> John, we have made suggestions of improvements > in your scripts that would easily make them > closer to something that could be accepted. > Note that.
I noted that. I noted that several times now, and I thought I could not have been more clear about how little I appreciate the manner in which it was done. I was going to take some time to digest what assaf told me and start working on a constructive policy proposal, but since you people keep digging at me personally, let's start here and now. Please take note of how what I say in this post will be pertinent to the Savannah policy and relevant to every admin and user (read to the end), while the posts I cite below are off-topic attempts to discuss the internals of my code, which the critics themselves characterize as useless to nearly everyone. Thomas Harding's post was the least problematic one. > You should split your project by tasks <snip> This is an attempt to contribute to my project, apparently with the goal of making it more acceptable in the eyes of Savannah admins, even though I've made it clear by then that I absolutely refuse to meld my code in exchange for hosting. I refuse to do so in principle, and not just because there are just too many hosting options, including but not limited to my very own iron on the backbone. I refuse to do so mainly because I believe that validating this process will reliably lead to censorship and abuse on the part of Savannah admins, if it hasn't already. I have submitted my project to Savannah under a false impression the rejection process is objective, and once I was told by Karl Berry that it's not as a matter of policy, I have rescinded my submission. https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14370#comment9 To be perfectly clear, I do not anticipate *using* Savannah hosting while this policy is alive, even as I am working up to *contributing* to it. I did not get offended by anything Thomas proposed, but in my replies to him I've made it clear that I am the project leader, that I have no desire to cede creative control, and that all good-faith contributions to my project should be directed to my private email. I repeated the same request in my reply to André's questions. Now I hope you can understand my surprise when I read what Matthew Carter wrote: > [your scripts] make tons of assumptions about > directories and binaries existing on a user's > system, without proper safeguards / defensive > programming around the different commands prior > to running. > I think if you spent all your time on those > emails enhancing the scripts instead, they > probably could have been in a state that was > good enough to be accepted by now. This is yet another attempt to contribute to my project, but this time it's not just rude and off-topic, it also betrays Matthew's refusal to acknowledge me as a project leader by ignoring my repeatedly stated submission guidelines. Either that, or Matthew actually didn't care to read what I wrote in this thread. And just when I thought it could not get any worse, André, who I thought was the most reasonable of these 3 (he did previously go private upon my request), decided to chime in: > we have made suggestions of improvements in your > scripts that would easily make them closer to > something that could be accepted. <snip> > I think these scripts, the way they are now, > do not justify making a project from them I understand it is your right, people, to use this mailing list for criticizing my code, however irrelevant it may be in regard to the questions I raised. It is also your right to discuss your would-be contributions in any public forum, including this one. But you shouldn't be surprised at my reaction when you blatantly disregard my polite requests for using a proper channel, since by doing so you tacitly reject me as the BDFL of my very own software project. Now let's talk business; let me explain how all of the above is relevant to the policy discussion. In a way I am thankful for the outpouring of the irrelevant and rude comments, because it clearly showcases what I have already suspected: the standing rejection policy is eating your project from the inside like a malignant fungus would. The 3 (non-admin) posters I mentioned above are seemingly unable to recognize how out of place their comments and tone are, and I think that's because as members of this community, they've gotten used to treating submissions in a way only a software project should. They think it's OK to wash the submitter's bones, criticize, and give advice no one asked them for. In fact, they seem to think it's OK to insult a project leader by willfully ignoring contribution guidelines. Let this not be interpreted as a jab at the posters. I am sure they have the best interests of Savannah in heart, and they actually believe they've done me a favor. But I also believe they themselves have become victims of the subjective rejection policy. And they most definitely did nothing to help me. They seem to be oblivious about my qualifications as a programmer, and I can assure them here and now, I am fully capable of seeing defects in the code I submitted. I am fully aware of every single issue they've raised, and then some. And if they wonder why I submitted code if I believed it to be subpar, I'll say it again: because back at the time I simply did not realize a hosting service admin would exercise subjective judgement over ~120 KiB of nontrivial, at least somewhat useful code. They are also oblivious about my intentions with respect to the future directions of my project, and how can they not be? They refused or not even tried to talk to me in a respectful manner I believe I deserve as the BDFL. Every single suggestion they've made was misguided by their incorrect assumption that I want to take my project in a place where some Savannah admin would regard it as "useful" for the purposes of hosting it. I have no such intention. I have my own very specific vision for what constitutes general usefulness, and what I want my software to do in general. This is the vision I am going to implement, and I am going to do so on the schedule I set for myself. This is but one extremely negative result stemming from the consistent application of the subjective rejection policy. I am too old and too thoroughly validated in my programming skill to be shaken by these comments, but the Savannah project is bound to turn away and alienate coders this way, especially the young coders and the neophytes, who often have great ideas, but lack the skill to produce a masterful implementation. Telling them what to fix will NOT result in them fixing the code, unless they are complete pushovers. No self-respecting project leader will bother with being tutored by a git host admin ;) There are just too many options for hosting, and too many options for getting tutored, and absolutely no good reason, to make the latter a necessary condition for the former. (Savannah has a reason for doing so, but none of its users do.) When I have time, I will attempt to describe all the other things that are wrong with this policy. I do not have any solutions at the moment, but I will try to come up with those as well. I do not even know whether killing this policy is practically possible, and assaf's post made me realize it may be a hard nut to crack. But I want to be very clear that the comments I took apart above are both symptomatic of a deep problem within the community, and completely unnecessary, harmful even, to the Savannah project as a whole.
