On 26/11/14 22:52, Rich Freeman wrote: > Are you suggesting that instead of trying to mediate between people > who don't get a long, it would be better to just pick one or the other > as the winner and boot the other out? > > One of the challenges here is that if we were talking about just one > productive person who tended to drive everybody away that would be one > thing. The problem is that we have a lot of productive people who > have different sorts of personality quirks. They range from blowing > up in public, to constant passive-aggression, to just silently doing > their own thing completely ignoring any input whatsoever. I'm sure I > missed a few, like writing excessively-long emails. :)
Sorry for that wall of quoted text. IMHO, it is not about looking who is right or wrong... or kicking people out. As others have said so before, you always try to be a voice of reason and neutrality. You try to find a middle-ground. Which is perfectly fine and very commendable. But here is the thing (imho): There are limits to that and how far you can go and get with that approach. You have to recognize the point where someone is taking "advantage" of the situation because he feels like he has become indispensable or simply knows there won't be any consequences to his actions. You also have to realize that the obvious and vocal misbehavior of a single person can pretty much damage the reputation/"attractiveness" of a project for others... even if there are 100 times more people that actually are angels. ;-) No matter how undermanned a project is, structures and rules are still very important. If everyone can actually do as he likes (or even just a select few, which might be even worse) that will tear down a project in the long-run since others will feel "demoted" or unappreciated due to the obvious unbalanced treatment of members. I know, I would... and that is only human. Personally, I have thought many times about joining the dev ranks (and even made a few select steps in the past) but the atmosphere on the list sometimes and the behavior of select few individuals is not really as inviting. This together with the above... well... you get the picture. What I am trying to say is: Catering to everyone's needs and wishes is a very admirable goal. Keeping devs in the boat as well. But those goals should not mean rules are not enforced or approved, nor structures put in place. I, for one, never understood why it was not mandatory to be subscribed to the dev list at least for every dev. I know the arguments that have been posted to the list about this but still, just because it is open source (free) work that "we" all do for fun, does not mean there cannot be some commitments/responsibilities that come with it. Last but not least: I appreciate everyone's work and I love Gentoo and have probably used it for over 10 years and more by now. I feel rather sad seeing devs go and I even more so when someone is actually kicked out... but that is just the way of life and the latter is unfortunately sometimes necessary for the health of the overall project. -- Matthias
