[aur-general] TU Application - Konstantin Gizdov

Sun Oct 28 14:43:50 UTC 2018

On 28/10/2018 01:40, Eli Schwartz via aur-general wrote:
> On 10/27/18 6:12 PM, Christos Nouskas wrote:
>> I've been with Arch since around 2004-5 and I've never seen such a
>> hostility against a contributing user.
>>
>> Konstantin clearly cares about his set of packages because they are
>> the tools of his trade and of some of his co-workers (at a
>> high-profile institution, not at some pet shop). It's also clear that
>> he's not just a packager but also a co-developer of at least some of
>> the software set. It's only normal for him to be concerned about the
>> way this package group is handled, given the importance of its
>> applications. That also was the very reason he applied for a TU.
> That's... fine? I mean, there's lots of people for whom the tools of
> their trade *at high-profile institutions* are php, openssl, nginx, gcc,
> or numerous others. I'm sure they're very concerned about these things
> working properly.
>
> I don't regard Arch Linux as a *toy* of an operating system, fit only
> for idleness and hobby time.
>
> Appropriately, therefore, I treat all, or at least the majority, of Arch
> packages as important things which Arch users in general and
> specifically, should be concerned about. I guess there are games which
> are unlikely to be of job-related importance, but most packages are
> important to at least some subset of users, or we wouldn't be so eager
> to package them.
>
> I therefore do not ascribe any explicit importance or special
> consideration to anyone's job.
>
> Furthermore, we have a very well working bugtracker within which the
> many people who use Arch Linux in professional, and yes, sometimes
> high-profile environments, frequently communicate their concerns about
> the packaging of particular software packages. This is called due
> process. It's something you don't need to be a TU in order to do. If the
> only conceivable way to to contribute to Arch was to become a TU, we'd
> have a very small and insignificant distro indeed.
>
> To this date, I'm unaware of the fundamental purpose of the bugtracker
> failing our professional, high-profile users.
>
>> Now, even if he had been over-zealous about it, justifiably so in
>> many's opinions, he had been a far cry from whining or implying
>> oppression or telling bald-faced lies or being a control-freak - jeez,
>> why such strong expressions? I read the word "implying" numerous times
>> in the bashing posts and some arguments (not all, for sure) were even
>> based on Konstantin's "hidden insinuations", not his actual arguments.
>>
>> Mistakes do happen and I doubt that being a TU means being infallible
>> or indisputable. But watching a man getting severely reprimanded over
>> some petty mistakes, which had resulted from over-zealousness and not
>> mal-intent, is just sad.
> It is pretty darn hard to make a mistake about whether you yourself have
> done three things when you only actually did two.
>
> It is also pretty annoying for me, personally, to be flat-out told
> (before this TU application process even started) that I personally,
> would have refused to reopen a bug report for which there was a reopen
> request, save for a mailing list thread having been opened about it.
>
> I stated pretty clearly on September 30:
>
> "It was not denied to reopen. It was reopened as soon as you asked for
> the first time."
I'm breaking a promise to not email you any more about this, but this
argument is not correct. I did not say or imply that you denied to
re-open the bug. I said it was denied. Which later I admitted was an
incorrect statement from my side, because as you said, this particular
one was not denied to re-open.
>
> I received the response: "Yes, by you after I send this email, unless I
> am mistaken."
Again, at the time, I was thinking I did try to re-open this particular
bug, when it was another one. This was discussed, pointed out to me and
I have repeatedly admitted my mistake. Why am I, two weeks after the
fact, being called a liar?
> I repeatedly explain that we are willing to reopen any bug that has a
> reopen request, without needing some sort of mailing list drama to force
> our hands.
>
> But a month later, he continues to assert that the dates on the email
> thread *prove* that I only reopened the bug after his thread, with a
> pretty obvious logical conclusion that this fact is somehow relevant and
> therefore pertains to my own hidden motivations.
I also never said or implied any hidden motivations on your side. I am
the person constantly being accused of having hidden malicious intent
and being a whiny passive aggressive baby. I was told by Doug that I
whine and my whining didn't do anything. I maintain that I sent an email
with questions on Sunday evening when I had time to, so I can give time
for people to see it and respond when they want. I did not put 'urgent'
in the title and I did not imply it was supposed to be - I explained why
I care personally. I listed what I saw and asked what to do. I continue
to assert that the backlash I received was disproportionate (as I showed
from examples from other people's responses) and I have continued to
defend myself since then.
> I dislike the idea of encouraging a general perception in the Arch Linux
> community that anyone who files a bug report should also start some
> mailing list thread to ensure we actually respond to the bug report. If
> for no other reason than that we have 60,000 historic bugs, many of
> which are still open, and people would get pretty bored and stop reading
> the mailing list if it just became a copy of the bugtracker.
Could you have not said that simply - e.g. 'Please allow for a couple of
days before sending emails. We discourage this on the mailing list.' -
to which I have possibly replied - 'OK, it was late evening Sunday and I
didn't wanna leave it for the beginning of the week'. I am not a trusted
user, I am not first-hand familiar with how everything is handled. I do
not send emails every day. In fact, if you look in the history, I only
send emails when I think there's a problem I have tried to fix, failed
to address it myself and looking for advice.
>> Especially because it comes from the very people who advised him to
>> apply as a TU and that man is now appealing to.
> I did *not* advise him to become a TU, and I don't recall anyone
> publicly doing so on the mailing list at least.
>
> I did direct him to the due process for doing so, but that is not proof
> positive that I encourage and support his application... I would do the
> same for literally anyone whatsoever, even if that person was the CEO of
> Microsoft, a core member of some particularly ill-regarded Arch
> derivative like Manjaro, or an unabashedly public member of some
> three-letter spy agency who blogged every day about the noble cause of
> weakening security and injecting spyware into Linux distributions.
>
> Everyone deserves the chance to try and be convincing to the general
> class of Trusted Users, whether I personally feel convinced or not. In
> fact, everyone deserves the right to try and be convincing even if no
> one feels convinced.

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