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Feb 6, 2003, 7:57:19 PM2/6/03

freebsd-chat-digest Thursday, February 6 2003 Volume 05 : Number 694

In this issue:
Re: Software for sheilas [was: BSD desktop]
Re: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status))
Re: GGI (was: Project Status)
RE: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status))
Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object
=?ISO-8859-1?B?pc6k36zdp7mz4SEhIS4uLi4u?=
Re: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status))
=?ISO-8859-1?B?pc6k36zdp7mz4SEhIS4uLi4u?=
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: My words towards billh's resignation
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object
Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)
High-latency/long-distance IP stack (was Re: cvs commit: CVSROOT access access.master access.ports)
Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 14:29:03 -0500
From: "Dan Langille" <d...@langille.org>
Subject: Re: Software for sheilas [was: BSD desktop]

On 7 Feb 2003 at 6:23, Sue Blake wrote:

> There's nothing wrong with people using the best available tool for the
> job they want to do, even if the best isn't very good. For me BSD is the
> best tool for the job of being a server and a desktop, but that's not
> going to work out the same for everybody, especially people like my Mum.

Agreed. My mum would have trouble with a mouse regardless of the GUI
used. At present, she is using pine, and she has trouble with that
one. What I need is a very simple and easy to use interface. Pine is
not that. Before you flame, first consider that you are actually a
very experience computer user. Especially when compared to my mum.
- --
Dan Langille : http://www.langille.org/

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 14:34:36 -0500
From: Larry Sica <lom...@mac.com>
Subject: Re: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status))

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thursday, February 6, 2003, at 12:59 PM, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
<snipping some>

> On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Narvi wrote:
> g list archives; a few others have started projects,
> websites, and discussions for doing this for a few years. (Search for
> homebsd and zebsd, for example.)
>
>> * *DECIDE* (and later keep to the decision) as to what exactly
>> your target audience is
>
> My wife. My mom. My sister-in-law. :)
>
> (My wife already uses X, blackbox, vnc, and sylpheed. My mom's been
> using
> open source Unix for several years for everything. And my in-laws have
> been unknowingly and entirely using NetBSD for a year.)
>
>> * and then you just deal with the needed decisions that come
>> from
>> the first two parts to end up with a desktop package
>
> The software is already available. The packages/ports are done.
>

What is needed is a good interface to it, both aesthetically, and
technically as well as a stable method.

>> But really its a huge amount of work and includes many quite quirky
>> decisions even when starting for a well-known base like GNOME/KDE
>> (alphabetical ordering).
>
> It is not a lot of work (unless done by one person). I think it only
> needs
> a few things:
>
> 1) Nice-looking GUI installer. But it can be very simple: don't give
> the
> user very many choices. (If they want choices, let it fall back to
> sysinstall.) For example, no fdisk slicing or disklabeling. Just tell
> the user that it will be installed on entire disk. Or tell the user
> that
> certain partitions are available and ask which to use.
>
> Don't ask the user (during install) to choose software. Just install!
>

Yes I agree here, the base os shouldn't need 100000 options on install.
Ideally it should just install everything for you, setting up disks
and only asking for your personal information.

> Do ask the user for username, password and for a password for doing
> "administration tasks". ("Some computer tasks will require an
> additional
> administrator password. Please enter ...")
>

One could take a nod from apple here. It only asks for a password if
you tell it you want to be asked for login, and will then ask for
administrative tasks. It presents setting this up in a very friendly
way as well.

> 2) Make sure all menus are clearly preset.
>
> The software to install should be decided, but not too many options.
> Then make sure it works correctly, such as double-clicking on a mpeg
> should play it.
>

Install the basics, if someone really wants more they can install it
later.

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0 (Build 349) Beta

iQA/AwUBPkK40OeV8VtPCL3dEQJVhwCg6H1SNBqA3mp66ST/HdepAau+0foAn3Eo
hM35WEHSgrPEnbX1G7fIMR6p
=EBea
- -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 21:43:19 +0200 (EET)
From: Narvi <na...@haldjas.folklore.ee>
Subject: Re: GGI (was: Project Status)

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, [iso-8859-1] Pedro F. Giffuni wrote:

> --- Narvi <na...@haldjas.folklore.ee> ha scritto: >
> ...
> >
> > seeing as there are well-maintained packages of many
> > "desktopy"
> > things, obviously not everybody agrees.
> >
>
> The KDE and GNOME people have made a brave effort to
> keep us up to date, but by "integrated effort" I
> understand a lot more. In fact I'm tired of
> complaining about the brokeness of the ports
> distribution as a single tarball and it's poor
> integration with sysinstall.
>

True - and it is a good basis to build something on top. Btw, the
ports collection is not something you need to worry about - its
definately not for end users

> The future desktop, for me, will be MachOS X.
>

You know, oddly enough, a lot of people are going that way...

> Pedro.
>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 11:48:10 -0800
From: "Schnitzer, Jeff" <JSchn...@maxis.com>
Subject: RE: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

> From: John Polstra [mailto:j...@polstra.com]
>=20
> I have just one other thing I'd like to say as I end this lengthy
> e-mail. We at the FreeBSD Foundation are volunteers who are simply
> trying to do something for the benefit of the FreeBSD Project. We
> don't get paid. In fact, we donate money as well as time to the
> Foundation. It is a rewarding job, at times, but frankly it isn't
> much fun. The Internet is a big place, and there is always somebody
> out there who can manage to view just about anything as a
> conspiracy. There is really nothing I can do about such people. I
> just try to keep my cool and do my best, knowing full well that I
> can't please everybody.

You blew it. People contribute their time and effort to open source
projects for a lot of reasons, but chief among them is recognition. You
got an angry piece of mail from a contributor who felt unappreciated by
your actions - and what was your response? It could have been "I'm
sorry, who are you? Please explain." Instead you gave him a brush-off.
Maybe the guy has legitimate reasons for being irate, maybe he doesn't,
but you didn't even ask.

It doesn't matter who "could" do the work, it matters who IS doing the
work. From following freebsd-java, it's obvious there are at most two
or three people putting significant effort into the project. Now there
is one less. =20

Personally, I think you should apologize - to the community of people
who want to use Java on FreeBSD. A bit of patience, understanding, and
explanation might have ameliorated Bill's sense of alienation and
encouraged him to continue his contributions. In the long run,
fostering a vibrant development community is a much more important
activity than issuing grants. =20

Jeff Schnitzer
je...@infohazard.org
I don't know any of the people involved. My only involvement is an
overwhelming desire to run JDK1.4 and JBoss on FreeBSD.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 11:52:09 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
From: Joshua IV <jos...@sublimity.net>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

Hi John, crew.
As a somewhat newcomer to freebsd-java and an utter lurker, I think I
can offer a pretty unbiased opinion about the whole deal. I feel
compelled to, because I'm a big proponent of open-source software
development, which is a big win for everyone, but like any relative of the
Prisoner's Dilemma, it has some fragility.

After reading through the relevant mail, both that intended to be
public and that intended not to be public, it was pretty clear to me that
Bill didn't want the job. Of course you can argue that that was
after-the-fact-ism, but regardless he makes it obvious that his primary
concern isn't the job, but is acknowledgement of his work and enough
respect to at least give him a handwave during the process. I can
understand if you missed that message amid the napalm bombardment, but
that doesn't absolve the underlying sin, which is needing him to tell you
in the first place.

As a significant member of an organization so dependent on volunteer
contribution (including your own), I'm sure you've read Homesteading the
Noosphere by Eric Raymond (you have, haven't you?)

http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_10/raymond/

in which he gives a very reasoned and reasonable analysis of the
open-source development culture and what drives it. It is in essence a
gift economy. And the primary coinage in a gift economy is respect and
acknowledgement, for better or worse. As a putative legal representative
of an essentially open-source project, this should be part and parcel of
the way you do business, but you seem to have ignored it.

Bill's work has been instrumental in us getting hotspot running in a
production environment. Furthermore, it only took about 3 days of being
on the mailing list to learn about his work and take advantage of it. To
suggest that you've never heard of him makes it quite clear that you've
never spent so much as a few days reading the freebsd-java list, much less
researched it intensively.

Which naturally leads to the question: What do you make of an
organization choosing to take responbility for bringing Java to FreeBSD,
that hasn't bothered to spend any time in. . . freebsd-java? And what do
you make of an organization that lives inside a gift economy, but isn't
interested in participating in it? The answers probably aren't
complimentary, and I urge the FreeBSD Foundation to do what it can to
repair that oversight (probably too late, from both directions), and work
in the future to becoming more aware of the environment it's working in.

-j

Joshua IV -=- -=- =-= -=- -=: :-= /-\
Floundering Cognitive Ass of the Cognitive Assonance Cabal

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 11:55:24 -0800
From: Dave Hayes <da...@jetcafe.org>
Subject: Re: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status))

Larry Sica <lom...@mac.com> writes:
> One could take a nod from apple here. It only asks for a password if
> you tell it you want to be asked for login, and will then ask for
> administrative tasks. It presents setting this up in a very friendly
> way as well.

Does this mean you select a random password for the user, or leave
the user with a null password? ;)
- ------
Dave Hayes - Consultant - Altadena CA, USA - da...@jetcafe.org
>>> The opinions expressed above are entirely my own <<<

Envy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 12:45:50 -0700
From: Brett Glass <br...@lariat.org>
Subject: Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object

At 02:26 AM 2/6/2003, Doug Barton wrote:

>I'd like to make a point that I think is being overlooked here regarding
>exactly what a "commit bit" means. It simply means that the person has
>(essentially) unfettered access to commit code directly to the tree. For
>all intents and purposes, it's a matter of convenience.

Exactly. Which means that it's likely NOT a good criterion for allowing
someone to vote (and its absence should not be a reason to deny a
member of the community a vote).

- --Brett

------------------------------

Date: 07 Feb 2003 04:12:16 +0800
From: sl...@taiwan.com
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?B?pc6k36zdp7mz4SEhIS4uLi4u?=

<html>

<body>

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十全十美，洋洋得意過好年 
 
 
              
           ****最有活力的-------<a href="http://amityslc.getU.to">小熊熊</a>

</body>

</html>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:16:05 -0800 (PST)
From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <re...@reedmedia.net>
Subject: Re: BSD desktop (was: GGI (was: Project Status))

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Larry Sica wrote:

> > The software is already available. The packages/ports are done.
> >
>
> What is needed is a good interface to it, both aesthetically, and
> technically as well as a stable method.

It has been awhile since I have played with a variety of gui package
installers.

Does KDE's kpackage work fine?

Is it easy to use?

(I need to give it a try again.)

Jeremy C. Reed
http://bsd.reedmedia.net/

------------------------------

Date: 07 Feb 2003 04:26:19 +0800
From: sl...@taiwan.com
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?B?pc6k36zdp7mz4SEhIS4uLi4u?=

<html>

<body>

</body>

</html>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:29:13 -0800
From: Bill Huey (Hui) <bi...@gnuppy.monkey.org>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 10:41:24AM -0800, John Polstra wrote:
> Bill's public attack on me stems from those e-mails. They contain
> the history of this issue. In transforming a simple, everyday
> hiring decision into a public attack on the FreeBSD Foundation and
> on me personally, Bill threw the rules of etiquette out the window.

BS, you have a responsibility to the greater FreeBSD community to make
sure and that input is listened to and then acted upon appropriately.
You failed when you did this behind everybody's back, not just me.
You failed the entire group.

> If Bill wants this to be public then it is _all_ going to be public.
> Some will disagree with this, but I can live with that. The e-mails
> will stay on the web page until I no longer feel the need to defend
> my actions in public.

You need to as a non-profit for the sake of the community, that's
completely arrogant to think otherwise.

> One person criticized the title I put on the web page. His point is
> well taken. The whole day yesterday was so utterly surreal that I
> guess I needed a small dose of comic relief. That was inappropriate,

+ ridicule and belittlement all of which reflect badly in a corporate
context when getting grant money. It makes you and the rest of FreeBSD
look stupid. You should be fired from the position and people need to
be elected into roles that significant to the community.

> and I have changed the title to "Mail".

> kinds, etc., those rules have nothing to do with 501(c)(3)

Non-profits like the Red Cross exist to serve a larger group folks,
not you and your warped sense of ego in relation to the rest of the
FreeBSD community. The fact that you don't understand this means, that
you're missing something in your personal experience essential for the
competent function of this job you've been self appointed to.

> Greg and Nate agreed that Alexey would be a good person for the job.

I would have agreed that Alexey is a good person for the job, but there
should have never been a place and time where I should have been
excluded from the decision making body, since I've classically had that
role ever since I came from the BSD/OS group at WindRiver.

> (This turned out to be a valuable recommendation, and we couldn't be
> more pleased with his work.) We initiated discussions with Alexey,

Yes, stroke yourself more. It's disgusting.

> worked out the contractual details, etc., and he went to work on it

Behind everybodies back with regard to any preexisting political
structure in existence or otherwise, very stupid.

> full time. Since then he has made great progress, and he has kept
> us up-to-date with status reports.

How do you know what the progress is ? have you seen the commit logs ?
In fact, you don't know who's been doing what in the group, which is
why you asked both Nate and Greg in the first place.

That's crack smoking claim on your part..

You would even be making progress with any develope if I hadn't taken
on this task from Dec 2001 to May 2002, all on my own time and money,
just to see this through.

> That was the state of things at the beginning of this week. Now let
> me make something perfectly clear. When we asked for recommendations,
> Bill Huey's name never came up. He wasn't mentioned. As far as I

I never came up since Nate is partially held a senseless grudge from a
private conversation that I dismissed as silly and never looked back
thinking things where ok, he'll chill out and realize this was stupid.

In partial summary, you were partially manipulated into not even
considering me in the first place because of prior resentments and the
non-mention of me in the first place...

Regardless, given the core role I have in the group, I should have never
been excluded from the discussion from hiring Alexey or anybody else.

> know, I had never even heard his name before -- certainly not in any

You never heard my name before ? Good god, do you know what I've done ?
or even understand it ?

> context that would cause me to remember it.

It never came to you since your group didn't competently research what
folks where doing in this group and didn't ask any formal body about
what was really going on. That's another sign of incompetence.

> Then, out of the blue, we received his first e-mail on Tuesday. It
> was absolutely baffling to all of us at the Foundation. Here was
> this profanity-laden flame from a perfect stranger, demanding an
> explanation for the fact that we hadn't hired him!

Not true, you have a reading comprehension problem. I asked why I wasn't
included in the decision making body. Now that's clear, you didn't
think to ask if the folks you asked for advice in the first place what
other engineers would think about this.

> The rest of the history is documented in the e-mails, which most of
> you have already seen. To re-iterate: msg01.txt was the first I had
> ever heard of Bill Huey. How would you feel in my position?
> Frankly, my first reaction was, "Thank GOD we didn't hire that guy!"

That's because you're a narrow minded dickhead that doesn't listen to
anybody reasonable.

> Some of you have criticized the terseness of my replies to Bill. I

Terse = rude, dismissive, reactive, selfish, unanalytical and unsuitable
for sitting on a $50,000 grant from Sun so that the license came be done
through the FreeBSD Foundation, which I support since both Greg and Nate
supported over Blackdown, Calvin Austin's suggestion.

If we had just turned this into a Blackdown project this would have never
happened in the first place. You were given political power in the community,
in terms of several grant, one from Sun implicitly and more for Alexey,
and then didn't act on it responsibly as a non-profit to the corporation
nor to the developer or user body that you supposeably represent.

> hope this context will help you to understand it a little better.
> My very first contact with the fellow came in the form of a flame
> from him. This was followed 18 hours later by a second mail which
> contained an explicit threat. I don't think anybody knows for sure

I think it's understandable when you didn't reply to it and "dismissed"
it the first time around. It's partially your responsibility to interface
and possibly deal with semi-irrate corporate body any constituents.

> how to deal with a person who's in that state of mind. It seemed to
> me that the least harmful approach would be to avoid escalating the
> situation. So I sent him the briefest, most emotion-free reply I

Most emotion free ? You've got to be kidding me, you were a
condescending ass in that second email, which is why I got really
fucking pissed.

> could manage, and in the subsequent mail I tried to keep things
> strictly on a professional level. We could talk all day long about

Professional like competent communication between all relevant parties ?

> whether that was the right approach or not. I did my best, and I am
> proud of the fact that I didn't let Bill drag me down to his level
> of discourse.

You brought to new level when you title that exchange as "Bill's Job
Interview", that's pretty stupid of you.

> On to a related topic ... Some people, Bill included, took offense at
> my statement, "Bill, there are easily a hundred people who could have
> done this work, but we could only hire one of them." This was in no

A number of folks did.

> way intended to be disparaging toward any Java developer; nor was it
> meant as any kind of insult. I am sorry that some people took it that
> way, and I'll try to learn how to express myself better in the future.
> The point I was trying to make was simply that if we hired one person,
> there were going to be a whole bunch of other qualified people that we
> _didn't_ hire. Bill was one of those. For whatever reason, he's
> the only one who took it as a personal affront.

Because I did all the freaking work.

Pick a paper an read:
http://research.sun.com/self/papers/papers.html

This is what I have to deal with including a backward way of introducing
myself to the intricacies of Solaris threading in one of the density
C/C++/assembler trees most folks have ever seen.

Believe it or not that's 1/3rd of the HotSpot compiler and not the
entire thing. The JVM is used as supporting first class type system as
an add on to HotSpot. It's simply complete insanity.

> I actually am fairly confident that there are a hundred people in
> the world who could do the job. I mean -- come on, people! In the
> whole world? Of course there are! But honestly, the number doesn't
> matter for the point I was trying to make unless you think the
> number is 1 -- in which case you'll get nothing but a hearty belly
> laugh from me.

Bogus argument. It was implied that you though some job blow high school
drop out could have done this job, which just isn't true.

> I have just one other thing I'd like to say as I end this lengthy
> e-mail. We at the FreeBSD Foundation are volunteers who are simply

"We at the FreeBSD Foundation are incompetent voluteers, that should
have had these roles be elected in office in first place so that we
can actual serve the community at large instead of bloating our already
overinflated egos."

> trying to do something for the benefit of the FreeBSD Project. We
> don't get paid. In fact, we donate money as well as time to the
> Foundation. It is a rewarding job, at times, but frankly it isn't
> much fun. The Internet is a big place, and there is always somebody
> out there who can manage to view just about anything as a
> conspiracy. There is really nothing I can do about such people. I

Because it partially was. You didn't pick up on it nor demonstrated
sensitivity to the situation.

> just try to keep my cool and do my best, knowing full well that I
> can't please everybody.
>
> Well, that's about it. I think I have said just about everything I
> can say on this topic. I am most likely not going to write any more
> about it. I just don't see the point of writing if there's nothing
> new to say. As I said at the very beginning: draw your own
> conclusions.

Conclusions:

1) FreeBSD Foundation doesn't listen to people.

2) FF doesn't understand how putting money into a volunteer
situation can possibly cause confusion in relation
to other developers. Who fairly decides "what" goes to
which person ?

3) John Polstra is a wuss that can't handle a little bit of
confrontation so that another core developer understands
why he was omitted from the political process in which
should have never been omitted in the first place.

4) FF positions should be elected and have competent people
interfacing with all corporate, developers and user communities.

bill

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:45:34 -0800
From: Bill Huey (Hui) <bi...@gnuppy.monkey.org>
Subject: Re: My words towards billh's resignation

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 08:03:31AM -0500, Alan B. Clegg wrote:
> Bill, having worked with you in the past, all I can say is that your
> attitude of self importance has not changed in the least, and I, for one
> wish you would:

>[shut the fuck up]

Oh, really ? can you tell me how you're going to get me to that ?

Ok, maybe that's a good idea.

> Nobody in the project is "THREATENED OF YOU" and your 31337 ninja coding
> skillz anymore now than when you were banned from #bsdcode a few years
> back due to their (Alfred and Fumerola's) "insecurities" (your word).

Oh, Chicken Alfredo Hurlstein and Fill Firmerspicola ? I couldn't resist. :)

> It seems to me that everything that does not go your way turns into a
> "they are scared of me", "they are threatened by me", or "they are insecure

Well, aren't they ?

> because I'm better" type of argument. I suggest medication.

Who said I was better ? I just said that I was annoyed and would like
them to stop it.

> If the foundation wants to hire someone else, it's THEIR CHOICE. They
> don't have to pass ANYTHING by you, as you are a NOBODY just like the
> rest of us.

Dude, you know so little of how our group works that I can't believe you
said that. It's like preparing for war and dismissing the tank division
as calvary.

bill

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 23:47:45 +0100
From: Marc van Kempen <ma...@bowtie.nl>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

On donderdag, feb 6, 2003, at 21:29 Europe/Amsterdam, Bill Huey (Hui)
wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 10:41:24AM -0800, John Polstra wrote:
>> Bill's public attack on me stems from those e-mails. They contain
>> the history of this issue. In transforming a simple, everyday
>> hiring decision into a public attack on the FreeBSD Foundation and
>> on me personally, Bill threw the rules of etiquette out the window.
>
> BS, you have a responsibility to the greater FreeBSD community to make
> sure and that input is listened to and then acted upon appropriately.
> You failed when you did this behind everybody's back, not just me.
> You failed the entire group.
>

[inflamatory reply to John's explanation cut out]

Come on you two, you aren't communicating. John you still haven't
addressed the issue why you don't reply to Bill's comments, it's only
making things worse, do you want it to detoriate at this rate.

If you'd just say "Bill you're an **** for insulting me the way that
you do, but I have since researched the mailing list and commit logs
and acknowledge that you have made a big contribution to the whole java
porting process and more specifically to the hotspot port, and we would
have certainly consulted you had I known."

Now is that so hard?

You should realize that you can't handle this in the proffesional way
that you'd like, and perhaps are used to in the commercial world out
there. This is a volunteer project and as Jeff Schnitzer said,
recognition plays a great part as a motivator for doing the work.

It's almost unbelievable that you didn't research the java project (and
mailing lists) to find out what is going on. Had you done that you
would have quickly realised Bill's role.

While we're at it Bill, why do you keep using this much abusive
language, it's not making things better, quite the contrary.

Regards,
Marc.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 18:00:55 -0500 (EST)
From: "Matthew N. Dodd" <win...@jurai.net>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Marc van Kempen wrote:
> If you'd just say "Bill you're an **** for insulting me the way that
> you do, but I have since researched the mailing list and commit logs
> and acknowledge that you have made a big contribution to the whole java
> porting process and more specifically to the hotspot port, and we would
> have certainly consulted you had I known."
>
> Now is that so hard?

You know, one doesn't typically -demand- recognition.

If you're working on something of your own volition "for fun" you can't
seriously expect anything for your efforts. If you require some sort of
compensation you're free make that a condition for others to use your
work.

Rational people don't go stomping around demanding that the world be
perfect for them.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 15:11:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Kurt Werle <ku...@twoface.shiftmanager.net>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Matthew N. Dodd wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Marc van Kempen wrote:
> > If you'd just say "Bill you're an **** for insulting me the way that
> > you do, but I have since researched the mailing list and commit logs
> > and acknowledge that you have made a big contribution to the whole
> > java porting process and more specifically to the hotspot port, and we
> > would have certainly consulted you had I known."
> >
> > Now is that so hard?
>
> You know, one doesn't typically -demand- recognition.

No, usually one demands pay for one's hard work. In this case, Bill
clearly wanted recognition. He has not been paid, nor was it promised.

In a Free Project, one usually doesn't need to demand recognition.
Usually the folks who can give it do so freely.

> If you're working on something of your own volition "for fun" you can't
> seriously expect anything for your efforts.

I think that you can and should expect recognition. If it's clear that
you helped make an important component work in some large project, it may
actually be something you would put on your resume'. If potential
employers can look that info up, it makes it even more likely.

> Rational people don't go stomping around demanding that the world be
> perfect for them.

No, rational people generally hope that the people in charge will do
reasonable things. If they fail to do so, reasonable people try to change
that. If that fails, reasonable people tend to walk away.

Bill has done a poor job, politically speaking, of trying to change what's
going on. John has done an equally poor job of trying to keep the peace
and smooth things over.

Kurt
- ---
kwe...@pobox.com
http://www.pobox.com/~kwerle/
Tired of spam? Control your Mailserver (or .forward)? http://tess.sf.net

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 23:14:01 +0000
From: Mark Murray <ma...@grondar.org>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

Marc van Kempen writes:
> If you'd just say "Bill you're an **** for insulting me the way that
> you do, but I have since researched the mailing list and commit logs
> and acknowledge that you have made a big contribution to the whole java
> porting process and more specifically to the hotspot port, and we would
> have certainly consulted you had I known."

Actually, he did.

> Now is that so hard?

Obviously not.

M
- --
Mark Murray
iumop ap!sdn w,I idlaH

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 18:30:36 -0500
From: Rahul Siddharthan <rs...@online.fr>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

Mark Murray wrote:
> Marc van Kempen writes:
> > If you'd just say "Bill you're an **** for insulting me the way that
> > you do, but I have since researched the mailing list and commit logs
> > and acknowledge that you have made a big contribution to the whole java
> > porting process and more specifically to the hotspot port, and we would
> > have certainly consulted you had I known."
>
> Actually, he did.

No, he *did not*. Not on the archived mails on his web page, and not
on these lists. Point out one single quote where he acknowledges Bill
may have made a contribution to freebsd-java, or that he may have been
mistaken in ignoring him.

His latest long mail is an exercise in saying why it's ok to react as
he did, because he's never heard of Bill. As others have pointed out,
if he'd bothered to hang around the freebsd-java list for a couple of
days, he'd have heard of Bill.

Absolutely the only "mea culpa" jdp issues for the whole episode is for
the title he used on his webpage.

I don't totally blame him for his initial reaction, since he's in a
volunteer position, he must have been freaked by Bill's mails, and
Bill is way too foul-mouthed for normal people. But jdp is not close
to even acknowledging Bill's contribution, let alone that it was a
mistake not consulting him.

- - Rahul

------------------------------

Date: 06 Feb 2003 15:44:46 -0800
From: sw...@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
Subject: Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object

Doug Barton <Do...@FreeBSD.org> writes:

> [Please respect reply-to ch...@freebsd.org, thanks]
...
> Unfortunately, for a number of complex reasons, some of which have been
> described publicly, and some of which are not appropriate to describe
> publicly, the core team decided that it's no longer appropriate for Matt
> to have this access to the cvs tree.

Doug, your "reply-to" request makes you sound like a write-only chatter.
Assuming that you're not, I'll respect your request, though I started to
send it only to you to save the thread another message. You made good
points and I don't disagree with the quote, but the tone of your message
leads me to make these related comments:

You surely understand how the silence about some of the reasons causes
problems; maybe it's unavoidable, but it probably had worse consequences
than more openness would have. But ends don't always justify means, and
I won't mention it further.

But the "end" of having non-hostile mailing lists and CVS logs might
not justify the "means" of having people work under the threat of loss
of privileges, based on judgements about whether they are polite enough,
especially with suspicions of imperfect objectiveness in the absence of
clear standards.

Several core members have made it quite clear on -chat that the
threshold reason that Matt lost his priviledge was that he was too
impolite. Granted, this judgement has been put in core's hands, and
their action was "legal" in the "FreeBSD legal system". But many people
are complaining that the politeness threshold of individual core members
and of the group are wrong, with some complainers finding it very wrong.
(I've had my own encounter with this threshold and found it very wrong.)
It need not be something to take personally; it's just a belief that
FreeBSD would be better off with a (much?) looser attitude on the part
of the Politeness Police. People are just trying to influence core's,
and others', attitudes; elections aren't the only way to do that.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 06:20:13 +0600
From: Max Khon <fj...@iclub.nsu.ru>
Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation)

hi, there!

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 11:47:45PM +0100, Marc van Kempen wrote:

> It's almost unbelievable that you didn't research the java project (and
> mailing lists) to find out what is going on. Had you done that you
> would have quickly realised Bill's role.

They asked glewis and nate. Isn't that enough?
Someone invested some amount of money and they have given it to Alexey.
That's simple.

Should they pay something to Greg? He's done tremendous amount of work
to make 1.3.1 available on FreeBSD. Or Nate? I do not think that porting 1.1.8
was easy. Or some other developers that contribute to FreeBSD Java Project?
If I had spare money that I could spend for such purpose maybe I'd pay Bill.
If you have money feel free to send them to Bill.

Bill is known to be one of the most active developers of 1.3.1 HotSpot.
That's the fact. I highly appreciate his work. But what all you guys are
talking about? I'd understand you if it were yours money. But they are not.

It is a volunteer project and noone can expect that he will be paid
for his job or request the contract if he was not chosen by some investor.

/fjoe

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 17:39:00 -0700
From: Nate Williams <na...@yogotech.com>
Subject: High-latency/long-distance IP stack (was Re: cvs commit: CVSROOT access access.master access.ports)

[ Moved to -chat ]

> > Didn't Harti Brandt say that he was working on satelite communications?
> > Perhaps he has plans to allow even larger RTTs to work well. :)
> >
> > "FreeBSD: The best connection to Mars... or AOL"
>
> You laugh, but various people, including Vint Cerf, are currently working
> on an IP stack (or something that can be made to look like an IP stack)
> that will work across those kinds of distances.

It really isn't that hard to do that, IMNSHO. The hardest part is
finding good 'initial' values for timeouts (if the first packet gets
lost), since you don't want *too* long if it happens that the link is
short. (Been there, done that. :)

Once you get the initial 'broad' issues sorted out and understand that
packet loss != congestion, the above stack isn't that hard to
build/design.

Nate

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 01:40:04 +0100
From: Brad Knowles <brad.k...@skynet.be>
Subject: Re: dillon@'s commit bit: I object

At 3:44 PM -0800 2003/02/06, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:

> Several core members have made it quite clear on -chat that the
> threshold reason that Matt lost his priviledge was that he was too
> impolite.

No. Not impolite. More like thermonuclear offensive and
unbelievably abusive. In multiple cases. Over a long period of
time. Sure, Matt has helped a number of people, myself included.
But he has also reamed a lot of people a wide variety of new
orifices, some of which have been made large enough to drive the
Starship Enterprise through, as well as the whole rest of Starfleet.

That said, it was my understanding that Matt was getting better.
Certainly, I have not personally seen this kind of behaviour from
Matt in a while -- I'm guessing that he has gotten better (than he
was) and restricted this kind of behaviour to less public lists.

However, there would appear to have been too much over a long
period of time, and one particular (perhaps relatively minor) event
was enough to vapourize the camel, the desert underneath it, the rock
underneath the desert, the mantle, and everything else all the way
down to the -core. ;-)

> But many people
> are complaining that the politeness threshold of individual core members
> and of the group are wrong, with some complainers finding it very wrong.

When you have a talking dog, the marvel is not that it speaks
perfect prim and proper Oxford English, but that it can talk at all.

The miracle here is that Matt has lasted as long as he has.

> (I've had my own encounter with this threshold and found it very wrong.)
> It need not be something to take personally; it's just a belief that
> FreeBSD would be better off with a (much?) looser attitude on the part
> of the Politeness Police. People are just trying to influence core's,
> and others', attitudes; elections aren't the only way to do that.

I don't think there's any problem with their "politeness
threshold". Witness the load of elephant dung that Bill Huey has
been spewing lately. If he keeps it up, he might reach Matt's level
soon, and then in a few years he could expect to have his commit bit
taken away, then given back, and then taken back away a few more
years down the road.

I would say that this is excessively generous to a fault, and my
personal view is that they should take things back the other way a
few notches. There's just no excuse for this kind of behaviour.

IMO, the only real question on this matter is the level of
information we were provided by -core regarding this subject, and the
fact that I feel that they should have come up with a minimal
official announcement on this subject and publicly posted it.

In terms of what information we've finally gotten, I'm relatively
satisfied with what Greg Lehey has provided. I just wish this level
of detail had been provided beforehand, so as to avoid this whole
argument.

- --
Brad Knowles, <brad.k...@skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+
!w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++)
tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)

------------------------------

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