On 15 Mar 2006, Adeodato Simó verbalised:
> - I've seem him repeteadly exhaust people's patience, both over
> important discussion, and over trivialities; which is, ok,
> something not so uncommon in this project, albeit undesirable.
>
> - I've seen him hijack technical discussions, making the possibility
> of a conclusion impossible due to him going over and over the same
> points in an unproductive fashion; which is, ook, something not
> so uncommon in this project, albeit very undesirable.
The degree of intractability and volume of mail filled with
insults, little jabs, distortions, and mis-characterizations count.
> - I've seen him several times reject good or even optimum solutions
> to problems, upon which a fair number of other people agreed, just
> for them going against his own personal agenda; which is, oook,
> something not so uncommon in this project, albeit very very
> undesirable.
> - BUT, I've also seen him, in uncountable occasions, steal the joy
> of hacking on Debian from many valuable developers of the project,
> make them frustrated and unhappy by continuously ignoring their
> request to be left alone, and make them less than willing to spend
> their time improving the technical quality of subsystems where
> Svenl was also involved. And this is something that, fortunately,
> one does not get to see everyday in the project, and something
> that has made me terribly sad whenever I've had to watch it.
I strongly agree that Sven Luther is a disruptive element, and
his presence hurts the project more than it helps. I have found a
pattern of behaviour from him, where any discussion first focuses on
blame allocation, and swiftly proceeds to personal recrimination,
mischaracterization, and extreme polemics. Indeed, it is my
experience that his prolific, rude, and relentless insults,
misquotes, and distortions often result in delays in discovering the
correct technical solution to the problem being investigated.
By itself this would not be enough, but the pattern of
bahaviour has lead to people opting not to join the kernel team,
myself included.
A recent example of his not keeping the personal attacks away
even after repeated requests and admonitions can be seen in the
recent escalation to the tech ctte, where Ian had to repeatedly
rebuke Sven, and even then he did not refrain.
Sven has not limited his activities to a single mailing list
in the past, and this recaltricanse, refusal to listen to moderating
voices, or even rebukes from the tech-ctte folks (and I do not mean
myself), and the creation of a hostile working environment in any
aspect of the project he touches is a reason this action should
proceed.
> I haven't decided myself whether I think this procedure is too much
> for this particular case or not, and I'm aware that Svenl is not
> regarded as so nocive by many people who just see his good technical
> work and not him interact with others. But, if you want to listen, I
> do think Svenl has done much harm, if not to the project, to the
> _PEOPLE_ involved in some parts of the project, which is something
> that needs a solution. It's bad if your actions jeopardize a
> project's good name, or decrement its overall quality, but it's not
> bad but terrible when they go directly to contributors' feelings and
> amount of motivaion. Again, not sure still the proposed solution is
> the best.
> Also, just as a small anecdote: during the huge Vancouver thread, I
> mentally marked two people as having had a terribe and inexcusable
> behavior, and Svenl was one of them. While several people expressed
> their unhappiness or frustration very strongly, sometimes with nasty
> accusations or even insults, my mind could, while disagreeing to it,
> explain those reactions by putting them under a "caused by
> unbearable frustration" category; Svenl's behavior, otoh, surpassed
> the limits of my mind.
I do not have a comment on his technical expertise, but
echnical expertise does not trump collegiality. I am not asking for
Mr. Rogers neighborhood here, I have been in too many flamewars not
to know a certain degree of friction is inevitable in a large
organization like Debian. Sven is one of two people I think of as
having a deleterious systemic effect.
manoj
--
Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second
marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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