Re: language translator help

[Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de>]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@giblet.glug.org> writes:

>    From: Marius Vollmer <mvo@zagadka.ping.de>
>    Date: 22 May 2002 22:50:51 +0200
> 
>    There is nothing veiled about it, I hope.  From my point of view, you
>    are behaving in a dangerous way, dangerous to the Guile project.  I'm
>    not categorically saying that you are wrong, but you are side-stepping
>    the maintainer too bluntly.
> 
> ummm, i'm a maintainer as are all the people w/ write privs.

You engage in the act of maintaining software, true, but you are not
one of the official appointed "maintainers" of the Guile project, as
far as I know.  The people who have write privs are not automatically
appointed as "maintainers" in the project-organizational sense of the word.

> these privs imply certain responsibilities.  when you say "little
> community", you are basically avoiding the responsibilities to the
> larger community, the users.

I was including the users, actually.

> perhaps you don't know how to be properly responsible; it's up to
> you to recognize the extent of that and take steps to widen your
> viewpoint.  "i think not" is inadequate, sorry.

I can only say "I think".  I don't have absolute knowledge about
something.  I guess(!) it's only polite not to pretend to have the
ultimate wisdom.

>    While you may be good at identifying problems, you are bad at actually
>    encouraging people to do better.  What you do looks to me mostly like
>    standing on the side, accusing people of 'obvious' stupidities and
>    pumping out philosophical dribble when asked to provide concreteness.
> 
>    This is not a good way to encourage volunteers.
> 
> again, "on the side" is not quite correct; you (and all maintainers) are
> already standing in the middle of a crowd.  the more you cannot see this
> the more you react against when one those crowd members (who might also
> have the accidental property of having write privs) shouts loud enough
> to penetrate your meditations.

I am aware of the crowd, but I am not aware of the shouting.  Guile
has a bad reputation, I know, but I don't see the immediate connection
between this, and my actions.  This is the big problem, I guess.
Maybe there is a connection, but you don't make me see it as well.
You will have to try another way of reaching me.  I'm not trying to
sound superior here, I really do not see the foundation for your
claims.

> what is the right way to encourage volunteers?  is it right to encourage
> the mindset that volunteers must be in some little clique and not listen
> to users?  is it right to ask for concreteness and yet not see it?  is
> it right to not even provide concreteness yourself?

Of course not.  But at least I try to be polite.

> sometimes it's difficult to see if you aren't motivated to look around.
> do you think these mailing lists are the only place you are permitted to
> look at?

Where should I look at in addition?

> when i want to find trust in someone, i look at their actions, and don't
> put much weight in their words only.  in this case, i can trust you to
> break interfaces w/o consideration for people and programs using those
> interfaces

I object to the "without consideration".

>    Your medicine does not seem to do me any good, thi.
> 
> obviously.  everyone is their own doctor.  what is your medicine?

I'm not even sure I'm feeling ill.

>    At least, that is how I interpret your plan.  You did nothing to
>    convince otherwise as of yet.
> 
> can you define "compatibility"?  answering that helps you to understand
> and classify different changes as compatible or incompatible (or some
> mixture).  from this understanding you can convince yourself.

Convince me about what?  About what your plan is?  Whether your plan is
any good?

>    What I would like you to do, is to convince me that you are a
>    constructive member of our little community, rather than a destructive
>    one.  For that, please agree not to work on a 1.4.x release series
>    without my approval (which I will give based on user and developer
>    feedback), and to subscribe to guile-devel until we have agreed that
>    guile-devel is counterproductive and should be closed completely.
> 
> what i would like you to do, is to write down under $workbook what you
> consider "our little community" so that it can be logically refuted.
> please understand that i don't consider your approval very worthwhile in
> the scheme of things, but that may change depending on what you do.

Sigh.

>    You might think that I act way beyond my competencies here, and that
>    I'm abusing that little extra power that I have.  That might be the
>    case, but we two are not the ones to decide this.
> 
> dude, it's my opinion that you are frantically grasping at straws in a
> very uncool way.

I grasp at straws so that I don't need to revoke your write privs.
I'm not feeling good about this, and it does induce doubts into me
whether I'm doing the right thing.  But you do not seem to want to
give me the little signs of willingness to cooperate that I asked of
you.  So I will remove your write privs from the GNU CVS repository.

That is decidedly uncool, yes.

Feel free to start a ruckus about this juvenile behavior.  I'm always
willing to reconsider.

If you have things lying around that you need to commit for
completeness, just let me know.

> perhaps you're stressed over something.

Yeah, I'm stressed over this whole issue.  Other than that, I'm fine.

> why not relax w/ a cool beverage somewhere hot (or vice versa) and
> write down your "guile developer guidelines" so that you can
> interview the next person you want to extend write privs.  be sure
> to include "must obey the Commander's orders", "must not question
> authority", and the like.

For your information, "must obey" is not at all the same as "must not
question authority" in my book.  In the context of this project, I
want everybody to "obey" and everyone is free, even welcome, to
"question authority".  But you need to be successful at questioning
the authority before it allows you to not obey.

> or, you can strike out in a predictably juvenile way and raise your
> blood pressure.  hopefully your medication compensates for that
> somehow.

Ahh, what's nobler than to ruin ones health for the better of the
community.

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