Hi fesco,

Firstly thank you for this email as it actually provides some level of
openness and transparency which wasn't provided in the email you personally
sent me [1] on Friday. It would have been nice to actually be cc:ed on the
email. I was notified by a message from a member of the community because I
wasn't checking mailing list emails on Saturday.

I would first like to state that NONE of my changes are meant as malicious,
they have never intended to be malicious, all I am trying to do is improve
the project and fix actual problems users are experiencing. I believe the
portrayal of me as some pantomime villain is unfair.

On Tuesday (2024-12-10), the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee
> (FESCo) met in a private meeting to discuss whether Fedora contributor
> Peter Robinson should retain his provenpackager privileges. Over the
> last year, multiple private tickets have been opened with FESCo
> regarding Peter’s packaging behavior. In particular, on numerous
> occasions Peter has pushed uncommunicated updates to packages he has no
> prior relationship with, interfering with those packages’ maintenance
> efforts. On at least a few occasions, this has resulted in other
> maintainers being forced to react to these changes with no coordination
> or notice.
>

I am not aware of any of these, I am not privy to ANY of the tickets, I am
aware of one which I will detail below.

I am aware of issues prior to 2024 when working with the rust packages but
now outside of my own rust packages I try to avoid touching any rust
packages due to the reaction of one member of the rust SIG. They requested
that if I needed package versions updated for my packages to file a bug or
block against the new rev auto bugs and that is the way I have been dealing
with the rust packages not owned by me whenever I have needed to do so. The
same can not be said of that rust sig member to my packages where they
regularly stomp all over them [3] even though I requested they submit pull
requests, which they don't [4] when they asked me to stop updating other
rust packages. Others do PRs [5]. But from my memory the rust package were
well and truly prior to 2024 when I was packaging fdo [6] and parsec [7].


> The Fedora Proven Packager Policy[1] reads: “Provenpackagers lend a hand
> when help is needed, always with a desire to improve the quality of
> Fedora. Prior to making changes, provenpackagers should try to
> communicate with owners of a package in bugzilla, dist-git pull
> requests, IRC, matrix, or email. They should be careful not to change
> other people’s packages needlessly and try to do the minimal changes
> required to fix problems, as explained more in depth in ‘Who is Allowed
> to Modify Which Packages’[2].”
>
> Despite several warnings and conversations with FESCo representatives,
>

I can remember exactly one conversation with FESCo representatives, that
was on the 18th of November where I had a video call with one member of
FESCo where we discussed a change I made [2] to a package. I would welcome
details of the other several warnings and conversations to jog my memory.

The one conversation I am aware of was around a change to the dav1d package
[2] and I agreed with the conversation with the member of FESCo that I
shouldn't have updated the .gitignore and I have updated my process to not
do that in the future but it wasn't done with any malice. The reason I
updated the package in question was not actually using my proven packager
but using my architecture maintainers hat, there have been numerous
complaints around video codecs on aarch64 especially on devices where there
is not hardware acceleration upstream (such as the widely used Raspberry
Pi, but numerous other devices too) and the update both fixed a number of
issues people had reported to me directly and also improved acceleration
significantly to the point it's actually usable for a lot of usecases where
it wasn't previously.

Frankly over the last year, in particular since September 2023, I have had
little time or motivation to do much in Fedora at all.

The problem with proven packager, and I have had it with my packages, see
note above about a rust SIG member and from other people in this thread, is
everyone wants things done done differently, has their own preferred way of
doing things, emails, RHBZ, pull requests, etc, some are ignored, some sit
for months without action, others have outlined this in the thread as well.
If there was a way where people put a readme or something with details I
believe it would remove a LOT of the friction.


> Peter has continued to use his provenpackager privileges in an
> unapproved manner, frequently causing additional work for other
> maintainers. As a result of more than a month of debate in the latest
> private FESCo ticket on his conduct, the Committee voted – seven in
> favor, two against – to remove Peter from the provenpackager group in
> Fedora. Peter will retain his status as a Fedora packager, but will not
> be able to use provenpackager powers to bypass the rev9iew process on any
> package for which he is not a co-maintainer.
>

In the entire month there was no engagement with me until Friday the 13th
when I was told of a decision [1]. I had been provided a hint from the
fesco member that something was a foot but they declined to provide further
information or timeline.

The vote of a full 9 member of fesco above tells me that the package
maintainer of the dav1d package (the only issue of the last year I am aware
of) was involved in the discussion and voting. That to me doesn't feel like
a particularly fair and unbiased process given the individual (who is also
the rust SIG member I mention above that stomps all over my packages in a
similar manner under the guise of the rust SIG) is a member of fesco and as
a result could have had unfair influence in this process and the voting
number tell me that he wasn't excused from the process to ensure fairness,
or alternatively asked me to come and defend myself. This feels like a
kangaroo court to me not the transparent process that fesco professes too,


> FESCo would like to make this abundantly clear: this decision was not
> made lightly, nor without consideration for Peter’s past contributions
> to the Fedora Project. This decision is not irrevocable: Peter will be
> permitted to re-apply in the future for provenpackager status, provided
> he demonstrates a justified need for those privileges and remains in
> good standing as a Fedora packager.
>

What does not seem to have happened though is any actual conversation with
me instead is has been secret squirrel meetings behind my back without any
possibly of me being able to defend myself or explain my actions. Nor do I
have any, even read only, access to be able to view any of these supposed
numerous tickets.

I feel that given the way the whole process has been conducted that it
would not be possible to be fairly judged no matter what the need or
requirements.

I look forward to fesco providing me the details of tickets and
conversations, the reply [1] I did on Friday has been ignored.

Peter

[1]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kVaqRwjm1-OCkrMVYyYKyVF3SrOmUs-5/view?usp=drive_link
[2] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/dav1d/commits/rawhide
[3] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/rust-prost/c/0a4cddb8
[4] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/rust-prost/pull-requests
[5] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/rust-picky-asn1/pull-request/1
[6]
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/fido-device-onboard/c/a5a846225ed335c9f0c6f34e3e90cdd5c5373dfa?branch=rawhide
[7]
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/parsec/c/40928cfe6f19bc02ed35491ed1a3ee346027a7b0?branch=rawhide
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