integrity of the code base (which you perceive as 
the developers being stubborn, negligent, and irresponsible).  Finally, 
you are continually taking the stance that we have something personally against 
you, and that we really are anti-GNUstep patch nazis.

> It's just all really disappointing, because I like WM and would like to help 
> make it better, but basically it seems that this is impossible at this point, 
> because of the laundry list of excuses I've heard which it's not necessary to 
> re-state.
>
> I really would like to help elicit positive change, but I feel that sentiment 
> is not shared by the core WM devs. :( There's not much more I can do.
>

Grow up, man.

-phillip
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