all messages for Guix-related lists mirrored at yhetil.org
 help / color / mirror / code / Atom feed
From: Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>
To: "Leo Prikler" <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at>,
	"Giovanni Biscuolo" <g@xelera.eu>,
	"Ludovic Courtès" <ludo@gnu.org>
Cc: Guix Devel <guix-devel@gnu.org>,
	GNU Guix maintainers <guix-maintainers@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)
Date: Sat, 01 May 2021 23:13:41 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <877dkhrfnj.fsf@netris.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <b4be494b475f7e30b54c9fb29161bc5b7bf9d4e5.camel@student.tugraz.at>

Hi Leo,

I took the liberty of refilling the quotations in your email to make
them more readable.

Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:

> Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 18:12 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>> Can you please point out which of my words led you to conclude that I
>> was assuming bad faith?
>
> I am basing this on the following exchange:
>
> Am Montag, den 26.04.2021, 19:17 +0200 schrieb Ludovic Courtès:
>> > I feel an obligation to protect our users, and among other things
>> > that means calling attention to Guix committers that are doing
>> > things like pushing commits with misleading commit logs (which
>> > evade proper review) and pushing "cosmetic changes" that remove
>> > security fixes.
>> 
>> That you called attention on these issues is a great service to all of
>> us, Mark.  But I have to agree with Ricardo: the harsh accusatory tone
>> towards Raghav and Léo was not warranted; please assume good faith.
>> 
> To re-iterate, I believe you were (and are) right to call out commits
> for their misleading messages, but the unique circumstances of this
> thread led people to think you were assuming ill intent or something
> along those lines.

I asked you to point out which of *my* words led you to conclude that I
was assuming bad faith, and it seems that you haven't been able to do
that, nor has anyone else.

Do you see the problem here?

> That being said, I think it is fair to argue, that
> some people read your posts as assuming bad faith from Léo and some did
> the reverse.  I can't put hard numbers to that, but given the number of
> participants an existence "proof" ought to suffice.

It's true that some people have gotten the mistaken impression that I
assumed bad faith.  The problem is that it's flat wrong.  There's
*nothing* to back it up, and in fact it's simply false.

It's unjust to blame me for other people's bogus, evidence-free claims
about what they *imagine* I assumed.

>> For what it's worth, I have *never* assumed bad faith, and I don't
>> think I said anything to imply it either.
>> 
>> > (or at the very least incompetence, which, if you are the party
>> > being accused, does not sound too nice either).
>> 
>> I pointed out facts.  I did not engage in speculation beyond the
>> facts.
> Well, you did fumble on those facts a little, because the true history
> of the misleading commits was only discovered later.

I don't think I fumbled on the facts at all.  It's true that I didn't
yet have _all_ of the relevant facts, but as far as I know, every fact
that I presented is true.

If you disagree, can you please provide a counterexample?

> Either way, "just pointing out facts" is not an accurate
> assessment in my opinion; facts are nothing without interpretation,
> which see.

I don't understand what you're getting at here.  Can you please
elaborate?

>> Here, I think that you are making your own speculations based on the
>> facts that I uncovered, and are attributing those speculations to me.
>> That's unfair.  Your speculations are not my responsibility.
>> 
>> Moreover, even if it were true that most people would make similar
>> speculations based on the facts I exposed, that's not my
>> responsibility either.
>>
> Here, I believe, you are wrong.  If your audience is led to a certain
> view due to your speech, even if it's not something you explicitly
> stated, you are still the one who made them hold that view (or
> reinforced it, if they already held it before and you merely made a
> claim in support of their view).  From an utilitarian point of view, it
> is the effects of your actions, that matter.

For purposes of deciding what actions one should take to achieve a
certain goal, I certainly agree that what ultimately matters are the
predictable effects of one's actions, and not the intent behind them.
So, in that context, I agree with much of what you wrote above.

However, if you mean to suggest that people should be held accountable
for all effects of their actions, I must *strenuously* object.

For example, if a speaker at a Black Lives Matter protest gives a speech
which recounts the many unjustifiable killings of innocent black people
by police, and later that day some of the people attending the protest
loot small businesses, I hope that we can agree that it would be unjust
to hold the speaker accountable for that.

If speakers at a protest can be held accountable for the actions of
every person who attends the protest, then protests would *effectively*
become illegal, because the opposition can always hire infiltrators to
*ensure* that someone does something illegal.

In this case, if I cannot point out a "cosmetic changes" commit that
removes security fixes without being accused of insinuating that the
person was acting in bad faith, then effectively it becomes unsafe for
me to point out breaches such as this one.

> Let it be said, that I don't condemn you for starting this thread.  Not
> only did it highlight an issue, that would otherwise have gone
> unnoticed, I think most of the participants are now more acutely aware
> of what might go wrong if they evade review.  It is sad, that things
> turned out the way they did, but despite what others might claim you
> don't bear sole responsibility for that.

Thanks for these words, Leo.

     Regards,
       Mark

-- 
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.


  reply	other threads:[~2021-05-02  3:14 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 96+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-04-22  0:58 A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-22  2:41 ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22  3:17   ` Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-22  4:05     ` Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-22  4:33       ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22  5:02         ` Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-22 17:21       ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22 17:40         ` Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes) Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22 20:06           ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-22 21:24             ` Ricardo Wurmus
2021-04-22 21:33             ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-26 17:17               ` Ludovic Courtès
2021-04-28 16:43                 ` Criticisms of my "tone" " Mark H Weaver
2021-04-28 17:55                   ` Leo Famulari
2021-04-28 20:24                     ` Pjotr Prins
2021-04-29  6:54                       ` Joshua Branson
2021-04-29  9:26                   ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-29 15:30                     ` Matias Jose Seco Baccanelli
2021-04-30  0:57                   ` aviva
2021-05-01 17:02                   ` Giovanni Biscuolo
2021-05-01 20:07                     ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-01 22:12                       ` Mark H Weaver
2021-05-01 22:54                         ` Mark H Weaver
2021-05-01 23:15                         ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-02  3:13                           ` Mark H Weaver [this message]
2021-05-02 10:31                             ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-03  9:00                               ` Mark H Weaver
2021-05-03  9:59                                 ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-03 17:00                                   ` Mark H Weaver
2021-05-02  4:17                           ` 宋文武
2021-05-02  4:31                             ` Leo Famulari
2021-05-02  6:26                               ` 宋文武
2021-05-02 15:01                             ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-02 19:29                               ` Mark H Weaver
2021-05-02 20:09                                 ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-02 21:02                                   ` Mark H Weaver
2021-05-02 21:58                                     ` Leo Prikler
2021-05-02 20:59                                 ` Ludovic Courtès
2021-05-02 21:23                                   ` Mark H Weaver
     [not found]                           ` <87czu9sr9k.fsf@outlook.com>
2021-05-02  4:33                             ` 宋文武
2021-04-22 21:51             ` Another misleading commit log " Ludovic Courtès
2021-04-22 21:49         ` A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-24  8:09           ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-30  0:58             ` aviva
2021-04-22 18:37       ` Leo Famulari
2021-04-22 18:48         ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22 21:50         ` Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-22  4:08     ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22 11:39       ` 宋文武
2021-04-22 13:28         ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-22 20:01       ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-22 21:08         ` Christopher Baines
2021-04-22 21:09         ` Leo Prikler
2021-04-22 21:21         ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-23 17:52           ` Maxim Cournoyer
2021-04-23 18:00             ` Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-23 18:38               ` Maxim Cournoyer
2021-04-23 22:06                 ` Raghav Gururajan
2021-04-23 18:50             ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-23 19:15               ` Leo Prikler
2021-04-23 19:18               ` Leo Famulari
2021-04-23 19:33                 ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-23 20:12                   ` Leo Famulari
2021-04-26 17:06                     ` Giovanni Biscuolo
2021-04-26 17:32                       ` Leo Famulari
2021-04-26 21:56                         ` Giovanni Biscuolo
2021-04-26 23:01                           ` Leo Famulari
2021-04-24  7:46                   ` Mark H Weaver
2021-04-26 14:59                     ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-26 15:23                       ` Tobias Geerinckx-Rice
2021-04-26 17:21                         ` Ludovic Courtès
2021-04-26 20:07                           ` Pjotr Prins
2021-04-26 17:46                         ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-28 15:52                           ` Marius Bakke
2021-04-29  9:13                             ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-29 11:46                               ` Leo Prikler
2021-04-29 11:57                                 ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-29 11:41                             ` Arun Isaac
2021-04-29 12:44                               ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-04-29 14:14                                 ` Pjotr Prins
2021-04-30 17:40                                   ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-04-30 19:56                                     ` Pjotr Prins
2021-05-01  7:23                                       ` Arun Isaac
2021-05-01 12:40                                         ` Pjotr Prins
2021-05-01  9:15                                       ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-05-01 10:18                                         ` Yasuaki Kudo
2021-05-03  7:18                                           ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-05-01 14:50                                     ` Giovanni Biscuolo
2021-05-03  7:25                                       ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-05-04  2:18                                         ` Bengt Richter
2021-05-04  6:55                                           ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-05-04 15:43                                             ` Ludovic Courtès
2021-05-06 17:18                                               ` Pierre Neidhardt
2021-04-29 16:21                               ` Arun Isaac
2021-04-26 19:31                 ` Léo Le Bouter
2021-04-27 18:10                   ` Andreas Enge

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=877dkhrfnj.fsf@netris.org \
    --to=mhw@netris.org \
    --cc=g@xelera.eu \
    --cc=guix-devel@gnu.org \
    --cc=guix-maintainers@gnu.org \
    --cc=leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at \
    --cc=ludo@gnu.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this external index

	https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git

This is an external index of several public inboxes,
see mirroring instructions on how to clone and mirror
all data and code used by this external index.