A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

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Hello Guix,

Raghav Gururajan has pushed another misleading "cosmetic changes"
commit.  This one is *far* worse than the examples I gave before.
This one removes the security fixes for CVE-2018-19876 and
cairo-CVE-2020-35492 that I had applied in commit
bc16eacc99e801ac30cbe2aa649a2be3ca5c102a.

Behold, Raghav's "cosmetic changes" to our 'cairo' package:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-gnome&id=d975ed975456a2c8e855eb024b5487c4c460684a

With this in mind, does anyone else find it worrisome that Raghav has
commit access?

      Mark


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From d975ed975456a2c8e855eb024b5487c4c460684a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Raghav Gururajan <raghavgururajan@disroot.org>
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2020 00:48:43 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

* gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove patches.
* gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
* gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
[replacement]: Remove.
(cairo/fixed): Remove.

Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>
---
 gnu/local.mk                                  |  2 -
 gnu/packages/gtk.scm                          | 92 +++++++++----------
 .../patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch        | 37 --------
 .../patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch        | 49 ----------
 4 files changed, 41 insertions(+), 139 deletions(-)
 delete mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch
 delete mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch

diff --git a/gnu/local.mk b/gnu/local.mk
index e01e7970d2..e93ce45f5a 100644
--- a/gnu/local.mk
+++ b/gnu/local.mk
@@ -877,8 +877,6 @@ dist_patch_DATA =						\
   %D%/packages/patches/bpftrace-disable-bfd-disasm.patch	\
   %D%/packages/patches/busybox-CVE-2021-28831.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/byobu-writable-status.patch		\
-  %D%/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch		\
-  %D%/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/calibre-no-updates-dialog.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/calibre-remove-test-sqlite.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/calibre-remove-test-unrar.patch		\
diff --git a/gnu/packages/gtk.scm b/gnu/packages/gtk.scm
index 2699b97b49..ff0c1296e1 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/gtk.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/gtk.scm
@@ -123,67 +123,57 @@ tools have full access to view and control running applications.")
 
 (define-public cairo
   (package
-   (name "cairo")
-   (version "1.16.0")
-   (replacement cairo/fixed)
-   (source (origin
-            (method url-fetch)
-            (uri (string-append "https://cairographics.org/releases/cairo-"
-                                version ".tar.xz"))
-            (sha256
-             (base32
-              "0c930mk5xr2bshbdljv005j3j8zr47gqmkry3q6qgvqky6rjjysy"))))
-   (build-system gnu-build-system)
-   (propagated-inputs
-    `(("fontconfig" ,fontconfig)
-      ("freetype" ,freetype)
-      ("glib" ,glib)
-      ("libpng" ,libpng)
-      ("libx11" ,libx11)
-      ("libxext" ,libxext)
-      ("libxrender" ,libxrender)
-      ("pixman" ,pixman)))
-   (inputs
-    `(("ghostscript" ,ghostscript)
-      ("libspectre" ,libspectre)
-      ("poppler" ,poppler)
-      ("xorgproto" ,xorgproto)
-      ("zlib" ,zlib)))
-   (native-inputs
-     `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)
-      ("python" ,python-wrapper)))
+    (name "cairo")
+    (version "1.16.0")
+    (source
+     (origin
+       (method url-fetch)
+       (uri
+        (string-append "https://cairographics.org/releases/cairo-"
+                       version ".tar.xz"))
+       (sha256
+        (base32 "0c930mk5xr2bshbdljv005j3j8zr47gqmkry3q6qgvqky6rjjysy"))))
+    (build-system gnu-build-system)
     (arguments
-     `(#:tests? #f  ; see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2013-06/msg00085.html
-       #:configure-flags '("--enable-tee"      ;needed for GNU Icecat
-                           "--enable-xml"      ;for cairo-xml support
-                           "--disable-static")))
-   (synopsis "2D graphics library")
-   (description
-    "Cairo is a 2D graphics library with support for multiple output devices.
-Currently supported output targets include the X Window System (via both
-Xlib and XCB), Quartz, Win32, image buffers, PostScript, PDF, and SVG file
+     `(#:tests? #f ; see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-guix/2013-06/msg00085.html
+       #:configure-flags
+       (list
+        "--enable-tee"                    ;needed for GNU Icecat
+        "--enable-xml"                    ;for cairo-xml support
+        "--disable-static")))
+    (native-inputs
+     `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)
+       ("python" ,python-wrapper)))
+    (inputs
+     `(("ghostscript" ,ghostscript)
+       ("libspectre" ,libspectre)
+       ("poppler" ,poppler)
+       ("xorgproto" ,xorgproto)
+       ("zlib" ,zlib)))
+    (propagated-inputs
+     `(("fontconfig" ,fontconfig)
+       ("freetype" ,freetype)
+       ("glib" ,glib)
+       ("libpng" ,libpng)
+       ("libx11" ,libx11)
+       ("libxext" ,libxext)
+       ("libxrender" ,libxrender)
+       ("pixman" ,pixman)))
+    (synopsis "2D graphics library")
+    (description "Cairo is a 2D graphics library with support for multiple output
+devices.  Currently supported output targets include the X Window System (via
+both Xlib and XCB), Quartz, Win32, image buffers, PostScript, PDF, and SVG file
 output.  Experimental backends include OpenGL, BeOS, OS/2, and DirectFB.
-
 Cairo is designed to produce consistent output on all output media while
 taking advantage of display hardware acceleration when available
 eg. through the X Render Extension).
-
 The cairo API provides operations similar to the drawing operators of
 PostScript and PDF.  Operations in cairo including stroking and filling cubic
 Bézier splines, transforming and compositing translucent images, and
 antialiased text rendering.  All drawing operations can be transformed by any
 affine transformation (scale, rotation, shear, etc.).")
-   (license license:lgpl2.1) ; or Mozilla Public License 1.1
-   (home-page "https://cairographics.org/")))
-
-(define cairo/fixed
-  (package
-    (inherit cairo)
-    (source (origin
-              (inherit (package-source cairo))
-              (patches (append (search-patches "cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch"
-                                               "cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch")
-                               (origin-patches (package-source cairo))))))))
+    (home-page "https://cairographics.org/")
+    (license license:lgpl2.1))) ; or Mozilla Public License 1.1
 
 (define-public cairo-sans-poppler
   ;; Variant used to break the dependency cycle between Poppler and Cairo.
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch
deleted file mode 100644
index c0fba2ecaa..0000000000
--- a/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,37 +0,0 @@
-Copied from Debian.
-
-From: Carlos Garcia Campos <cgarcia@igalia.com>
-Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2018 12:33:07 +0100
-Subject: ft: Use FT_Done_MM_Var instead of free when available in
- cairo_ft_apply_variations
-
-Fixes a crash when using freetype >= 2.9
-
-[This is considered to be security-sensitive because WebKitGTK+ sets its
-own memory allocator, which is not compatible with system free(), making
-this a remotely triggerable denial of service or memory corruption.]
-
-Origin: upstream, commit:90e85c2493fdfa3551f202ff10282463f1e36645
-Bug: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/merge_requests/5
-Bug-Debian: https://bugs.debian.org/916389
-Bug-CVE: CVE-2018-19876
----
- src/cairo-ft-font.c | 4 ++++
- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
-
-diff --git a/src/cairo-ft-font.c b/src/cairo-ft-font.c
-index 325dd61..981973f 100644
---- a/src/cairo-ft-font.c
-+++ b/src/cairo-ft-font.c
-@@ -2393,7 +2393,11 @@ skip:
- done:
-         free (coords);
-         free (current_coords);
-+#if HAVE_FT_DONE_MM_VAR
-+        FT_Done_MM_Var (face->glyph->library, ft_mm_var);
-+#else
-         free (ft_mm_var);
-+#endif
-     }
- }
- 
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch
deleted file mode 100644
index e8b90fa5c5..0000000000
--- a/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,49 +0,0 @@
-Copied from Debian.
-
-From 03a820b173ed1fdef6ff14b4468f5dbc02ff59be Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
-From: Heiko Lewin <heiko.lewin@worldiety.de>
-Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 16:48:19 +0100
-Subject: [PATCH] Fix mask usage in image-compositor
-
-[trimmed test case, since not used in Debian build]
-
----
- src/cairo-image-compositor.c                |   8 ++--
-
---- cairo-1.16.0.orig/src/cairo-image-compositor.c
-+++ cairo-1.16.0/src/cairo-image-compositor.c
-@@ -2601,14 +2601,14 @@ _inplace_src_spans (void *abstract_rende
- 		    unsigned num_spans)
- {
-     cairo_image_span_renderer_t *r = abstract_renderer;
--    uint8_t *m;
-+    uint8_t *m, *base = (uint8_t*)pixman_image_get_data(r->mask);
-     int x0;
- 
-     if (num_spans == 0)
- 	return CAIRO_STATUS_SUCCESS;
- 
-     x0 = spans[0].x;
--    m = r->_buf;
-+    m = base;
-     do {
- 	int len = spans[1].x - spans[0].x;
- 	if (len >= r->u.composite.run_length && spans[0].coverage == 0xff) {
-@@ -2646,7 +2646,7 @@ _inplace_src_spans (void *abstract_rende
- 				      spans[0].x, y,
- 				      spans[1].x - spans[0].x, h);
- 
--	    m = r->_buf;
-+	    m = base;
- 	    x0 = spans[1].x;
- 	} else if (spans[0].coverage == 0x0) {
- 	    if (spans[0].x != x0) {
-@@ -2675,7 +2675,7 @@ _inplace_src_spans (void *abstract_rende
- #endif
- 	    }
- 
--	    m = r->_buf;
-+	    m = base;
- 	    x0 = spans[1].x;
- 	} else {
- 	    *m++ = spans[0].coverage;
-- 
2.31.1

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

... and here's another "cosmetic changes" commit from Raghav that
removes all of the security fixes for 'glib' that I had added:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-gnome&id=40b58074895ee510cab496655e6bec8d95abe693

Also, both of these commits were marked as:

  "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>"

       Mark

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Prikler]

Hi Mark,

Am Mittwoch, den 21.04.2021, 17:11 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> Hello Guix,
> 
> Raghav Gururajan has pushed another misleading "cosmetic changes"
> commit.  This one is *far* worse than the examples I gave before.
> This one removes the security fixes for CVE-2018-19876 and
> cairo-CVE-2020-35492 that I had applied in commit
> bc16eacc99e801ac30cbe2aa649a2be3ca5c102a.
> 
> Behold, Raghav's "cosmetic changes" to our 'cairo' package:
In particular, it is also worse than the glib example you've used,
since at least the glib one is followed up by an update.  This one is
not, at least as far as I can tell.

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-gnome&id=d975ed975456a2c8e855eb024b5487c4c460684a
> 
> With this in mind, does anyone else find it worrisome that Raghav has
> commit access?
> 
>       Mark
It is indeed worrying, that those patches seem to have made it to wip-
gnome with little review.  I believe we inherited this from before work
was done on savannah, as I can't seem to find them within our mailing
lists.  As a side note, that's why I make it a habit not to push any
patches, that I've edited too heavily, instead sending them back to the
mailing list in hope for another reviewer.  Even if those changes seem
merely cosmetic to me, they might have a larger impact than I can
imagine.  However, in taking more time to let patches sit on the
mailing list, I fear that I might come off as "unwilling" to those
contributors, whose work I help review, including Raghav, and also that
my involvement in some patch discussion tells other committers "don't
worry, I got this, do something else".

I don't think we need to strip Raghav's commit rights yet, but at the
same time we ought to more closely monitor what's going on in wip-
gnome.  Being 3 GNOME releases and one c-u merge late, there isn't much
room to allow for fuck-ups, and as we all know, that's when most of
them happen.

Regards,
Leo

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

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Hi all,

Thanks for keeping a critical eye on WIP branches, Mark.

Raghav, can you explain why you created that commit?  What's the 
context & the goal?  Why is it on current wip-gnome?  What do you 
expect to happen to it?

Léo, all the same questions for you, plus:

Mark H Weaver writes:
> "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>"

What does this line mean?  Please explain in some detail.

Kind regards,

T G-R

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Famulari]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 12:16:13AM +0200, Leo Prikler wrote:
> However, in taking more time to let patches sit on the
> mailing list, I fear that I might come off as "unwilling" to those
> contributors, whose work I help review, including Raghav, and also that
> my involvement in some patch discussion tells other committers "don't
> worry, I got this, do something else".

That's exactly how I think of it. If a committer is reviewing some
patches and wants advice from somebody else, please CC somebody or ask
on IRC.

> Being 3 GNOME releases and one c-u merge late, there isn't much
> room to allow for fuck-ups, and as we all know, that's when most of
> them happen.

We are well aware of the dangers of rushing. It's why I did not try to
include core-updates in the upcoming release, despite it being way
overdue.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

Hi All!

Sorry, I just saw this email and noticed its thread via web. I wasn't subscribed.

> Raghav, can you explain why you created that commit? What's the 
> context & the goal? Why is it on current wip-gnome? What do you 
> expect to happen to it?

The commit is not new. I cherry-picked from core-updates (993de472ed3dfe90e1c4110b6b910c1f74d243ff), which was pushed as a part of #42958.

>> "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>"
> 
> What does this line mean? Please explain in some detail.

The cherry-pick preserves the commit message.

P.S.

Please note that I stopped making cosmetic changes long ago. I explicitly mentioned in #42958, during review, that there are two *old* 'cosmetic changes' (glib and cairo) which I had to preserve so that I don't have to rework the succeeding patches. Please refer this message (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#63).

Regards,
RG.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Mark!

> Raghav Gururajan has pushed another misleading "cosmetic changes"
> commit.

When you brought-up the concern 
(https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-12/msg00008.html), 
which I am grateful for, I have worked myself to prevent that from 
happening. It was so hard for me provided that I suffer from OCD 
(clinically-diagnosed and being treated for). I never made single "Make 
cosmetic changes" patches after that discussion. These two patches you 
are referring to, was made even before our discussion, as a part of 
wip-desktop work. The patches were pushed to core-updates as a part of 
#42958. Also, during review, I clearly stated about these two cosmetic 
changes patches, in this message (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#64).

> This one is *far* worse than the examples I gave before.
> This one removes the security fixes for CVE-2018-19876 and
> cairo-CVE-2020-35492 that I had applied in commit
> bc16eacc99e801ac30cbe2aa649a2be3ca5c102a.

The commit is not new. I cherry-picked from core-updates 
(993de472ed3dfe90e1c4110b6b910c1f74d243ff), which was pushed as a part 
of #42958.

> Behold, Raghav's "cosmetic changes" to our 'cairo' package:
The commit is also not new. I cherry-picked from core-updates 
(f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091), which was pushed as a part 
of #42958.

NOTE:
When I format-patched these patches, initially (42958), did not contain 
changes to remove CVE. IIRC, when Leo and I were working outside of 
savannah, this change was probably added when we updated glib to latest 
version.

> With this in mind, does anyone else find it worrisome that Raghav has
> commit access?

I wish you had given me the benefit of the doubt.

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Raghav,

Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:

>> Raghav Gururajan has pushed another misleading "cosmetic changes"
>> commit.
[...]
>> This one is *far* worse than the examples I gave before.
>> This one removes the security fixes for CVE-2018-19876 and
>> cairo-CVE-2020-35492 that I had applied in commit
>> bc16eacc99e801ac30cbe2aa649a2be3ca5c102a.
>
> The commit is not new. I cherry-picked from core-updates 
> (993de472ed3dfe90e1c4110b6b910c1f74d243ff), which was pushed as a part 
> of #42958.
>
>> Behold, Raghav's "cosmetic changes" to our 'cairo' package:
> The commit is also not new. I cherry-picked from core-updates 
> (f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091), which was pushed as a part 
> of #42958.

Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le Bouter
<lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove security
fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic changes"
were made.

I'm sorry to say that your responses have done nothing to allay my
concerns.

       Mark

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Mark!

> Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le Bouter
> <lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove security
> fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic changes"
> were made.

Yeah, the commit title didn't mention the change but the commit message did.

> I'm sorry to say that your responses have done nothing to allay my
> concerns.

For glib, IIRC, we updated package to latest version and guix lint 
didn't show any more CVEs. Also, I think the change was added as part of 
the cosmetic change commit, to cleanly apply succeeding patches.

For cairo, let me get back to you.

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Mark!

> For glib, IIRC, we updated package to latest version and guix lint 
> didn't show any more CVEs. Also, I think the change was added as part of 
> the cosmetic change commit, to cleanly apply succeeding patches.
> 
> For cairo, let me get back to you.

Okay, I was able to retrace. When Leo and I were working outside 
savannah, there was master --> core-updates merge. Leo made these 
changes when he committed to his repo 
(https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000811), from which I 
pulled then format-patched and sent it to guix-patches 
(https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#64). From guix-patches it was then 
pushed to core-updates (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67), from 
where I cherry-picked into wip-gnome.

It seems Leo made these for ungrafting. I not familiar with ungrafting, 
so I have to let Leo explain.

P.S
The commit title for these commits were initially "Ungraft and make some 
cosmetic changes.", I must have screwed up the tile while moving the 
patches. For that my apologies.

[1] 
https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
[2] 
https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Raghav,

Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:

>> Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le Bouter
>> <lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove security
>> fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic changes"
>> were made.
>
> Yeah, the commit title didn't mention the change but the commit message did.

I'm sorry, but that won't do.  There are at least three things wrong
with these commits:

(1) The summary lines were misleading, because they implied that no
    functional changes were made.

(2) The commit messages were misleading, because they failed to mention
    that security holes which had previously been fixed were now being
    re-introduced.  That wasn't at all obvious.

    Commits like these, which remove patches that had fixed security
    flaws, are fairly common: someone casually looking over the commit
    log might assume that the patches could be safely removed because a
    version update was done at the same time, rendering those patches
    obsolete.

(3) Although your 'glib' commit was immediately followed by a 'glib'
    update, rendering it harmless, your misleading 'cairo' commit left
    'cairo' vulnerable to CVE-2018-19876 and CVE-2020-35492 on our
    'core-updates' and 'wip-gnome' branches.  Those will need to be
    fixed now.

Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> is also culpable here, because he
digitally signed the misleading 'cairo' commit that's on our
'core-updates' branch, which re-introduced CVE-2018-19876 and
CVE-2020-35492.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
commit f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
gpg: Signature made Fri 26 Mar 2021 05:13:57 PM EDT
gpg:                using RSA key 148BCB8BD80BFB16B1DE0E9145A8B1E86BCD10A6
gpg: Good signature from "Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: 148B CB8B D80B FB16 B1DE  0E91 45A8 B1E8 6BCD 10A6
Author: Raghav Gururajan <raghavgururajan@disroot.org>
Date:   Fri Dec 4 00:48:43 2020 -0500

    gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.
    
    * gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
    gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove patches.
    * gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
    * gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
    [replacement]: Remove.
    (cairo/fixed): Remove.
    
    Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

https://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=core-updates&id=f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091

Even the most superficial skimming of this commit should have
immediately raised red flags, because the summary line is clearly
inaccurate.  It shows a lack of careful review, to put it mildly.

      Mark

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Raghav,

Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:

> Okay, I was able to retrace. When Leo and I were working outside 
> savannah, there was master --> core-updates merge. Leo made these 
> changes when he committed to his repo 
> (https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000811), from which I 
> pulled then format-patched and sent it to guix-patches 
> (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#64). From guix-patches it was then 
> pushed to core-updates (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67), from 
> where I cherry-picked into wip-gnome.
>
> It seems Leo made these for ungrafting. I not familiar with ungrafting, 
> so I have to let Leo explain.
>
> P.S
> The commit title for these commits were initially "Ungraft and make some 
> cosmetic changes.", I must have screwed up the tile while moving the 
> patches. For that my apologies.
>
> [1] 
> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
> [2] 
> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50

Both of these patches have all of the same problems.  The only
difference is that their summary lines say "Ungraft and make some
cosmetic changes."

(1) These original summary lines are still misleading, because "ungraft"
    means to integrate the fixes from the replacement into the original,
    but here, the fixes are simply being deleted.

(2) These original commit logs are still misleading, for the same reason
    I gave in my previous reply.

(3) The 'cairo' commit still re-introduces security flaws into our
    'cairo' package.

What worries me as much as anything is that your responses so far seem
to indicate that you are failing to understand what you and Léo have
done wrong here.

       Mark

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1006 bytes --]

Hi Mark!

> (1) These original summary lines are still misleading, because "ungraft"
>      means to integrate the fixes from the replacement into the original,
>      but here, the fixes are simply being deleted.

I see. Now I get the idea. Thanks for explaining this.

> (2) These original commit logs are still misleading, for the same reason
>      I gave in my previous reply.
Agreed.

> (3) The 'cairo' commit still re-introduces security flaws into our
>      'cairo' package.

Agreed.

> What worries me as much as anything is that your responses so far seem
> to indicate that you are failing to understand what you and Léo have
> done wrong here.

I never said nothing wrong was done. I was trying to retrace the steps 
and putting all the information out. I was not sure why Leo added these 
changes and I failed to elicit questions at that time. Let us try to fix 
it. I don't know what else to say.

@Leo,
Shall we add a new commit to fix this?

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[宋文武]

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Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Hi Raghav,
>
> Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:
>
>>> Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le Bouter
>>> <lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove security
>>> fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic changes"
>>> were made.
>>
>> Yeah, the commit title didn't mention the change but the commit message did.
>
> I'm sorry, but that won't do.  There are at least three things wrong
> with these commits:
>
> (1) The summary lines were misleading, because they implied that no
>     functional changes were made.

Yes, if the title can't summary the change, then the change should be
splited into multiple commits.
>
> (2) The commit messages were misleading, because they failed to mention
>     that security holes which had previously been fixed were now being
>     re-introduced.  That wasn't at all obvious.
>
>     Commits like these, which remove patches that had fixed security
>     flaws, are fairly common: someone casually looking over the commit
>     log might assume that the patches could be safely removed because a
>     version update was done at the same time, rendering those patches
>     obsolete.

Agree, I think we should mention explicitly that those patches are now
not needed after some code audit.
>
> (3) Although your 'glib' commit was immediately followed by a 'glib'
>     update, rendering it harmless, your misleading 'cairo' commit left
>     'cairo' vulnerable to CVE-2018-19876 and CVE-2020-35492 on our
>     'core-updates' and 'wip-gnome' branches.  Those will need to be
>     fixed now.

This patch is for core-updates:

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: 0001-gnu-cairo-Reintroduce-security-patches-security-fixe.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 5364 bytes --]

From 15e28e84eaea8f68b6247ab53052f0dd50a544b2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?=E5=AE=8B=E6=96=87=E6=AD=A6?= <iyzsong@member.fsf.org>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 19:21:51 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] gnu: cairo: Reintroduce security patches [security fixes].

Two patches were accidentally removed in commit
f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091.

* gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: New files.
* gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Add them.
* gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo)[patches]: Apply them.
---
 gnu/local.mk                                  |  2 +
 gnu/packages/gtk.scm                          |  5 +-
 .../patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch        | 37 ++++++++++++++
 .../patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch        | 49 +++++++++++++++++++
 4 files changed, 92 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch
 create mode 100644 gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch

diff --git a/gnu/local.mk b/gnu/local.mk
index a8dd66f34a..39b2b72a42 100644
--- a/gnu/local.mk
+++ b/gnu/local.mk
@@ -880,6 +880,8 @@ dist_patch_DATA =						\
   %D%/packages/patches/bpftrace-disable-bfd-disasm.patch	\
   %D%/packages/patches/busybox-CVE-2021-28831.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/byobu-writable-status.patch		\
+  %D%/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch		\
+  %D%/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/calibre-no-updates-dialog.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/calibre-remove-test-sqlite.patch		\
   %D%/packages/patches/calibre-remove-test-unrar.patch		\
diff --git a/gnu/packages/gtk.scm b/gnu/packages/gtk.scm
index 9f3aea4aca..f70e667115 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/gtk.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/gtk.scm
@@ -142,7 +142,10 @@ tools have full access to view and control running applications.")
         (string-append "https://cairographics.org/releases/cairo-"
                        version ".tar.xz"))
        (sha256
-        (base32 "0c930mk5xr2bshbdljv005j3j8zr47gqmkry3q6qgvqky6rjjysy"))))
+        (base32 "0c930mk5xr2bshbdljv005j3j8zr47gqmkry3q6qgvqky6rjjysy"))
+       (patches (search-patches
+		 "cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch"
+		 "cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch"))))
     (build-system glib-or-gtk-build-system)
     (outputs '("out" "doc"))
     (arguments
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c0fba2ecaa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+Copied from Debian.
+
+From: Carlos Garcia Campos <cgarcia@igalia.com>
+Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2018 12:33:07 +0100
+Subject: ft: Use FT_Done_MM_Var instead of free when available in
+ cairo_ft_apply_variations
+
+Fixes a crash when using freetype >= 2.9
+
+[This is considered to be security-sensitive because WebKitGTK+ sets its
+own memory allocator, which is not compatible with system free(), making
+this a remotely triggerable denial of service or memory corruption.]
+
+Origin: upstream, commit:90e85c2493fdfa3551f202ff10282463f1e36645
+Bug: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/cairo/cairo/merge_requests/5
+Bug-Debian: https://bugs.debian.org/916389
+Bug-CVE: CVE-2018-19876
+---
+ src/cairo-ft-font.c | 4 ++++
+ 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
+
+diff --git a/src/cairo-ft-font.c b/src/cairo-ft-font.c
+index 325dd61..981973f 100644
+--- a/src/cairo-ft-font.c
++++ b/src/cairo-ft-font.c
+@@ -2393,7 +2393,11 @@ skip:
+ done:
+         free (coords);
+         free (current_coords);
++#if HAVE_FT_DONE_MM_VAR
++        FT_Done_MM_Var (face->glyph->library, ft_mm_var);
++#else
+         free (ft_mm_var);
++#endif
+     }
+ }
+ 
diff --git a/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch b/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e8b90fa5c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+Copied from Debian.
+
+From 03a820b173ed1fdef6ff14b4468f5dbc02ff59be Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
+From: Heiko Lewin <heiko.lewin@worldiety.de>
+Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 16:48:19 +0100
+Subject: [PATCH] Fix mask usage in image-compositor
+
+[trimmed test case, since not used in Debian build]
+
+---
+ src/cairo-image-compositor.c                |   8 ++--
+
+--- cairo-1.16.0.orig/src/cairo-image-compositor.c
++++ cairo-1.16.0/src/cairo-image-compositor.c
+@@ -2601,14 +2601,14 @@ _inplace_src_spans (void *abstract_rende
+ 		    unsigned num_spans)
+ {
+     cairo_image_span_renderer_t *r = abstract_renderer;
+-    uint8_t *m;
++    uint8_t *m, *base = (uint8_t*)pixman_image_get_data(r->mask);
+     int x0;
+ 
+     if (num_spans == 0)
+ 	return CAIRO_STATUS_SUCCESS;
+ 
+     x0 = spans[0].x;
+-    m = r->_buf;
++    m = base;
+     do {
+ 	int len = spans[1].x - spans[0].x;
+ 	if (len >= r->u.composite.run_length && spans[0].coverage == 0xff) {
+@@ -2646,7 +2646,7 @@ _inplace_src_spans (void *abstract_rende
+ 				      spans[0].x, y,
+ 				      spans[1].x - spans[0].x, h);
+ 
+-	    m = r->_buf;
++	    m = base;
+ 	    x0 = spans[1].x;
+ 	} else if (spans[0].coverage == 0x0) {
+ 	    if (spans[0].x != x0) {
+@@ -2675,7 +2675,7 @@ _inplace_src_spans (void *abstract_rende
+ #endif
+ 	    }
+ 
+-	    m = r->_buf;
++	    m = base;
+ 	    x0 = spans[1].x;
+ 	} else {
+ 	    *m++ = spans[0].coverage;
-- 
2.30.0


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We should be more careful next time...

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi,

宋文武 <iyzsong@outlook.com> writes:

> This patch is for core-updates:
> From 15e28e84eaea8f68b6247ab53052f0dd50a544b2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: 宋文武 <iyzsong@member.fsf.org>
> Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 19:21:51 +0800
> Subject: [PATCH] gnu: cairo: Reintroduce security patches [security fixes].
>
> Two patches were accidentally removed in commit
> f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091.
>
> * gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
> gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: New files.
> * gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Add them.
> * gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo)[patches]: Apply them.

Looks good to me.  Please push!

    Thanks,
      Mark

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Raghav,

Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:

> Okay, I was able to retrace. When Leo and I were working outside 
> savannah, there was master --> core-updates merge. Leo made these 
> changes when he committed to his repo 
> (https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000811), from which I 
> pulled then format-patched and sent it to guix-patches 
> (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#64). From guix-patches it was then 
> pushed to core-updates (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67), from 
> where I cherry-picked into wip-gnome.

Thank you for these links.  From the IRC log cited above, it now appears
that Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> bears primary responsibility
for these mistakes.  In particular, according to the IRC
logs, Léo wrote:

  <lle-bout> raghavgururajan: the main issues on the rebasing were about
  security fixes on cairo, gdk-pixbuf and glib
  <lle-bout> I modified the cosmetic commits to remove the graft and
  patches etc.

  <https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000950>

> It seems Leo made these for ungrafting. I not familiar with ungrafting, 
> so I have to let Leo explain.

Yes, I would very much like to hear an explanation from Léo about how
this happened.

Nonetheless, you (Raghav) also bear some responsibility for digitally
signing and pushing these misleading commits to the 'wip-gnome' branch.
At least one of the problems (the misleading summary line) should have
been obvious from a cursory glance at the commit log.

      Mark

--
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious misinformation campaign
against him and the FSF.  See <https://stallmansupport.org> for more.

Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Here's another commit with a blatantly misleading commit log:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-gnome&id=f5fc3c609e2f38ca1c0523deadb9f77d838fbf32

The summary line is "gnu: gdk-pixbuf: Add missing arguments", but in
fact it does all of the following:

(1) Ungrafts 'gdk-pixbuf'.
(2) Updates 'gdk-pixbuf' from 2.40.0 to 2.42.2.
(3) Removes the 'disable-failing-tests' phase.
(4) Adds "#:meson ,meson-0.55" and "#:glib-or-gtk? #t" to the arguments.

Most of the changes above are not mentioned in the commit log at all,
and of course the summary line is extremely misleading.

This commit was digitally signed and pushed to the 'wip-gnome' branch by
Raghav, but it's also "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter", so I'm not sure
who bears primary responsibility for this one.

      Mark

-- 
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious misinformation campaign
against him and the FSF.  See <https://stallmansupport.org> for more.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Famulari]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 12:05:36AM -0400, Raghav Gururajan wrote:
> Okay, I was able to retrace. When Leo and I were working outside savannah,
> there was master --> core-updates merge. Leo made these changes when he
> committed to his repo
> (https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000811), from which I pulled
> then format-patched and sent it to guix-patches
> (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#64). From guix-patches it was then pushed
> to core-updates (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67), from where I
> cherry-picked into wip-gnome.

Mark,

Do you know if the security fixes under discussion are necessary on
core-updates?

Raghav and Léo, is wip-gnome based on core-updates?

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 12:05:36AM -0400, Raghav Gururajan wrote:
>> Okay, I was able to retrace. When Leo and I were working outside savannah,
>> there was master --> core-updates merge. Leo made these changes when he
>> committed to his repo
>> (https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000811), from which I pulled
>> then format-patched and sent it to guix-patches
>> (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#64). From guix-patches it was then pushed
>> to core-updates (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67), from where I
>> cherry-picked into wip-gnome.
>
> Mark,
>
> Do you know if the security fixes under discussion are necessary on
> core-updates?

The 'cairo' fixes are certainly still needed, because there has been no
upstream stable release of 'cairo' since the version (1.16.0) on our
'master' branch.

宋文武 proposed a patch to re-apply the fixes on 'core-updates', here:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-04/msg00361.html

A similar patch will be needed for 'wip-gnome' as well.

I'm not sure about the other packages off-hand, but both 'glib' and
'gdk-pixbuf' were ultimately updated to newer versions, so I guess it's
likely that they're okay (although I haven't verified this).

      Thanks,
        Mark

-- 
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious misinformation campaign
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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3662 bytes --]

On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 00:08 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Hi Raghav,
> 
> Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:
> 
> > > Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le
> > > Bouter
> > > <lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove
> > > security
> > > fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic
> > > changes"
> > > were made.
> > 
> > Yeah, the commit title didn't mention the change but the commit
> > message did.
> 
> I'm sorry, but that won't do.  There are at least three things wrong
> with these commits:
> 
> (1) The summary lines were misleading, because they implied that no
>     functional changes were made.
> 
> (2) The commit messages were misleading, because they failed to
> mention
>     that security holes which had previously been fixed were now
> being
>     re-introduced.  That wasn't at all obvious.
> 
>     Commits like these, which remove patches that had fixed security
>     flaws, are fairly common: someone casually looking over the
> commit
>     log might assume that the patches could be safely removed because
> a
>     version update was done at the same time, rendering those patches
>     obsolete.
> 
> (3) Although your 'glib' commit was immediately followed by a 'glib'
>     update, rendering it harmless, your misleading 'cairo' commit
> left
>     'cairo' vulnerable to CVE-2018-19876 and CVE-2020-35492 on our
>     'core-updates' and 'wip-gnome' branches.  Those will need to be
>     fixed now.
> 
> Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> is also culpable here, because he
> digitally signed the misleading 'cairo' commit that's on our
> 'core-updates' branch, which re-introduced CVE-2018-19876 and
> CVE-2020-35492.
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> commit f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
> gpg: Signature made Fri 26 Mar 2021 05:13:57 PM EDT
> gpg:                using RSA key
> 148BCB8BD80BFB16B1DE0E9145A8B1E86BCD10A6
> gpg: Good signature from "Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>"
> [unknown]
> gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
> gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to
> the owner.
> Primary key fingerprint: 148B CB8B D80B FB16 B1DE  0E91 45A8 B1E8
> 6BCD 10A6
> Author: Raghav Gururajan <raghavgururajan@disroot.org>
> Date:   Fri Dec 4 00:48:43 2020 -0500
> 
>     gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.
>     
>     * gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
>     gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove patches.
>     * gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
>     * gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
>     [replacement]: Remove.
>     (cairo/fixed): Remove.
>     
>     Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> https://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=core-updates&id=f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
> 
> Even the most superficial skimming of this commit should have
> immediately raised red flags, because the summary line is clearly
> inaccurate.  It shows a lack of careful review, to put it mildly.
> 
>       Mark

Hello Mark,

I don't share your analysis, the security fixes werent stripped because
glib/cairo was also updated to latest version in subsequent commits
which were pushed all at once.

Careful review was done, and that's why I signed-off and GPG-signed the
commits. Nobody was put at risk by these commits and no security fixes
were stripped.

Léo

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Re: Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 13:40 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> This commit was digitally signed and pushed to the 'wip-gnome' branch
> by
> Raghav, but it's also "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter", so I'm not sure
> who bears primary responsibility for this one.

It seems you are more focused and spend more time sending accusations
here than collaboratively working to improve GNU Guix. I don't feel
like that's something great to do at all.

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Christopher Baines]

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Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:

> On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 00:08 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>> Hi Raghav,
>> 
>> Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:
>> 
>> > > Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le
>> > > Bouter
>> > > <lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove
>> > > security
>> > > fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic
>> > > changes"
>> > > were made.
>> > 
>> > Yeah, the commit title didn't mention the change but the commit
>> > message did.
>> 
>> I'm sorry, but that won't do.  There are at least three things wrong
>> with these commits:
>> 
>> (1) The summary lines were misleading, because they implied that no
>>     functional changes were made.
>> 
>> (2) The commit messages were misleading, because they failed to
>> mention
>>     that security holes which had previously been fixed were now
>> being
>>     re-introduced.  That wasn't at all obvious.
>> 
>>     Commits like these, which remove patches that had fixed security
>>     flaws, are fairly common: someone casually looking over the
>> commit
>>     log might assume that the patches could be safely removed because
>> a
>>     version update was done at the same time, rendering those patches
>>     obsolete.
>> 
>> (3) Although your 'glib' commit was immediately followed by a 'glib'
>>     update, rendering it harmless, your misleading 'cairo' commit
>> left
>>     'cairo' vulnerable to CVE-2018-19876 and CVE-2020-35492 on our
>>     'core-updates' and 'wip-gnome' branches.  Those will need to be
>>     fixed now.
>> 
>> Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> is also culpable here, because he
>> digitally signed the misleading 'cairo' commit that's on our
>> 'core-updates' branch, which re-introduced CVE-2018-19876 and
>> CVE-2020-35492.
>> 
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> commit f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
>> gpg: Signature made Fri 26 Mar 2021 05:13:57 PM EDT
>> gpg:                using RSA key
>> 148BCB8BD80BFB16B1DE0E9145A8B1E86BCD10A6
>> gpg: Good signature from "Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>"
>> [unknown]
>> gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
>> gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to
>> the owner.
>> Primary key fingerprint: 148B CB8B D80B FB16 B1DE  0E91 45A8 B1E8
>> 6BCD 10A6
>> Author: Raghav Gururajan <raghavgururajan@disroot.org>
>> Date:   Fri Dec 4 00:48:43 2020 -0500
>> 
>>     gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.
>>     
>>     * gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
>>     gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove patches.
>>     * gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
>>     * gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
>>     [replacement]: Remove.
>>     (cairo/fixed): Remove.
>>     
>>     Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>> 
>> https://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=core-updates&id=f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
>> 
>> Even the most superficial skimming of this commit should have
>> immediately raised red flags, because the summary line is clearly
>> inaccurate.  It shows a lack of careful review, to put it mildly.
>> 
>>       Mark
>
> Hello Mark,
>
> I don't share your analysis, the security fixes werent stripped because
> glib/cairo was also updated to latest version in subsequent commits
> which were pushed all at once.
>
> Careful review was done, and that's why I signed-off and GPG-signed the
> commits. Nobody was put at risk by these commits and no security fixes
> were stripped.

I think the guidance is that commits should include one set of related
changes, so if the patches/replacement can be removed because the
package is being updated, those related changes should be in the same
commit. If there are other unrelated changes, they can go in other
commits.

Especially if the commits are being pushed at the same time, it's worth
making sure this happens, so that it's easier to review and look at the
changes in a sensible way.

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Prikler]

Am Donnerstag, den 22.04.2021, 22:01 +0200 schrieb Léo Le Bouter:
> On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 00:08 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> > Hi Raghav,
> > 
> > Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:
> > 
> > > > Those commits on 'core-updates' were digitally signed by Léo Le
> > > > Bouter
> > > > <lle-bout@zaclys.net> and have the same problems: they remove
> > > > security
> > > > fixes, and yet the summary lines indicate that only "cosmetic
> > > > changes"
> > > > were made.
> > > 
> > > Yeah, the commit title didn't mention the change but the commit
> > > message did.
> > 
> > I'm sorry, but that won't do.  There are at least three things
> > wrong
> > with these commits:
> > 
> > (1) The summary lines were misleading, because they implied that no
> >     functional changes were made.
> > 
> > (2) The commit messages were misleading, because they failed to
> > mention
> >     that security holes which had previously been fixed were now
> > being
> >     re-introduced.  That wasn't at all obvious.
> > 
> >     Commits like these, which remove patches that had fixed
> > security
> >     flaws, are fairly common: someone casually looking over the
> > commit
> >     log might assume that the patches could be safely removed
> > because
> > a
> >     version update was done at the same time, rendering those
> > patches
> >     obsolete.
> > 
> > (3) Although your 'glib' commit was immediately followed by a
> > 'glib'
> >     update, rendering it harmless, your misleading 'cairo' commit
> > left
> >     'cairo' vulnerable to CVE-2018-19876 and CVE-2020-35492 on our
> >     'core-updates' and 'wip-gnome' branches.  Those will need to be
> >     fixed now.
> > 
> > Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> is also culpable here, because
> > he
> > digitally signed the misleading 'cairo' commit that's on our
> > 'core-updates' branch, which re-introduced CVE-2018-19876 and
> > CVE-2020-35492.
> > 
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> > commit f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
> > gpg: Signature made Fri 26 Mar 2021 05:13:57 PM EDT
> > gpg:                using RSA key
> > 148BCB8BD80BFB16B1DE0E9145A8B1E86BCD10A6
> > gpg: Good signature from "Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>"
> > [unknown]
> > gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
> > gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to
> > the owner.
> > Primary key fingerprint: 148B CB8B D80B FB16 B1DE  0E91 45A8 B1E8
> > 6BCD 10A6
> > Author: Raghav Gururajan <raghavgururajan@disroot.org>
> > Date:   Fri Dec 4 00:48:43 2020 -0500
> > 
> >     gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.
> >     
> >     * gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
> >     gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove
> > patches.
> >     * gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
> >     * gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
> >     [replacement]: Remove.
> >     (cairo/fixed): Remove.
> >     
> >     Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net>
> > --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> > 
> > https://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=core-updates&id=f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091
> > 
> > Even the most superficial skimming of this commit should have
> > immediately raised red flags, because the summary line is clearly
> > inaccurate.  It shows a lack of careful review, to put it mildly.
> > 
> >       Mark
> 
> Hello Mark,
> 
> I don't share your analysis, the security fixes werent stripped
> because
> glib/cairo was also updated to latest version in subsequent commits
> which were pushed all at once.
This may be the case for glib, but which commit pushes cairo to a
version, in which those security fixes are applied?

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Léo,

Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:

> I don't share your analysis, the security fixes werent stripped because
> glib/cairo was also updated to latest version in subsequent commits
> which were pushed all at once.

'glib' was updated, but 'cairo' wasn't, presumably because there's no
newer stable release of 'cairo' to update to.

> Careful review was done, and that's why I signed-off and GPG-signed the
> commits. Nobody was put at risk by these commits and no security fixes
> were stripped.

Those are bold claims, given the contents of our git repository.

Here's Raghav's commit on the 'core-updates' branch, which bears your
digital signature (according to my 'git' client), where the security
fixes for CVE-2018-19876 and CVE-2020-35492 were removed, in a commit
whose summary line is "gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes":

  https://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=core-updates&id=f94cdc86f644984ca83164d40b17e7eed6e22091

I have two questions for you:

(1) Do you deny that you digitally signed that commit?
(2) Do you deny that there's anything wrong with that commit?

     Thanks,
       Mark

-- 
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious misinformation campaign
against him and the FSF.  See <https://stallmansupport.org> for more.

Re: Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Léo,

> On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 13:40 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>> This commit was digitally signed and pushed to the 'wip-gnome' 
>> branch
>> by
>> Raghav, but it's also "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter", so I'm 
>> not sure
>> who bears primary responsibility for this one.
>
> It seems you are more focused and spend more time sending 
> accusations
> here than collaboratively working to improve GNU Guix. I don't 
> feel
> like that's something great to do at all.

Please try to deescalate.

While I disagree with Mark’s earlier style and harsh tone towards 
Raghav (who has been trying to get more of his older commits that 
are relevant for a speedy upgrade of Gnome in shape), it seems 
obvious now that Mark attempts to understand what signing off on 
the changed commit means in this case – what motivated the 
expansion of the scope of the commit, what resulted in not 
declaring all of the significant changes.

I do think it is reasonable to expect an explanation, so that we 
can collectively address the potential issue (patches removed 
without upgrade), and prevent it from happening again.

Escalating the situation by insinuating bad faith does not serve 
any constructive purpose.  Obstructing the investigation into what 
happened will only make it harder to prevent it from happening 
again.  It is in our shared interest to prevent problems like 
this.  Also note that Guix has a pretty good track record when it 
comes to clear commits, so it is not unusual for long term 
contributors to be at the very least confused by what has happened 
here.

-- 
Ricardo

Re: Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:

> On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 13:40 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>> This commit was digitally signed and pushed to the 'wip-gnome' branch
>> by
>> Raghav, but it's also "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter", so I'm not sure
>> who bears primary responsibility for this one.
>
> It seems you are more focused and spend more time sending accusations
> here than collaboratively working to improve GNU Guix. I don't feel
> like that's something great to do at all.

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.

I've given evidence to back up these claims, evidence that anyone who
cares to look in our git repository can plainly see.  If you believe my
conclusions are erroneous, please make your case.

       Mark

-- 
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious misinformation campaign
against him and the FSF.  See <https://stallmansupport.org> for more.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Mark!

> Thank you for these links.  From the IRC log cited above, it now appears
> that Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> bears primary responsibility
> for these mistakes.  In particular, according to the IRC
> logs, Léo wrote:
> 
>    <lle-bout> raghavgururajan: the main issues on the rebasing were about
>    security fixes on cairo, gdk-pixbuf and glib
>    <lle-bout> I modified the cosmetic commits to remove the graft and
>    patches etc.
> 
>    <https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000950>
Yes, Leo made these changes. But I also have to acknowledge that it was 
part of my responsibility to question any changes. My apologies for 
that. Leo was occupied with many stuff on those days (with CVE bug 
hunting etc.). Its understandable that it was a honest mistake.

> Nonetheless, you (Raghav) also bear some responsibility for digitally
> signing and pushing these misleading commits to the 'wip-gnome' branch.
> At least one of the problems (the misleading summary line) should have
> been obvious from a cursory glance at the commit log.

Yes, my apologies. I will merge fix commits from core-updates to wip-gnome.

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Leo!

> Raghav and Léo, is wip-gnome based on core-updates?

It was based on core-updates, but I recently re-created wip-gnome based 
on master.

Regards,
RG.


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Re: Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Guix!

Thanks Mark for raising these issues.  I definitely share your concerns,
specifically regarding the two commits you mentioned and how they
misleadingly have undesirable consequences:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-gnome&id=d975ed975456a2c8e855eb024b5487c4c460684a
  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?h=wip-gnome&id=f5fc3c609e2f38ca1c0523deadb9f77d838fbf32

I believe all the parties involved behaved in good faith and I’m more
interested in (1) fixing these two mistakes, and (2) making sure this
doesn’t happen again in the future.


Regarding #1, I see 宋文武 (iyzsong) proposed a patch that reinstates
the Cairo security fixes, so it seems we’re on the right track.

Raghav, could you post a patch reinstating the gdk-pixbuf security fix
removed in f5fc3c609e2f38ca1c0523deadb9f77d838fbf32?  If that commit is
only on ‘wip-gnome’, can you simply drop it?  (The convention is that a
‘wip-’ branch may be rebased at will by the person responsible for it.)

Could you also check ‘wip-gnome’ and ‘core-updates’ for similar
“cosmetic changes” commits likely to be controversial?


Regarding #2, everyone please keep in mind the commit rules¹.  We’re all
pouring hours of our time into this.  It’s a social project before being
a technical one, so it’s crucial to not step on each other’s toes.

As per these rules, ‘wip-gnome’ will have to go through review as usual.
As always, it’s best if you can submit it for review in small chunks.
Note that review has to happen via guix-patches@gnu.org so everyone in
the project can see it and has a chance to chime in.  You can have
pre-review/mentoring elsewhere if you want (it’s great if you can have
that), but it “doesn’t count” from the project’s viewpoint.

I think committers and particularly vouchers should spend more time
reviewing and mentoring newcomers.

Regarding commit logs, we only add a ‘Signed-off-by’ line when applying
someone else’s patches; let’s keep following that rule, for clarity.

For the subject line: as 宋文武 wrote, as a rule of thumb, if you cannot
summarize the change in the subject line, that probably means the patch
should be split into smaller logical units.  More generally, never
bundle together unrelated changes in the same commit, as per:

  https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Submitting-Patches.html

Here are additional rules I try to follow for the commit message and
that I’d recommend following:

  1. Never write “cosmetic changes” as the summary: it’s too vague.
     Instead, be more specific: “reindent foo.scm”, “remove unused
     module imports”, whatever.

  2. Never write “Fix X”.  Instead describe the fix: “Avoid
     non-top-level 'use-modules'”, “Remove file that no longer exists”,
     “Honor proxy settings”, “Disable tests when building on i586-gnu”,
     etc.  In all these examples I could have written “Fix …”, but
     fellow hackers would have had to look at the diff to understand
     what’s going on.


A long message!

Let’s calm down and focus the way forward: fixing the security issues
that were reported, checking whether similar ones are lurking, and
improving our practices.  If you feel the need for it, feel free to
propose improvements to the “Commit Access” and “Submitting Patches”
sections, too!

Thanks in advance.  :-)

Ludo’.

¹ https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Commit-Access.html

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi,

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Hi Léo,
>
> Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:
>
>> I don't share your analysis, the security fixes werent stripped because
>> glib/cairo was also updated to latest version in subsequent commits
>> which were pushed all at once.
>
> 'glib' was updated, but 'cairo' wasn't, presumably because there's no
> newer stable release of 'cairo' to update to.

Actually, there *is* a "new" stable release available on their release
page, 1.17.2 [0]

According to NVD [1], that latest version has no known CVE [1].

Léo, could it be that you had planned to do this update, but it somehow
fell into the cracks?  In any case I agree with the others that it'd
have been better to ungraft/remove patches in the same commit that
updates the software to a version that incorporates the fixes, as I'm
sure you already know: it'd have prevented this kind of situation.

I also urge you to remain calm and collaborative even in the face of
criticism; as Ricardo said, escalating things will lead us nowhere good.
Honest mistakes are made and that's no problem so long as we stand ready
to apologize for them and work together for a resolution.

I see that 宋文武 has pushed a commit
(2ab4f4c950ffa7ca40271a534cb3bed997672138) to core-updates reinstating
the security patches; thanks!

Thank you,

Maxim

[0]  https://www.cairographics.org/releases/
[1]  https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search/results?form_type=Advanced&results_type=overview&seach_type=all&query=cpe:2.3:a:cairographics:cairo:-:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Maxim!

> Actually, there *is* a "new" stable release available on their release
> page, 1.17.2

It seems 1.16.0 is the latest+stable version.

Quoting their download, "Please download one of the latest 
[releases](https://cairographics.org/releases/) in order to get an 
API-stable version of cairo."

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hello Raghav,

Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:

> Hi Maxim!
>
>> Actually, there *is* a "new" stable release available on their release
>> page, 1.17.2
>
> It seems 1.16.0 is the latest+stable version.
>
> Quoting their download, "Please download one of the latest
> [releases](https://cairographics.org/releases/) in order to get an 
> API-stable version of cairo."

Oh, indeed, sorry for the confusion.  I think I got tricked by seeing
the changelog for 1.17.2 under their releases/ directory
(https://www.cairographics.org/releases/ChangeLog.cairo-1.17.2).

Thank you,

Maxim

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Fri, 2021-04-23 at 13:52 -0400, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:
> Actually, there *is* a "new" stable release available on their
> release
> page, 1.17.2 [0]
> 
> According to NVD [1], that latest version has no known CVE [1].
> 
> Léo, could it be that you had planned to do this update, but it
> somehow
> fell into the cracks?  In any case I agree with the others that it'd
> have been better to ungraft/remove patches in the same commit that
> updates the software to a version that incorporates the fixes, as I'm
> sure you already know: it'd have prevented this kind of situation.

Considering the GNOME upgrade is not finished yet, this is indeed
ongoing work. I would've never done this on master.

> 
> I also urge you to remain calm and collaborative even in the face of
> criticism; as Ricardo said, escalating things will lead us nowhere
> good.
> Honest mistakes are made and that's no problem so long as we stand
> ready
> to apologize for them and work together for a resolution.
> 

I think there is no problem in accepting criticism but there is a
certain way Mark presents criticism and I don't feel like I can respond
to it when it is written in such way. Over several emails Mark was
looking to point to people who were somehow responsible for whatever
"damage" for changes that happened on a branch nobody uses and always
contains ongoing work (core-updates), so maintaining it security-wise
is not as much of a question. The result is that we have a long thread
of people responding etc. causing a fuss over something that just needs
to be fixed rather than find whoever is somehow "responsible". I feel
like we're collectively responsible. We try our best at all times,
during this GNOME upgrade I also tried to take into account Raghav's
feelings so they do not give up and have a rewarding review experience,
I knew these commits werent great, I have written about it here: <
https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67>.

> I see that 宋文武 has pushed a commit
> (2ab4f4c950ffa7ca40271a534cb3bed997672138) to core-updates
> reinstating
> the security patches; thanks!
> 

Great! Thanks for figuring this out.

> Thank you,
> 
> Maxim
> 
> [0]  https://www.cairographics.org/releases/
> [1]  
> https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search/results?form_type=Advanced&results_type=overview&seach_type=all&query=cpe:2.3:a:cairographics:cairo:-:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Prikler]

Hi,

Am Freitag, den 23.04.2021, 20:50 +0200 schrieb Léo Le Bouter:
> I think there is no problem in accepting criticism but there is a
> certain way Mark presents criticism and I don't feel like I can
> respond
> to it when it is written in such way. Over several emails Mark was
> looking to point to people who were somehow responsible for whatever
> "damage" for changes that happened on a branch nobody uses and always
> contains ongoing work (core-updates), so maintaining it security-wise
> is not as much of a question. The result is that we have a long
> thread
> of people responding etc. causing a fuss over something that just
> needs
> to be fixed rather than find whoever is somehow "responsible". 
I disagree with the sentiment, that core-updates is fair game for any
kind of commit.  Now, naturally, since they cause many rebuilds it may
be harder to verify that upgrading some packages does not lead to
failure in another (especially without the CI), contributing to the
"work in progress" nature of core-updates, but this still doesn't
excuse removing security fixes.  
We all expect, that at some point we can merge core-updates "as is"
into master and commits like that call this assumption into question,
instead demanding a full review of a branch, whose patches should
already have been reviewed by the time they land.

> I feel
> like we're collectively responsible. We try our best at all times,
> during this GNOME upgrade I also tried to take into account Raghav's
> feelings so they do not give up and have a rewarding review
> experience,
> I knew these commits werent great, I have written about it here: <
> https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67>;.
I think a more rewarding experience would have been to help them arrive
at a point, where such changes are no longer needed for the rest of
their patch set.  Not only would this have solved their immediate
issue, it would also have been a good learning experience and we
wouldn't need to discuss this at lengths several months later.

I have worked with Raghav before on telegram-desktop (and other
packages as well) and they were pretty patient with about 20 versions
being sent back and forth between us until we arrived at a set of
descriptions, that we could safely push.  Not nearly as many versions
would need to be sent in the case of a "cosmetic changes" patch, when I
ported their GStreamer updates to staging, I noticed that it was mostly
the indentation, that would screw things up for future patches.  I
admit, sometimes Raghav appears to "just want to get the job done
quickly", but giving in to such urges helps no one.

Regards,
Leo

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Famulari]

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On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 08:50:37PM +0200, Léo Le Bouter wrote:
> I think there is no problem in accepting criticism but there is a
> certain way Mark presents criticism and I don't feel like I can respond
> to it when it is written in such way. Over several emails Mark was
> looking to point to people who were somehow responsible for whatever
> "damage" for changes that happened on a branch nobody uses and always
> contains ongoing work (core-updates), so maintaining it security-wise
> is not as much of a question. The result is that we have a long thread
> of people responding etc. causing a fuss over something that just needs
> to be fixed rather than find whoever is somehow "responsible". I feel
> like we're collectively responsible. We try our best at all times,
> during this GNOME upgrade I also tried to take into account Raghav's
> feelings so they do not give up and have a rewarding review experience,
> I knew these commits werent great, I have written about it here: <
> https://issues.guix.gnu.org/42958#67>.

I have to agree with everybody in this thead.

The commits in question were problematic (especially on core-updates,
which is not a "WIP" branch and thus cannot be rewritten to fix past
problems). I'm not confident that the security fixes would have been
reinstated on core-updates if Mark had not asked about them.

Léo and Raghav, you need to keep learning our workflow around security
updates.  It's not okay to remove security patches and later update a
package to a fixed version in a different commit. `git rebase` is the
tool to learn for cases like this one.

However, Mark, you have way more experience, and you need to handle
these things differently. If you don't trust certain Guix contributors,
take it up with the maintainers — in private. The style of communication
you used here is ineffective and will dissuade people from contributing
to Guix. Do you want Léo and Raghav to learn and improve? Or do you want
them to leave? Remember that we all begin as beginners.

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Fri, 2021-04-23 at 15:18 -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
> Léo and Raghav, you need to keep learning our workflow around
> security
> updates.  It's not okay to remove security patches and later update a
> package to a fixed version in a different commit. `git rebase` is the
> tool to learn for cases like this one.

I knew about this but I didnt feel like telling Raghav to do yet
another rebase. I felt like Raghav was taking on with so much already.
The rebase was specially complicated because Raghav's commit changed
indentation, git has bad quite bad UX for cases like these. At the time
I had lots of things to handle also and couldnt spend lots of time on
it myself. I didnt feel like blocking the merge of these patches for
commit history was worth it at all. Such blocking could have hindered
the GNOME upgrade effort even more. Thankfully now there's lots of
energy being put to it, at the time there wasnt anyone else than Raghav
and me.

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Famulari]

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On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 09:33:07PM +0200, Léo Le Bouter wrote:
> I knew about this but I didnt feel like telling Raghav to do yet
> another rebase. I felt like Raghav was taking on with so much already.
> The rebase was specially complicated because Raghav's commit changed
> indentation, git has bad quite bad UX for cases like these. At the time
> I had lots of things to handle also and couldnt spend lots of time on
> it myself. I didnt feel like blocking the merge of these patches for
> commit history was worth it at all. Such blocking could have hindered
> the GNOME upgrade effort even more. Thankfully now there's lots of
> energy being put to it, at the time there wasnt anyone else than Raghav
> and me.

I'm sympathetic. There is an imbalance between the work that we want to
complete, and the time and energy that we can give to it.

And in the case of GNOME, we have already fallen short of our goals
several times, having missed multiple upgrades.

I too have felt the temptation to cut corners with Git when I know that
the final result will be "okay". But Guix is not just about the final
product (a release, or a merge). We also have the --commit option to
Guix commands, and `guix time-machine`. So the Git history is important
too.

And I have also spent several hours at a time, focused on completing
(after several restarts) a complicated rebase involving dozens of
commits. And I've done that many times.

I do think that Mark is being hyperbolic about the wip-gnome branch. The
name says "work in progress" and we don't hold those branches to a high
standard. But what happened on core-updates *must not happen again*.

For a task as large as "updating GNOME in Guix", history tells me that
it has to be a group effort. In many cases, the hardest part of a
project is coordination and leadership, not coding. I hope that this
current effort continues, and that more people decide to join.

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Maxim!

> Oh, indeed, sorry for the confusion.  I think I got tricked by seeing
> the changelog for 1.17.2 under their releases/ directory
> (https://www.cairographics.org/releases/ChangeLog.cairo-1.17.2).

No worries! I was confused by that too, while I was working on cairo 
package.

Regards,
RG.


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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Léo,

Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:

> On Fri, 2021-04-23 at 15:18 -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
>> Léo and Raghav, you need to keep learning our workflow around
>> security updates.  It's not okay to remove security patches and later
>> update a package to a fixed version in a different commit. `git
>> rebase` is the tool to learn for cases like this one.
>
> I knew about this but I didnt feel like telling Raghav to do yet
> another rebase. I felt like Raghav was taking on with so much already.

This response is what native English speakers call a "red herring"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring>: something that misleads or
distracts from a relevant or important question.

Why do I say that?  As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread,

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-04/msg00366.html

it appears that Raghav didn't actually remove the security fixes; it
appears that *you* did.  Therefore, I fail to see how it could have been
avoided by asking Raghav to do another rebase.

From the IRC logs cited in the message above, it appears that you took
the liberty of modifying Raghav's "cosmetic changes" commits to also
remove security fixes in the re-indented packages, while claiming in the
summary lines that you were "ungraft[ing]" cairo and glib.

  https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
  https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008

Can you please explain what went wrong here?

      Thanks,
        Mark

-- 
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious disinformation campaign
against him and the FSF.  See <https://stallmansupport.org> for more.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Raghav,

Raghav Gururajan <rg@raghavgururajan.name> writes:

>> Thank you for these links.  From the IRC log cited above, it now appears
>> that Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> bears primary responsibility
>> for these mistakes.  In particular, according to the IRC
>> logs, Léo wrote:
>> 
>>    <lle-bout> raghavgururajan: the main issues on the rebasing were about
>>    security fixes on cairo, gdk-pixbuf and glib
>>    <lle-bout> I modified the cosmetic commits to remove the graft and
>>    patches etc.
>> 
>>    <https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2021-03-26.log#000950>
> Yes, Leo made these changes. But I also have to acknowledge that it was 
> part of my responsibility to question any changes. My apologies for 
> that.

Thank you for this acknowledgment, Raghav.  Your recent responses in
this thread have been commendable.

     Regards,
       Mark

-- 
Support Richard Stallman against the vicious disinformation campaign
against him and the FSF.  See <https://stallmansupport.org> for more.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Sat, 2021-04-24 at 03:46 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> Hi Léo,
> 
> Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:
> 
> > On Fri, 2021-04-23 at 15:18 -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
> > > Léo and Raghav, you need to keep learning our workflow around
> > > security updates.  It's not okay to remove security patches and
> > > later
> > > update a package to a fixed version in a different commit. `git
> > > rebase` is the tool to learn for cases like this one.
> > 
> > I knew about this but I didnt feel like telling Raghav to do yet
> > another rebase. I felt like Raghav was taking on with so much
> > already.
> 
> This response is what native English speakers call a "red herring"
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring>;: something that misleads
> or
> distracts from a relevant or important question.
> 
> Why do I say that?  As I pointed out elsewhere in this thread,
> 
>   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-04/msg00366.html
> 
> it appears that Raghav didn't actually remove the security fixes; it
> appears that *you* did.  Therefore, I fail to see how it could have
> been
> avoided by asking Raghav to do another rebase.
> 
> From the IRC logs cited in the message above, it appears that you
> took
> the liberty of modifying Raghav's "cosmetic changes" commits to also
> remove security fixes in the re-indented packages, while claiming in
> the
> summary lines that you were "ungraft[ing]" cairo and glib.
> 
>   
> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
>   
> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
> 
> Can you please explain what went wrong here?
> 
>       Thanks,
>         Mark
> 

Hello Mark,

I will not answer anything to you anymore because I feel like you do
not write messages in a constructive way.

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

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Hi Léo,

> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
> 
> Can you please explain what went wrong here?

Is a reasonable question, shared by all of us, not just Mark.  The 
constructive way forward is to answer it fully.  It's in your best 
interest to do so.

Kind regards,

T G-R

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

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Hello Guix,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

[...]

> And in the case of GNOME, we have already fallen short of our goals
> several times, having missed multiple upgrades.

I regret not to be able to contribute more to Guix, but please nobody
should feel guilty not to be able to keep-up with upstream's upgrading
rate (whatever rate it is), better safe than up-to-date :-)

> I too have felt the temptation to cut corners with Git when I know that
> the final result will be "okay". But Guix is not just about the final
> product (a release, or a merge). We also have the --commit option to
> Guix commands, and `guix time-machine`. So the Git history is important
> too.

Yes, please this should be stressed: Guix *is* it's official (master,
core-updates...) git repo branches.

Just to understand: /if/ at any point in time a user is able to afford
the effort to build the entire core-updates /or/ staging branch she
should be confident the result is state-of-the-art secure.  Am I wrong
with this assumption?

> And I have also spent several hours at a time, focused on completing
> (after several restarts) a complicated rebase involving dozens of
> commits. And I've done that many times.

I think this is the most expensive activity of Guix maintainers, for the
very reason that Guix *is* git

> I do think that Mark is being hyperbolic about the wip-gnome branch. The
> name says "work in progress" and we don't hold those branches to a high
> standard.

I understand your point but please consider that /unless/ a wip-branch
is private (or privately shared out-of-Guix-git) that branch it's a
pubblic collective work in progress and sometimes (seldom? often? I
really don't know) that work could be completed by someone else, so even
in wip- branches committers should exercise some degree of discipline,
especially when dealing with "commit message completeness" and more with
security related patches.  In other words, IMHO a certain degree of
safety must be assured also on wip- branches.

Probably the policy about wip-branches, whatever it is ("do what you
want" or something in line with my comments above), should be documented
in the contributing section of the Guix manual.

> But what happened on core-updates *must not happen again*.

Please no.

> For a task as large as "updating GNOME in Guix", history tells me that
> it has to be a group effort. In many cases, the hardest part of a
> project is coordination and leadership, not coding. I hope that this
> current effort continues, and that more people decide to join.

OK but please consider that /if/ Guix cannot "update GNOME in Guix" for
whatever reason, GNOME should not be updated.


Thanks! Giovanni.

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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Re: Another misleading commit log (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Mark,

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:

> Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:
>
>> On Thu, 2021-04-22 at 13:40 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>>> This commit was digitally signed and pushed to the 'wip-gnome' branch
>>> by
>>> Raghav, but it's also "Signed-off-by: Léo Le Bouter", so I'm not sure
>>> who bears primary responsibility for this one.
>>
>> It seems you are more focused and spend more time sending accusations
>> here than collaboratively working to improve GNU Guix. I don't feel
>> like that's something great to do at all.
>
> 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.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Léo,

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr> skribis:

>> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
>> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
>> Can you please explain what went wrong here?
>
> Is a reasonable question, shared by all of us, not just Mark.  The
> constructive way forward is to answer it fully.  It's in your best 
> interest to do so.

I concur.  Please reply as soon as you can so we can understand what
happened, restore trust, and collectively avoid such pitfalls in the
future.

Thanks in advance,
Ludo’.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Famulari]

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On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 07:06:33PM +0200, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:
> Just to understand: /if/ at any point in time a user is able to afford
> the effort to build the entire core-updates /or/ staging branch she
> should be confident the result is state-of-the-art secure.  Am I wrong
> with this assumption?

Unfortunately your assumption is incorrect.

We do not apply security updates to the core-updates branch, except what
comes via `git merge master`, which only happens in the final stages of
the cycle.

Core-updates is not expected to be "buildable", let alone "secure",
until the end of the core-updates cycle when we start to whip it into
shape.

That branch is just a place to push updates of core packages, so that we
don't duplicate effort or lose track of updates.

Nevertheless, we should never remove security patches without a
corresponding package update, done in a single atomic commit. That's not
how we work.

If there is some documentation or messaging that suggests that anyone
should ever use the core-updates branch, please let us know and we will
fix that. The only branch you should use is the master branch, unless
you are testing something as a developer
  
> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
> > I do think that Mark is being hyperbolic about the wip-gnome branch. The
> > name says "work in progress" and we don't hold those branches to a high
> > standard.
> 
> I understand your point but please consider that /unless/ a wip-branch
> is private (or privately shared out-of-Guix-git) that branch it's a
> pubblic collective work in progress and sometimes (seldom? often? I
> really don't know) that work could be completed by someone else, so even
> in wip- branches committers should exercise some degree of discipline,
> especially when dealing with "commit message completeness" and more with
> security related patches.  In other words, IMHO a certain degree of
> safety must be assured also on wip- branches.
> 
> Probably the policy about wip-branches, whatever it is ("do what you
> want" or something in line with my comments above), should be documented
> in the contributing section of the Guix manual.

I did not mean to suggestthat wip-* branches should not be secure but,
again, they are only works in progress. They do not even have a stable
Git history, due to rebasing, which breaks the Guix code authentication
mechanism. So, if you try to use them, you will have to use `guix pull
--allow-downgrades` and then all bets are off in terms of security.

These branches are merely a way for developers to share their work with
each other.

> OK but please consider that /if/ Guix cannot "update GNOME in Guix" for
> whatever reason, GNOME should not be updated.

I don't understand this. It seems tautological that if we cannot update
GNOME, then GNOME should not be updated.

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Mon, 2021-04-26 at 17:23 +0200, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote:
> Hi Léo,
> 
> > https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
> > https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
> > 
> > Can you please explain what went wrong here?
> 
> Is a reasonable question, shared by all of us, not just Mark.  The 
> constructive way forward is to answer it fully.  It's in your best 
> interest to do so.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> T G-R

I am sorry, I will not. It's evident nothing went wrong and Mark is not
asking questions that are beneficial to anyone here besides
contributing to public shaming of people. The fix is already pushed and
thank you to the person that made it and Mark for identifying the
issue, however I don't say thank you for trying to publicly shame
people on the mailing list, both Raghav and me. At best there was an
oversight (like there's many in various commits made everyday to GNU
Guix) where I assumed the latest version of software would contain all
security fixes (as I tend to consider GNONE software such as cairo is
well maintained upstream security-wise, seems not), I don't think
there's anything more to add. I find Mark's way of communicating about
these issues not constructive and unfriendly. I think that if Mark or
anyone else's expect me to answer I think they should not phrase
criticism in a way that they accuse me or anyone else of having made a
mistake. I don't think we should find who is responsible for mistakes,
we could however ask advice on what happened to fix the mistake in case
the person that introduced it cannot. And to ever think I would act in
bad faith towards GNU Guix security when I spent entire weeks checking
and patching CVEs full time, I don't think that would make sense.

On Mon, 2021-04-26 at 19:21 +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hi Léo,
> 
> Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr> skribis:
> 
> > > 
https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
> > > 
https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
> > > Can you please explain what went wrong here?
> > 
> > Is a reasonable question, shared by all of us, not just Mark.  The
> > constructive way forward is to answer it fully.  It's in your best 
> > interest to do so.
> 
> I concur.  Please reply as soon as you can so we can understand what
> happened, restore trust, and collectively avoid such pitfalls in the
> future.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Ludo’.

I don't understand how trust would be lost.

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Fri, 2021-04-23 at 15:18 -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
> I have to agree with everybody in this thead.
> 
> The commits in question were problematic (especially on core-updates,
> which is not a "WIP" branch and thus cannot be rewritten to fix past
> problems). I'm not confident that the security fixes would have been
> reinstated on core-updates if Mark had not asked about them.
> 
> Léo and Raghav, you need to keep learning our workflow around
> security
> updates.  It's not okay to remove security patches and later update a
> package to a fixed version in a different commit. `git rebase` is the
> tool to learn for cases like this one.

I do not think here that Raghav and myself should somehow be framed as
people having to learn more and that would be the reason for these
issues. To talk about myself, I think the main difference here is that
Mark and myself consider different things to have value when
contributing to GNU Guix. Mark tends to consider the technicality of
contributing to GNU Guix, that the code be well tested, that every
change be made in a very rigorous way. I tend to also consider these
things but also consider other things like how people feel when they
contribute to GNU Guix, do they feel discouraged or rewarded by their
contributions, I find that it can be tiring and very discouraging to
respond back and forth to many many review comments, and at some point,
even if things have some rough edges, I tend to prefer rewarding a
contributor for their work than insist the commit history should be
perfect or something. I also stopped upholding myself to high rigorous
standards at all times, also because I think it is not good for my
mental health. I tend to move the responsability of rigorous testing
into tools, I think putting testing/checking into tools is at the same
time good for mental health and inclusive because it means also
everyone can check their own changes and correct errors. Having tools
to check things is less stressful for everyone, I discovered that
aspect after I learned Rust and I think it really is the way to go. I
think there is an aspect of contribution where people feel stressed and
doubt themselves and that's what keeps them away from contribution, if
we have tools then those problems tend to disappear because the tool
acts as a stopgap, the tool can also be collectively improved as soon
as more best practices are discovered by the community. Rust does this
with clippy lint rules, the borrow checker and the very well made
error/warning reporting of the compiler. I think relying more on tools
even if we never can do so fully and less on individual accountability
is better here.

> 
> However, Mark, you have way more experience, and you need to handle
> these things differently. If you don't trust certain Guix
> contributors,
> take it up with the maintainers — in private. The style of
> communication
> you used here is ineffective and will dissuade people from
> contributing
> to Guix. Do you want Léo and Raghav to learn and improve? Or do you
> want
> them to leave? Remember that we all begin as beginners.

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pjotr Prins]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 07:21:14PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hi Léo,
> 
> Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr> skribis:
> 
> >> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/a045a48dd961f0c5c3d536dcc3fd21d9c08d2d50
> >> https://git.sr.ht/~lle-bout/guix/commit/6477daa338fbf1c9edacfc3690aca77cacfe0008
> >> Can you please explain what went wrong here?

To be honest, I think Leo and Raghav have been pretty clear. They made
a mistake and that can happen to all of us. Now before this thing goes
off the rails we should also recognise that everyone is different.
Which is really something to celebrate. Everyone on this thread has
made great contributions in a highly diverse environment to GNU Guix
and that is what matters, really.

We should also recognise that some people may be blunt and direct and
even personal. I don't think that is bad. It may not always be nice
and it may hurt our goals of being inclusive, but then there may be a
cultural component too. What is honest and meaningful to one may be
perceived as hurtful by another. It is somewhat unavoidable in an
international social experiment. Personally I shut up on disagreement,
as these E-mails live much too long.

Ricardo wrote a great E-mail early in this thread. I suggest we bury
the hatchet and move forward. It is clear to me that Leo and Raghav
mean well, won't make the mistake again, and this is taking too much
energy from everyone.

Pj.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

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Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 07:06:33PM +0200, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:
>> Just to understand: /if/ at any point in time a user is able to afford
>> the effort to build the entire core-updates /or/ staging branch she
>> should be confident the result is state-of-the-art secure.  Am I wrong
>> with this assumption?
>
> Unfortunately your assumption is incorrect.

[...]

> If there is some documentation or messaging that suggests that anyone
> should ever use the core-updates branch, please let us know and we will
> fix that.

No, I simply misunderstood, sorry for the noise!

[...]

Thanks, Giovanni

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Famulari]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 11:56:22PM +0200, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:
> No, I simply misunderstood, sorry for the noise!

Okay, and thanks for asking! It's important to clarify these things;
it's not just noise :)

This kind of knowledge is something I picked up over time, but I'm not
sure it's written down anywhere. So I added a line to the manual that I
hope can make it a little more clear to anyone looking for information:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=4de688738ce802056dadd6f785c7bdb3407dc768

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Andreas Enge]

Hello Léo,

Am Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 09:31:18PM +0200 schrieb Léo Le Bouter:
> also consider other things like how people feel when they
> contribute to GNU Guix, do they feel discouraged or rewarded by their
> contributions

indeed that is an important aspect.

> I find that it can be tiring and very discouraging to
> respond back and forth to many many review comments, and at some point,
> even if things have some rough edges, I tend to prefer rewarding a
> contributor for their work than insist the commit history should be
> perfect or something. I also stopped upholding myself to high rigorous
> standards at all times, also because I think it is not good for my
> mental health.

I agree that it can be a bit tiring, but at the same time, I think that
the high quality of Guix is a very important feature, that sets it apart
from some other distros. It is definitely one of the reasons I am using
it and have been contributing to it. And it has been one of the defining
features of Guix from the start that we try to avoid rough edges as much
as possible. Like building texlive from source instead of wrapping Debian
binaries, to give just one example. Or striving for bootstrappability,
which can be seen as removing rough edges at the expense of extraordinary
efforts.

Luckily, I do not think that enjoying contributing and keeping high quality
standards are in contradiction.

> I tend to move the responsability of rigorous testing
> into tools, I think putting testing/checking into tools is at the same
> time good for mental health and inclusive because it means also
> everyone can check their own changes and correct errors.

Tooling can definitely be helpful with this. We have "guix lint", and if
you have ideas for improved tools, these would be very welcome.

Andreas

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Marius Bakke]

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Léo,

We maintainers have been disappointed by Marks harsh tone which do not
meet the project's communication standards, but also by your apparent
lack of will to reply constructively to legitimate criticism.

This is the next in a series of incidents.  The incidents are okay--we
we all make mistakes and that's how we learn--but we interpreted your
responses all too often as dismissive and defensive, rather than
understanding and forward-looking.  This has been causing unnecessary
friction and stress, and is not how we envision peaceful collaboration.

I'm sorry to say your commit privileges have been temporarily
suspended.  After one month, you are invited to get in touch with the
maintainers collective and discuss next steps.

You have done terrific work in Guix in the short time you've been
around: from the POWER9 port, to the many security fixes,
to tracking and reporting issues, and suggesting improvements to the
tools.  I hope you'll eventually rejoin to collaborate in the peaceful
and empathetic fashion that this project encourages.

-- 
Marius (on behalf of the maintainers collective)

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Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Ludovic,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:
>
>> Léo Le Bouter <lle-bout@zaclys.net> writes:
>>
>>> It seems you are more focused and spend more time sending accusations
>>> here than collaboratively working to improve GNU Guix. I don't feel
>>> like that's something great to do at all.
>>
>> 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.

I'm sorry if this comes off as obtuse, but having now re-read all of my
messages in this thread, I honestly do not see what I did wrong here.
I will need some help to understand.

With very few exceptions, almost every sentence that I wrote was purely
factual.  It seems to me that the facts speak for themselves, and those
facts naturally cast Raghav and Léo in a bad light.  I don't see how to
avoid that while still presenting the facts.

You, and a couple of others, have criticized my "tone".  This is very
subjective, especially over email where we must *imagine* the tone of
the speaker.  Is it possible that you read more in my messages than I
actually wrote?

It would be very helpful if you could point out specific messages or
quotes of mine to illustrate your criticisms, and to clearly explain
what's wrong with them.  I'm not trying to be obstructionist here.  I
honestly don't understand, and I cannot improve without understanding.

     Thanks,
       Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Famulari]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 12:43:53PM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> I'm sorry if this comes off as obtuse, but having now re-read all of my
> messages in this thread, I honestly do not see what I did wrong here.
> I will need some help to understand.

It's common advice that managers and leaders should "praise in public
and criticize in private".

Assuming that the goal of the criticism is to improve somebody's work,
and it must be done in public, then criticism must be carefully
calibrated to avoid making them feel defensive, humiliated, and angry.
It was correct to point out these mistakes in public but, based on the
result, I conclude that your message was not calibrated well.

The beginning of this email discussion began by naming a perpretrator
and pointing out that it was part of a pattern of mistakes, rather than
focusing on the mistake.

The next part said, "Behold [...]". As a native USA English speaker, I
claim that we only use "Behold" ironically and sarcastically.

The message ended by casting aspersions on Raghav's status in Guix.

At no point did you concretely describe the problem, or try to teach
Raghav what the solution was, or try to explain the correct workflow
regarding security updates.

You should have sent a message that explained the problem and tried to
teach the solution. I've seen you do it many times before; I don't know
why you sent that sarcastic and mean message instead.

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Pjotr Prins]

Dear Leo,

On Wed, Apr 28, 2021 at 01:55:25PM -0400, Leo Famulari wrote:
> You should have sent a message that explained the problem and tried to
> teach the solution. I've seen you do it many times before; 

That is perhaps fair comment. It is always best to be constructive and
not too personal. The latter is probably what rubs people the wrong
way, especially in public. Good advice, in other words.

Going by my experience in Guix - if we were to meet personally we
would all be impressed by each other, that includes the other Leo and
Mark. I think Guix developers are special and all have made
interesting journeys to get here. Lisp is an great filter. I wonder
how we end up with more Leos than Marks, however ;)

But let me defend Mark here (a little). I'll only do this once. I
don't think it was malicious even if it did not look nice. Truth is we
should also try to look a little beyond the surface.  The intention
matters. What I read was exasperation.

But really, partly to prevent character assassination, I think that if
anyone crosses a line the accuser should use our complaints channels.
That is what they are for. We should not accuse each other about
behaviour in a public channel. Mostly because it is very hard to
defend oneself against opinion (of a majority). 

Pj.

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Joshua Branson]

If you'll allow me to comment Mark, I would say that I valued your
commitment to discover how to avoid a repeat of the problem.  It is nice
to see someone truly care about a project and insist a problem does not
repeat itself.

In practical terms, putting a few smiley faces in emails probably
helps.  Especially near any criticisms of others.

May I mention two book recommendations that I've loved?  (Leaders are
readers, so I read a lot!)

Crucial Conversations is a fantastic book that argues that you can talk
about ANYTHING with anyone AND be completely respectful.  A crucial
conversation is something like "Honey, I don't think we make love
enough.  May we talk about that?"  THAT'S a CRUCIAL CONVERSATION.
Everybody is emotionally invested in the outcome of the conversation.

So how do you have a good conversation?

1) Focus on your goal.  Remind yourself that your goal is to be SUPER
respectful to all parties and also to show your point of view and also
to believe that you do not know everything and your solution may not be
the best one.   It is easy in crucial conversations to be silent or
violent.  To either SCREAM your view or not to express your view.  This
is a false choice.  You CAN be respectful AND persuasive AND open to be
persuaded.  :)

2)  Create dialog.  Dialog happens when there is free flow of
information.  This happens when both people are adding information to
the pool of shared meaning.  Dialog comes before the decision.  I like
to say something like, "Let's both honestly add information to our pool
of shared meaning.  Before we make a decision what are some objective
facts that we both should know?  Having more facts will help us reach a
better decision.  Please be completely honest.  What am I missing here?
What do you know that I don't?"

You can read more about some of the tips in crucial conversations.  But
that is perhaps one of the greatest books I've ever read.



Another great book is How to Win Friends and Influence People.  It's in
the public domain.  You can download it now.  Here are a couple of
principles that are super interesting.

- Never criticize.
  "I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter
  pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the
  existence of a hunted man."  -  Al  Capone.  Almost no one thinks of
  themselves as a bad person.  Criticizing almost never gets the result
  that you want.

  Lincoln was considered to be one of America's greatest leaders.  He
  learned the hard way that criticizing is a terrible idea.  It almost
  cost him his life.

  "In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by
  the name of James Shields.  Lincoln lampooned him through an anonymous
  letter published in the Springfield Journal.  The town roared with
  laughter. Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation.  He
  found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse, started after
  Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel.  Lincoln didn't want to
  fight.  He was opposed to dueling, but he couldn't get out of it and
  save his honor.  He was given the choice of weapons.  Since he had
  very long arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in sword
  fighting from a West Point graduate; and on the appointed day, he and
  Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River, prepared to fight
  to the death; but at the last minute, their seconds interrupted and
  stopped the duel.

  That was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln's life.  It
  taught him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people.
  Never again did he write an insulting letter.  Never again did he
  ridicule anyone.  And from that time on, he never criticized anybody
  for anything."

  - Lavish people in praise (publicly if possible)
  "One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of
  over a million dollars a year (when there was no income take and a
  person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was
  Charles Schwab.  He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the
  first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in
  1921, when Schwab was only 38 years old.  (Schwab later left
  U.S. Steel to take over the then-troubled Bethlehem Steel Company, and
  he rebuilt it into one of the most profitable companies in America).

  Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than
  three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab?  Why?  Because Schwab
  was a genius? No.  Because he know more about the manufacture of steel
  than other people?  Nonsense.  Charles Schwab told me himself that he
  had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of
  steel that he did.

  Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his
  ability to deal with people.  I asked him how he did it.  Here is his
  secret set down in his own words --words that ought to be cast in
  eternal bronze and hung in every home and school, every shop and
  office in the land--words that children ought to memorize instead of
  wasting their time memorizing the conjugation of latin verbs or the
  amount of the annual rainfall in Brazil-- words that will all but
  transform your life and mine if we will only live by them:

  'I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people, said
  Schwab, 'the greastest asset I possess, and the way to develop the
  best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.'
  'There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as
  criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone.  I believe in
  giving a person incentive to work.  So I am anxious to praise but
  loath to find fault.  If I like anything, I am hearty in my
  approbation and lavish in my praise.'

  If you'll let me brag a little...I actually put Mr. Schwab's principle
  to the test.  I made a mailing list post on guix-devel entitled "Thank
  you for your leadership Ludo."  It was quite a thrill to have a
  pleasant public chat with Ludo:
  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2020-04/msg00021.html To
  see Ludo suggest that I may influence him was a real joy.  Who am I to
  suggest anything to Ludo about guix?  Am I a genius?  No.  Frequent
  guix developer?  No.  I just happen to be lavish in my praise.


  I hope the above novel was worth the read.  :) I really think you are
  a fantastic, brilliant, and crucial part of guix's development team
  Mark.  And I hope the above encouraged you!

  Your friend!

  143*,

  Joshua

--
Joshua Branson (joshuaBPMan in #guix)
Sent from Emacs and Gnus
  https://gnucode.me
  https://video.hardlimit.com/accounts/joshua_branson/video-channels
  https://propernaming.org
  "You can have whatever you want, as long as you help
enough other people get what they want." - Zig Ziglar

  143* is Mr. Rogers secret way of saving "I love you."  Because there
  is 1 letter in "I", four letters in "love", and three letters in "you".

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Wed, 2021-04-28 at 17:52 +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
> Léo,
> 
> We maintainers have been disappointed by Marks harsh tone which do
> not
> meet the project's communication standards, but also by your apparent
> lack of will to reply constructively to legitimate criticism.
> 
> This is the next in a series of incidents.  The incidents are okay
> --we
> we all make mistakes and that's how we learn--but we interpreted your
> responses all too often as dismissive and defensive, rather than
> understanding and forward-looking.  This has been causing unnecessary
> friction and stress, and is not how we envision peaceful
> collaboration.
> 
> I'm sorry to say your commit privileges have been temporarily
> suspended.  After one month, you are invited to get in touch with the
> maintainers collective and discuss next steps.
> 
> You have done terrific work in Guix in the short time you've been
> around: from the POWER9 port, to the many security fixes,
> to tracking and reporting issues, and suggesting improvements to the
> tools.  I hope you'll eventually rejoin to collaborate in the
> peaceful
> and empathetic fashion that this project encourages.
> 

Hello!

To make a statement about this on the public mailing list also, I think
such suspension is largely unfair and unjustified.

It seems I am expected to do peaceful collaboration with people who are
not writing messages in a non-violent manner, and I refuse to engage
further in that context. I do not want to answer Mark or anyone else
who does not write in a friendly way. If that means I cannot be a GNU
Guix contributor then I will not be any longer. It means for me that
GNU Guix is not a safe place for me to contribute to.

I think if anyone expects me to not answer in a dismissive or defensive
way then also they must think of the message they're writing if it is
encouraging a confrontational response or peaceful collaboration. I
don't feel like I have been hindering peaceful collaboration at any
time, since everything I've done in GNU Guix was collaborative work.
With many people in the GNU Guix community everything goes well and is
very peaceful, when there's problems it's with specific people who also
happen to write messages in a way that generates confrontation. I
cannot and I refuse to collaborate with people who are not being
friendly and do not care about the emotions of the humans they're
communicating with, it's the reason I come to GNU Guix in the first
place, but to me it appears it's not the right place for that either
now.

Léo

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Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Wed, 2021-04-28 at 12:43 -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> I'm sorry if this comes off as obtuse, but having now re-read all of
> my
> messages in this thread, I honestly do not see what I did wrong here.
> I will need some help to understand.
> 
> With very few exceptions, almost every sentence that I wrote was
> purely
> factual.  It seems to me that the facts speak for themselves, and
> those
> facts naturally cast Raghav and Léo in a bad light.  I don't see how
> to
> avoid that while still presenting the facts.
> 
> You, and a couple of others, have criticized my "tone".  This is very
> subjective, especially over email where we must *imagine* the tone of
> the speaker.  Is it possible that you read more in my messages than I
> actually wrote?
> 
> It would be very helpful if you could point out specific messages or
> quotes of mine to illustrate your criticisms, and to clearly explain
> what's wrong with them.  I'm not trying to be obstructionist here.  I
> honestly don't understand, and I cannot improve without
> understanding.
> 
>      Thanks,
>        Mark
> 

If you really do not understand, I encourage you read 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication and associated
works.

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Arun Isaac]

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Hi Guix,

I didn't want to get involved in this argument, but I feel I must
register a dissenting opinion.

> I'm sorry to say your commit privileges have been temporarily
> suspended.  After one month, you are invited to get in touch with the
> maintainers collective and discuss next steps.

I think this suspension goes too far and doesn't help de-escalate the
issue. I think Léo should be cut some slack since it was Mark who opened
poorly with public shaming. I can completely understand why Léo is
responding defensively.

Guix has been a very friendly welcoming community. Let's keep it that
way.

Regards,
Arun

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Leo Prikler]

Am Donnerstag, den 29.04.2021, 11:13 +0200 schrieb Léo Le Bouter:
> On Wed, 2021-04-28 at 17:52 +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
> > Léo,
> > 
> > We maintainers have been disappointed by Marks harsh tone which do
> > not
> > meet the project's communication standards, but also by your
> > apparent
> > lack of will to reply constructively to legitimate criticism.
> > 
> > This is the next in a series of incidents.  The incidents are okay
> > --we
> > we all make mistakes and that's how we learn--but we interpreted
> > your
> > responses all too often as dismissive and defensive, rather than
> > understanding and forward-looking.  This has been causing
> > unnecessary
> > friction and stress, and is not how we envision peaceful
> > collaboration.
> > 
> > I'm sorry to say your commit privileges have been temporarily
> > suspended.  After one month, you are invited to get in touch with
> > the
> > maintainers collective and discuss next steps.
> > 
> > You have done terrific work in Guix in the short time you've been
> > around: from the POWER9 port, to the many security fixes,
> > to tracking and reporting issues, and suggesting improvements to
> > the
> > tools.  I hope you'll eventually rejoin to collaborate in the
> > peaceful
> > and empathetic fashion that this project encourages.
> > 
> 
> Hello!
> 
> To make a statement about this on the public mailing list also, I
> think
> such suspension is largely unfair and unjustified.
I personally disagree.  While their tone may have been questionable, I
find it important that both committers and non-committers are able to
call changes into question, everything else would not be democratic. 
Ideally, that would happen during review, but this thread has clearly
indicated that the review process failed in this instance.  Perhaps
informing you privately first is more fair, but pointless assignments
of guilt aside it is an issue that we should all be aware of and learn
from, so as to not repeat it.

> It seems I am expected to do peaceful collaboration with people who
> are
> not writing messages in a non-violent manner, and I refuse to engage
> further in that context. I do not want to answer Mark or anyone else
> who does not write in a friendly way. If that means I cannot be a GNU
> Guix contributor then I will not be any longer. It means for me that
> GNU Guix is not a safe place for me to contribute to.
Even if unfriendly, we are not attacking you on any non-technical
grounds, but instead asking you to do self-criticism and to learn from
your mistake.  You can (and should) call the tone in which this is done
into question, but this does not absolve you from your duty to ensure
package quality standards.

> I think if anyone expects me to not answer in a dismissive or
> defensive
> way then also they must think of the message they're writing if it is
> encouraging a confrontational response or peaceful collaboration. I
> don't feel like I have been hindering peaceful collaboration at any
> time, since everything I've done in GNU Guix was collaborative work.
> With many people in the GNU Guix community everything goes well and
> is
> very peaceful, when there's problems it's with specific people who
> also
> happen to write messages in a way that generates confrontation. I
> cannot and I refuse to collaborate with people who are not being
> friendly and do not care about the emotions of the humans they're
> communicating with, it's the reason I come to GNU Guix in the first
> place, but to me it appears it's not the right place for that either
> now.
The criticisms pointed at you comes not just from Mark, but others as
well.  Others, who I would argue, potentially phrase them in a less
confrontational manner.  Leaving them unanswered just because Mark's
tone was inadequate is in my opinion not justified.

Regards,
Leo

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Léo Le Bouter]

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On Thu, 2021-04-29 at 13:46 +0200, Leo Prikler wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, den 29.04.2021, 11:13 +0200 schrieb Léo Le Bouter:
> > On Wed, 2021-04-28 at 17:52 +0200, Marius Bakke wrote:
> > > Léo,
> > > 
> > > We maintainers have been disappointed by Marks harsh tone which
> > > do
> > > not
> > > meet the project's communication standards, but also by your
> > > apparent
> > > lack of will to reply constructively to legitimate criticism.
> > > 
> > > This is the next in a series of incidents.  The incidents are
> > > okay
> > > --we
> > > we all make mistakes and that's how we learn--but we interpreted
> > > your
> > > responses all too often as dismissive and defensive, rather than
> > > understanding and forward-looking.  This has been causing
> > > unnecessary
> > > friction and stress, and is not how we envision peaceful
> > > collaboration.
> > > 
> > > I'm sorry to say your commit privileges have been temporarily
> > > suspended.  After one month, you are invited to get in touch with
> > > the
> > > maintainers collective and discuss next steps.
> > > 
> > > You have done terrific work in Guix in the short time you've been
> > > around: from the POWER9 port, to the many security fixes,
> > > to tracking and reporting issues, and suggesting improvements to
> > > the
> > > tools.  I hope you'll eventually rejoin to collaborate in the
> > > peaceful
> > > and empathetic fashion that this project encourages.
> > > 
> > 
> > Hello!
> > 
> > To make a statement about this on the public mailing list also, I
> > think
> > such suspension is largely unfair and unjustified.
> I personally disagree.  While their tone may have been questionable,
> I
> find it important that both committers and non-committers are able to
> call changes into question, everything else would not be democratic. 
> Ideally, that would happen during review, but this thread has clearly
> indicated that the review process failed in this instance.  Perhaps
> informing you privately first is more fair, but pointless assignments
> of guilt aside it is an issue that we should all be aware of and
> learn
> from, so as to not repeat it.
> 
> > It seems I am expected to do peaceful collaboration with people who
> > are
> > not writing messages in a non-violent manner, and I refuse to
> > engage
> > further in that context. I do not want to answer Mark or anyone
> > else
> > who does not write in a friendly way. If that means I cannot be a
> > GNU
> > Guix contributor then I will not be any longer. It means for me
> > that
> > GNU Guix is not a safe place for me to contribute to.
> Even if unfriendly, we are not attacking you on any non-technical
> grounds, but instead asking you to do self-criticism and to learn
> from
> your mistake.  You can (and should) call the tone in which this is
> done
> into question, but this does not absolve you from your duty to ensure
> package quality standards.
> 
> > I think if anyone expects me to not answer in a dismissive or
> > defensive
> > way then also they must think of the message they're writing if it
> > is
> > encouraging a confrontational response or peaceful collaboration. I
> > don't feel like I have been hindering peaceful collaboration at any
> > time, since everything I've done in GNU Guix was collaborative
> > work.
> > With many people in the GNU Guix community everything goes well and
> > is
> > very peaceful, when there's problems it's with specific people who
> > also
> > happen to write messages in a way that generates confrontation. I
> > cannot and I refuse to collaborate with people who are not being
> > friendly and do not care about the emotions of the humans they're
> > communicating with, it's the reason I come to GNU Guix in the first
> > place, but to me it appears it's not the right place for that
> > either
> > now.
> The criticisms pointed at you comes not just from Mark, but others as
> well.  Others, who I would argue, potentially phrase them in a less
> confrontational manner.  Leaving them unanswered just because Mark's
> tone was inadequate is in my opinion not justified.
> 
> Regards,
> Leo
> 

Hello Leo,

If the criticism is well phrased in the first place, then I have no
issue to address it and go on constructively. The very problem is that
it wasnt well phrased. The rest cannot work great. I am unable to
collaborate in these conditions, I don't think this can change, I am
not even willing to make such change, that is, to accept collaboration
with people who do not care about communicating in a caring way. I
think it is contradictory to GNU Guix spirit to expect me to do that,
and I cannot emotionally do so, even if I wanted to. I have had too
much suffering due to these situations before, I don't want this to
repeat here and now.

Léo

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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I agree with Arun.

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pjotr Prins]

Peeps, 

I am not a core maintainer, but it should be obvious that core
maintainers would not take a decision to revoke commit rights lightly.
Since it hardly happens is it now a loss of face on both sides which
it should not be.

Marius representing the core maintainers clearly wrote: This is the
next in a series of incidents. I.e., it is not only about Mark and his
communication. Please read carefully. This was not an ad hoc decision.

I think *everyone* will be happy to give Léo his rights back provided
he plays by the rules of the Guix project.

I think it is a good policy to revoke rights on any serious complaint
about quality of work.  

Also, no one really needs commit rights to contribute. That is what core
maintainers are for.

Pj.

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Matias Jose Seco Baccanelli]

Hello! 
In Guix i feel there's a precious source that's enriching my
experience: mutualism
There's a lot of building together, of helping each other out.
It's a refreshing opportunity to see how positive cooperation brings a
lot of good energy.

Have a Happy Thursday!
Matias

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Arun Isaac]

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Hi Guix,

>> I'm sorry to say your commit privileges have been temporarily
>> suspended.  After one month, you are invited to get in touch with the
>> maintainers collective and discuss next steps.
>
> I think this suspension goes too far and doesn't help de-escalate the
> issue. I think Léo should be cut some slack since it was Mark who opened
> poorly with public shaming. I can completely understand why Léo is
> responding defensively.

It looks like I made this statement based on this instance only and
without considering earlier instances. I normally don't read most mail
on guix-devel. It's too high volume for me. Sorry about that. Please
consider my statement withdrawn.

Thanks,
Arun

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Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[aviva]

On 4/28/21 12:43 PM, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> I'm sorry if this comes off as obtuse, but having now re-read all of my
> messages in this thread, I honestly do not see what I did wrong here.
> I will need some help to understand.



please save it

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[aviva]

On 4/24/21 4:09 AM, Mark H Weaver wrote:
>   Your recent responses in
> this thread have been commendable.



by who?

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Hi Pjotr,

I haven't really followed the issue, so I couldn't say whether the
decision taken by the core maintainers was right or not.

However, I find that your message is insightful in that it raises a few
questions on _how_ this decision was taken.

> I am not a core maintainer, but it should be obvious that core
> maintainers would not take a decision to revoke commit rights lightly.

I trust that it is the case, but being the devil's advocate, I could
argue that from reading this thread does not make it obvious.  Maybe the
decision process should be made more transparent?

Reading between the lines, I feel that some discussion happened behind
closed curtains between some maintainers.  Correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't know if this is ideal in such circumstances, but if it is, then
it is probably a good idea to mention it.

Another question one could ask: why just the core maintainers actually?
Shouldn't everyone be involved?  Maybe the right answer is "no" here,
and if so, I believe we should explain why in the community guidelines.
Lest the community present an image where a few would benefit from
arbitrary privileges.  It'd be nice to explicit these and the reason
behind the various roles found among the members of the community.

Last, maybe a more important question: if core maintainers are entrusted
to take executive decisions about the community members, what about
executive decisions about the core maintainers themselves?  Are there
such provisions?  Example: what if a core maintainers misbehaves?  Can
they see there privileges revoked?  How?  Is this documented?

> Marius representing the core maintainers clearly wrote: This is the
> next in a series of incidents.

Considering this is the main cause for the decision, I believe it's
important to detail it with references.  "a series of incidents" is too
vague and in isolation, it does not seem to justify the decision very
well.  It seems necessary to me to recap the whole series of points
that led to the decision.



So maybe there are some issues we could address with regard to the
structural organization of the Guix community, which could help making
it increasingly more welcoming, peaceful and strong.

Food for thoughts! :)

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pjotr Prins]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 07:40:36PM +0200, Pierre Neidhardt wrote:
> I trust that it is the case, but being the devil's advocate, I could
> argue that from reading this thread does not make it obvious.  Maybe the
> decision process should be made more transparent?

Let's not make this a big thing. I am not a core committer - don't
want to be one. What I know is that commit rights are given to people
who are expected to play by the rules of the project.

Is that hard to understand?

When someone does not play by the rules and is unapologetic - and it
happens multiple times - it is completely justified to take away those
rights.

Being a core committer is *not* a badge of honour. It does not give
special privileges beyond what is expected. It does not give you
money, a degree or a knighthood. It only allows you to push code
directly where it interferes with the work of others :)

Everyone will be *happy* to give the commit rights again, provided the
person plays by the rules.

Pj.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Arun Isaac]

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Hi everyone,

This decision aside, I share some of the general concerns raised by
Pierre about core maintainership and the behind closed doors decision
making process.

> Being a core committer is *not* a badge of honour. It does not give
> special privileges beyond what is expected. It does not give you
> money, a degree or a knighthood. It only allows you to push code
> directly where it interferes with the work of others :)

We may like to imagine that being a core maintainer is not a badge of
honor, but in reality, it *is* a badge of honor. A core maintainer is
not just a regular participant any more than the President is just a
public servant. If core maintainership is not to be associated with
power and honor, we should put in place processes to achieve that. In
that regard, Guix has done better than most other free software
projects. For example, we don't assign people as maintainers (or owners)
of specific packages or groups of packages like other distributions
have. Still, I'm sure there's more we can do.

Cheers!
Arun

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> writes:

> Being a core committer is *not* a badge of honour. It does not give
> special privileges beyond what is expected.

But this may not be true.  Quite a few people have expressed otherwise
over the years.

Maybe an issue is that much of the organizational structure of Guix is
implicit.  The roles are not well defined and as a result, they may
reach beyond what is commonly understood.

Some time ago, I was discussing the quetsion of implicit structure with
Ludo, who sent me this essay:

  https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

I found it enlightening and quite relevant to the matter at hand.

Even if in the end my concerns end up being unjustified, I find it good
practice to always question the status quo: maybe something better could
come out of it! :)

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Yasuaki Kudo]

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Hello!

I don't know the details of the case at all but let met mention this:
https://communityrule.info/
It comes from the world of worker cooperatives and I think them "rules of the community" is discussed a lot there as well 😄

Cheers,
Yasu

> On May 1, 2021, at 18:16, Pierre Neidhardt <mail@ambrevar.xyz> wrote:
> 
> Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> writes:
> 
>> Being a core committer is *not* a badge of honour. It does not give
>> special privileges beyond what is expected.
> 
> But this may not be true.  Quite a few people have expressed otherwise
> over the years.
> 
> Maybe an issue is that much of the organizational structure of Guix is
> implicit.  The roles are not well defined and as a result, they may
> reach beyond what is commonly understood.
> 
> Some time ago, I was discussing the quetsion of implicit structure with
> Ludo, who sent me this essay:
> 
>  https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
> 
> I found it enlightening and quite relevant to the matter at hand.
> 
> Even if in the end my concerns end up being unjustified, I find it good
> practice to always question the status quo: maybe something better could
> come out of it! :)
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> -- 
> Pierre Neidhardt
> https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pjotr Prins]

On Sat, May 01, 2021 at 12:53:43PM +0530, Arun Isaac wrote:
> We may like to imagine that being a core maintainer is not a badge of
> honor, but in reality, it *is* a badge of honor. A core maintainer is
> not just a regular participant any more than the President is just a
> public servant. If core maintainership is not to be associated with
> power and honor, we should put in place processes to achieve that. 

It is an interesting perspective. One problem I see with assuming a
badge of honor is that it will make it much harder to decide on giving
commit rights because it will have to be based on merit/selection and
make even harder to revoke them. Are you suggesting we elect
committers?

At this point, my personal assumption about the procedure and what I
have seen is that if someone is promising and active they get commit
rights - i.e., to make it easier on everyone who is maintaining Guix.
It is about flow of work and convenience. 

A core committer is arguably not even a core maintainer.

Nothing makes me think a core committer is comparable to an elected
president.

The Debian project is much larger than Guix and has unwieldy selection
criteria for people joining certain levels. Is that what we want? One
of the attractions of Guix to me is that it is a flat project and, as
far as I can tell, we have mostly avoided regular politics distracting
us from real work. We have channels so people can do what they want.
No reason to meddle with the core project if you are not so inclined.

I would vote to keep the Guix project structure as simple and flat as
possible without overheads. Nimble is the word. Want to build your own
cathedral? Start a channel. 

Pj.

PS: I am not a core committer and not a core maintainer. All opinions
are my own.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

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Hi Pierre,

Pierre Neidhardt <mail@ambrevar.xyz> writes:

> I haven't really followed the issue,

I have, very carefully ;-)

> so I couldn't say whether the decision taken by the core maintainers
> was right or not.

From my point of view it was /but/ this is *not* relevant: what's
relevant here is that /if/ we trust Guix maintainers (I do) when they
give commit access rights to people, whe /have/ to trust them when they
revoke those rights.  We /should/ disccus /if/ the rules and best
practices to have and maintain the commit acces are well documented:
please make proposals (patches wellcome :-) ) but please we have to keep
trusting Guix maintainers (that is a collective of very competent
people).

[...]

>> I am not a core maintainer, but it should be obvious that core
>> maintainers would not take a decision to revoke commit rights lightly.
>
> I trust that it is the case, but being the devil's advocate,

Please don't:
«Why the Devil's Advocate Doesn't Help Reach the Truth»
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/devils-advocate.html

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---

The devil achieves that by twisting my words: presenting a misleading
context in which my words appear to mean something other than what I
intended.

--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

;-)

[...]

> Another question one could ask: why just the core maintainers
> actually?  Shouldn't everyone be involved?  Maybe the right answer is
> "no" here, and if so, I believe we should explain why in the community
> guidelines.

Guix is a GNU project and AFAIU GNU project management is well
documented:

https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-structure.html

I don't know if Guix project needs specific «GNU Guix structure»
documentation but /if/ the answer is yes it should complement the
official GNU one, not replace it, IMHO.

BTW I see Guix contributors with commit access as "package maintanance
assistants" delegated by maintainers to make some technical decisions:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---

The maintainers of a package often recruit others to contribute to its
development, and delegate some technical decisions to them. However,
the maintainers retain authority over the whole of the package so they
can carry out their responsibility to the GNU Project.

--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Please we should always consider that GNU maintainers are the persons
that carry out the responsibility to the GNU project, not contributors
with commit access.

Maybe the contributing section of Guix manual should mention it and link
the relevant GNU project's documents: do you think it'd be useful?

> Lest the community present an image where a few would benefit from
> arbitrary privileges.

...or seen from /the other side of the moon/: a few carry out the
precious work to be /responsible/ to do a good, practical job of
developing and maintaining Guix according to the GNU project's mission
and general decision.  If you want call it /arbitrary privilege/ but I
have a different point of view :-D

The "community" (whatever this means) should acknowledge that
contributing also means to be responsible toward other users of free
software: this needs competence in the specific matter (also domain
specific), discipline (i.e. properly documenting changes in commit
messages) and commitment to a set of common shared rules (documented in
Guix and GNU project manual).

[...]

> Last, maybe a more important question: if core maintainers are
> entrusted to take executive decisions about the community members,
> what about executive decisions about the core maintainers themselves?

Maintainers are appointed by the GNU project.

> Are there such provisions?  Example: what if a core maintainers
> misbehaves?  Can they see there privileges revoked?  How?  Is this
> documented?

«GNU Software Evaluation»
https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html#whatmeans

Does this answer your question?

[...]

Happy hacking! Gio'

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Giovanni Biscuolo]

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Hello Mark and Ludovic,

please forgive me if I'm going forward with this thread but, after some
hesitation, I decided to write this message because I /feel/ we could do
better in dealing with issues like this one.

Please when you'll read "you" consider it a /generic you/ ("you the
reader") not Mark, Ludovic or any specific person;  please also consider
that "we" is a /plurali maiestatis/ :-D

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

[...]

>> 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.
>
> I'm sorry if this comes off as obtuse, but having now re-read all of my
> messages in this thread, I honestly do not see what I did wrong here.
> I will need some help to understand.

I also spent some time re-reading messages that Mark sent in this thread
and, like him, I really don't understand what Mark did wrong.

For sure Mark /insisted/ that Raghav and Léo did something wrong with
some commits, we can say Mark did it being /direct/ and /accusatory/ but
we cannot really say Mark assumed bad faith from them.

If you want you can consider Mark used an /harsh/ tone but this is a
personal feeling, something one /could/ read "between the lines" even if
actually in a written communication I find it hard to read between the
lines, it is not something factual.  Maybe Mark intended to be harsh,
maybe not: who knows?  Is /this/ (finding he was harsh) important?

As I said above, at most Mark communication should be considered
/direct/ and /accusatory/, I say this considering statements like this:

«Léo Le Bouter [...] bears primary responsibility for these mistakes.»

«I would very much like to hear an explanation from Léo about how this
happened.»

«Nonetheless, you (Raghav) also bear some responsibility»

«blatantly [1] misleading commit log [...] Most of the changes above are
not mentioned in the commit log at all, and of course the summary line
is extremely misleading.»

So: Mark gave responsibilities and complained "loudly" about misleading
commits, giving precise explanations of the reasons for how bad he
considered the situation, from his point of view (the point of view of a
person with competence /and/ previous commints in the domain he was
analyzing).  You can agree or disagree with him, but /now/ this is not
the point.

You can call it /accusation/, I call it /asking for responsibility/.

You can call it /harsh/, I call it /direct/.

Is it really important to find a proper definition for words used by
Mark?  Is it important to define if some word was proper or improper to
in this context?

In my opinion we should refrain questioning language here (I mean in
Guix mailing lists), especially questioning (perceived) "tone"; /unless/
containing accusations of bad faith or insults, we should be forgiving
/each other/ on how people choose how to use [2] language.

If we question language usage we risk to shame people for improper use
of language and this is bad in my opinion because we risk to isolate or
alienate people who - for whatever reason they choose - use direct (or
harsh, or accusatory) language to express controversial ideas or report
issues, never intending to offend really no one: please respect people
/also/ if you find they improperly use language.

[...]

> It would be very helpful if you could point out specific messages or
> quotes of mine to illustrate your criticisms, and to clearly explain
> what's wrong with them.  I'm not trying to be obstructionist here.  I
> honestly don't understand, and I cannot improve without understanding.

Also, if I overlooked, misinterpreted or missed something please tell me
so I can also improve.

Thanks! Giovanni.



[1] in a way that is very obvious and intentional, when this is a bad
thing (from Cambridge Dictionary).

[2] or misuse, in case of not native (or not so good) english speakers

-- 
Giovanni Biscuolo

Xelera IT Infrastructures

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Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Hello Giovanni,

I am not Mark or Ludo, but as a /generic other/, I'd still like to
reply.

Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 19:02 +0200 schrieb Giovanni Biscuolo:
> Hello Mark and Ludovic,
> 
> please forgive me if I'm going forward with this thread but, after
> some
> hesitation, I decided to write this message because I /feel/ we could
> do
> better in dealing with issues like this one.
> 
> Please when you'll read "you" consider it a /generic you/ ("you the
> reader") not Mark, Ludovic or any specific person;  please also
> consider
> that "we" is a /plurali maiestatis/ :-D
Nitpick, should be /pluralis/ :P

> I also spent some time re-reading messages that Mark sent in this
> thread
> and, like him, I really don't understand what Mark did wrong.
> 
> For sure Mark /insisted/ that Raghav and Léo did something wrong with
> some commits, we can say Mark did it being /direct/ and /accusatory/
> but
> we cannot really say Mark assumed bad faith from them.
He did wrong insofar as his accusatory message read as though he was
assuming bad faith (or at the very least incompetence, which, if you
are the party being accused, does not sound too nice either).

> If you want you can consider Mark used an /harsh/ tone but this is a
> personal feeling, something one /could/ read "between the lines" even
> if
> actually in a written communication I find it hard to read between
> the
> lines, it is not something factual.  Maybe Mark intended to be harsh,
> maybe not: who knows?  Is /this/ (finding he was harsh) important?
It is definitely of some importance.  You want your readers to
interpret your message in the same way you interpret them and "sounding
pointlessly harsh" is (I would assume) not the way anyone wants to be
read.  Of course, there is a complex interplay between reader and
writer at hand here, but only one variable for the writer to control.

In this case, what was read between the lines caused one of the
participants to assume a very defensive stance, and might also have
been uncomfortable for others, who were involved.  While I personally
disagree with tone policing (the act of dismissing criticism based
solely on issues of tone), I think trying to phrase things in a way
you're less likely to be misunderstood is in general a good idea.

> As I said above, at most Mark communication should be considered
> /direct/ and /accusatory/, I say this considering statements like
> this:
> 
> «Léo Le Bouter [...] bears primary responsibility for these
> mistakes.»
> 
> «I would very much like to hear an explanation from Léo about how
> this
> happened.»
> 
> «Nonetheless, you (Raghav) also bear some responsibility»
> 
> «blatantly [1] misleading commit log [...] Most of the changes above
> are
> not mentioned in the commit log at all, and of course the summary
> line
> is extremely misleading.»
Each of those phrases on their own might not look too bad, but
stringing them together like this constructs an image in which Mark is
just looking for someone to blame.  Of course, with full context, it's
slightly less severe, but you can't ignore the possibility, that your
conversation partner might choose to get riled up by those alone.

> So: Mark gave responsibilities and complained "loudly" about
> misleading
> commits, giving precise explanations of the reasons for how bad he
> considered the situation, from his point of view (the point of view
> of a
> person with competence /and/ previous commints in the domain he was
> analyzing).  You can agree or disagree with him, but /now/ this is
> not
> the point.
> 
> You can call it /accusation/, I call it /asking for responsibility/.
> 
> You can call it /harsh/, I call it /direct/.
> 
> Is it really important to find a proper definition for words used by
> Mark?  Is it important to define if some word was proper or improper
> to
> in this context?
> 
> In my opinion we should refrain questioning language here (I mean in
> Guix mailing lists), especially questioning (perceived) "tone";
> /unless/
> containing accusations of bad faith or insults, we should be
> forgiving
> /each other/ on how people choose how to use [2] language.
> 
> If we question language usage we risk to shame people for improper
> use
> of language and this is bad in my opinion because we risk to isolate
> or
> alienate people who - for whatever reason they choose - use direct
> (or
> harsh, or accusatory) language to express controversial ideas or
> report
> issues, never intending to offend really no one: please respect
> people
> /also/ if you find they improperly use language.
You make a somewhat decent point against tone policing and since I
agree on the position, I don't want to take away from your argument. 
However, I think it'd be better not to consider this as an issue of
people "choosing to be harsh" (which could well be avoided), but in
terms of inclusivity (not everyone is a native English speaker and we
come from different cultural backgrounds; we shouldn't discourage people from contributing just because they aren't part of a queer squat in Paris).
> [...]
> 
> Thanks! Giovanni.

I think this explains how I see it somewhat well, but remember, that
there are as many opinions on this matter as there were participants in
the discussion.  We might not all reach a consensus here.

Leo 

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

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

> Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 19:02 +0200 schrieb Giovanni Biscuolo:
>> I also spent some time re-reading messages that Mark sent in this
>> thread and, like him, I really don't understand what Mark did wrong.
>> 
>> For sure Mark /insisted/ that Raghav and Léo did something wrong with
>> some commits, we can say Mark did it being /direct/ and /accusatory/
>> but we cannot really say Mark assumed bad faith from them.
> He did wrong insofar as his accusatory message read as though he was
> assuming bad faith

Can you please point out which of my words led you to conclude that I
was assuming bad faith?

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.

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.

>> If you want you can consider Mark used an /harsh/ tone but this is a
>> personal feeling, something one /could/ read "between the lines" even
>> if actually in a written communication I find it hard to read between
>> the lines, it is not something factual.  Maybe Mark intended to be
>> harsh, maybe not: who knows?  Is /this/ (finding he was harsh)
>> important?
> It is definitely of some importance.

I agree that it's of some importance, but it's also a fundamentally hard
thing to do.  I'm genuinely surprised by some of the claims being made
about my messages, especially the claim that I assumed "bad faith".  I
didn't say anything to imply that, I didn't think it, and I still don't.

Thanks for discussing this, Leo.  I appreciate your feedback, even where
we disagree.

     Regards,
       Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> writes:

> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
>
>> Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 19:02 +0200 schrieb Giovanni Biscuolo:
>>> If you want you can consider Mark used an /harsh/ tone but this is a
>>> personal feeling, something one /could/ read "between the lines" even
>>> if actually in a written communication I find it hard to read between
>>> the lines, it is not something factual.  Maybe Mark intended to be
>>> harsh, maybe not: who knows?  Is /this/ (finding he was harsh)
>>> important?
>> It is definitely of some importance.
>
> I agree that it's of some importance, but it's also a fundamentally hard
> thing to do.

Sorry, what I meant to write above was "it's also fundamentally hard to
anticipate the 'tone' that others will attribute to my writing."

> I'm genuinely surprised by some of the claims being made
> about my messages, especially the claim that I assumed "bad faith".  I
> didn't say anything to imply that, I didn't think it, and I still don't.
>
> Thanks for discussing this, Leo.  I appreciate your feedback, even where
> we disagree.

      Regards,
        Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Hi Mark,

Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 18:12 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> Hi Leo,
> 
> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
> 
> > Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 19:02 +0200 schrieb Giovanni Biscuolo:
> > > I also spent some time re-reading messages that Mark sent in this
> > > thread and, like him, I really don't understand what Mark did
> > > wrong.
> > > 
> > > For sure Mark /insisted/ that Raghav and Léo did something wrong
> > > with
> > > some commits, we can say Mark did it being /direct/ and
> > > /accusatory/
> > > but we cannot really say Mark assumed bad faith from them.
> > He did wrong insofar as his accusatory message read as though he
> > was
> > assuming bad faith
> 
> 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.
Again, I might just be reading Ludo's message wrong here (and if not,
Ludo might have read Ricardo wrong at the time; the original message
seems to be directed towards Léo for insinuating you assumed bad faith
when you weren't).  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.

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

> 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.

> > > If you want you can consider Mark used an /harsh/ tone but this
> > > is a
> > > personal feeling, something one /could/ read "between the lines"
> > > even
> > > if actually in a written communication I find it hard to read
> > > between
> > > the lines, it is not something factual.  Maybe Mark intended to
> > > be
> > > harsh, maybe not: who knows?  Is /this/ (finding he was harsh)
> > > important?
> > It is definitely of some importance.
> 
> I agree that it's of some importance, but it's also a fundamentally
> hard
> thing to do.  I'm genuinely surprised by some of the claims being
> made
> about my messages, especially the claim that I assumed "bad
> faith".  I
> didn't say anything to imply that, I didn't think it, and I still
> don't.
I agree, it is hard, and it is also not immediately obvious what
effects a given statement might have.  We can only ever evaluate such
things a posteriori and try to learn from them.

> Sorry, what I meant to write above was "it's also fundamentally hard
> to
> anticipate the 'tone' that others will attribute to my writing."
Don't worry, that's more or less the way I read it.  In case you
wonder, the way I read it "reading between lines" is hard, which
certainly also holds, especially outside one's first language.

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.

Regards,
Leo

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

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>.

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[宋文武]

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

> Hi Mark,
>
> Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 18:12 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>> Hi Leo,
>> 
>> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
>> 
>> > Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 19:02 +0200 schrieb Giovanni Biscuolo:
>> > > I also spent some time re-reading messages that Mark sent in this
>> > > thread and, like him, I really don't understand what Mark did
>> > > wrong.
>> > > 
>> > > For sure Mark /insisted/ that Raghav and Léo did something wrong
>> > > with
>> > > some commits, we can say Mark did it being /direct/ and
>> > > /accusatory/
>> > > but we cannot really say Mark assumed bad faith from them.
>> > He did wrong insofar as his accusatory message read as though he
>> > was
>> > assuming bad faith

Hello Leo, I see nothing wrong for assuming bad faith when security
fixes of packages are removed, in the end the truth matter, which I
believe is: You thought the patches for cario is not needed now on
core-updates, so you remove them.


> [...]
> Well, you did fumble on those facts a little, because the true history
> of the misleading commits was only discovered later.  So did I in the
> same thread.  Either way, "just pointing out facts" is not an accurate
> assessment in my opinion; facts are nothing without interpretation,
> which see.

Yes, you have to take actions based on interpretation to get more clues
from existed facts to reach the truth.

> [...]
> 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.

Sure, I think we just lack some trust.  With the trust, you'll know that
Mark only want to confirm the truth with you and avoid this kind of
issues in the future.

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Famulari]

On Sun, May 02, 2021 at 12:17:59PM +0800, 宋文武 wrote:
> Hello Leo, I see nothing wrong for assuming bad faith when security
> fixes of packages are removed, in the end the truth matter, which I
> believe is: You thought the patches for cario is not needed now on
> core-updates, so you remove them.
> 
> 
> > [...]
> > Well, you did fumble on those facts a little, because the true history
> > of the misleading commits was only discovered later.  So did I in the
> > same thread.  Either way, "just pointing out facts" is not an accurate
> > assessment in my opinion; facts are nothing without interpretation,
> > which see.
> 
> Yes, you have to take actions based on interpretation to get more clues
> from existed facts to reach the truth.
> 
> > [...]
> > 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.
> 
> Sure, I think we just lack some trust.  With the trust, you'll know that
> Mark only want to confirm the truth with you and avoid this kind of
> issues in the future.

To clarify, Leo Prikler is not the same person that was involved in
removing the Cairo bug fixes. That was a different person, also named
Leo.

Not me, either :)

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[宋文武]

宋文武 <iyzsong@outlook.com> writes:

> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
>
>> Hi Mark,
>>
>> Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 18:12 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>>> Hi Leo,
>>> 
>>> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
>>> 
>>> > Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 19:02 +0200 schrieb Giovanni Biscuolo:
>>> > > I also spent some time re-reading messages that Mark sent in this
>>> > > thread and, like him, I really don't understand what Mark did
>>> > > wrong.
>>> > > 
>>> > > For sure Mark /insisted/ that Raghav and Léo did something wrong
>>> > > with
>>> > > some commits, we can say Mark did it being /direct/ and
>>> > > /accusatory/
>>> > > but we cannot really say Mark assumed bad faith from them.
>>> > He did wrong insofar as his accusatory message read as though he
>>> > was
>>> > assuming bad faith
>
> Hello Leo, I see nothing wrong for assuming bad faith when security
> fixes of packages are removed, in the end the truth matter, which I
> believe is: You thought the patches for cario is not needed now on
> core-updates, so you remove them.

Sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, what I mean is "for assuming
bad intent", or more clearly: "for assuming that you remove thoese
security patches to introduce backdoors on purpose".  I don't think Mark
try to prove you're lying from his messages, if that's what "assumed bad
faith" means...

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[宋文武]

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> [...]
> To clarify, Leo Prikler is not the same person that was involved in
> removing the Cairo bug fixes. That was a different person, also named
> Leo.
>
> Not me, either :)

Um, my bad, thank you!

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 23:13 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> Hi Leo,
> 
> I took the liberty of refilling the quotations in your email to make
> them more readable.
Please do.
> 
> 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?
I am not arguing, that you were assuming bad faith, I'm making the much
weaker argument, that people were led to believe you were.  For me, the
root cause of understanding it this was were Léo's defensive attitudes
coupled with Ludo's statement.  I personally don't think you were
assuming bad faith, especially after your clarification, but I can see
how people might construct that view.  Refer to my response to Giovanni
to see how cherry-picking your messages might result in that.

When asking more generally, however, I'm afraid I can't give you a
definitive answer on this one.  Only Léo can tell why they assumed bad
faith on your part, but looking at the situation, they are emotionally
not able to do so or at the very least not willing.  The best advice I
can give you is to listen to them when they do respond, but also listen
to others when they point out concrete issues with your wording.  For
instance, someone made the case that "Behold" sounded rather sarcastic,
and while I've personally watched enough anime to consider it a
completely normal word, they might have a point.

> > 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.
I don't think I can agree with that.  I think it's good practice to
preempt misunderstandings and to clarify your intent when they happen. 
From what I recall, you did do that, but in that clarification lied
other problems.

For instance:
"It seems to me that the facts speak for themselves, and those
facts naturally cast Raghav and Léo in a bad light."
This phrase only serves to further cast Raghav and Léo in a bad light
and should thus be avoided.  A better way of phrasing this paragraph
(assuming you were focused on the mistake, not who made it):
"With very few exceptions, almost every sentence that I wrote was
purely factual.  I was not aiming to cast Raghav or Léo in a bad light,
commits like these are dangerous regardless of who authors or signs
them.  It is important for us all to learn from this mistake and to not
repeat it."
The above, though not perfect (and I'd be happy for someone to point
out flaws in them), would have taken some emotional weight off of
Raghav and Léo and in my opinion made it easier to respond to the facts
alone, the fact being that a poorly reviewed commit made it onto an
important branch.

> > > 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?
In your very first message you made it seems as though Raghav single-
handedly authored and pushed the changes in question and called into
question their reliability as a committer.  The former was based on
"facts", that turned out half-true – Raghav did push that commit, but
they did so thinking that Léo did proper review, which they did not –
and the latter was not a factual statement, but instead a "call for
action" if you will or at least a point to start discussion.

> > 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?
"Raghav pushed a misleading commit."  This is fact.
"This commit casts Raghav in a bad light".  This is interpretation.
I think it is important to distinguish statements of fact from
statements of interpretation, but again, facts don't tell you how to
interpret them.  Your brain does that for you based on whatever bias
you might or might not have.

> > > 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 the speakers encouraged or silently condoned looting, that would be
their moral responsibility.  I personally hold, that human lives matter
more than items, so in my view the looting that the speaker may have
caused is far outweighed by the lesser suffering of black people.  If
someone holds the opposite view, I encourage them to rather give their
life when we start collectivizing toothbrushes.  It will make things
easier.

> 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.
Note, that I am making a moral case here, not a legal one.  Also,
morally speaking, the opposition would be responsible not just for the
damage they would cause, but also for the suffering of black people.

To argue this in front of a court of law is harder, in particular as it
requires solid evidence (or in the case that you are the opposition of
a protest, planting thereof).  For instance, I can state, that right-
wing pundits encourage what has become collectively known as stochastic
terrorism, but it would be difficult for me to prove that beyond
reasonable doubt in front of a judge.

> 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.
You should absolutely point out bad commits, but please do so in a
manner that doesn't cause excessive attention towards author or
committer.  It may have been necessary to state both at the start of
the thread for context, but it should absolutely not have been
necessary to continue doing so as the thread continues.

In the end, I don't know what level of attention was or would have been
appropriate here, but in my personal opinion lighting a focus on who
committed those changes rather than the changes themselves, is a little
distracting.

Regards,
Leo

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Am Sonntag, den 02.05.2021, 12:17 +0800 schrieb 宋文武:
> Hello Leo, I see nothing wrong for assuming bad faith when security
> fixes of packages are removed, in the end the truth matter, which I
> believe is: You thought the patches for cario is not needed now on
> core-updates, so you remove them.

> what I mean is "for assuming bad intent", or more clearly: "for
> assuming that you remove thoese security patches to introduce
> backdoors on purpose".  I don't think Mark try to prove you're lying
> from his messages, if that's what "assumed bad faith" means...

Now, lfam has already pointed out, that I'm not Léo, but I don't think
whether I am or am not matters much in this context.  Let us assume for
the sake of argument I were to introduce a bug into Guix.  There are a
number of ways this can happen, but let's focus on the important
distinction here, which is me purposefully introducing that bug vs. it
happening due to oversight.

Let us imagine the following four scenarios:
1. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I indeed am.
2. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I am not.
3. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am not.
4. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am.

In scenarios 1 and 4, your judgement is completely correct and we need
not further discuss it.  But what about 2 and 3?  
First, let's believe myself to be acting in bad faith while I am not. 
You will attack me for introducing a bug into Guix and (because you've
already determined I'm acting in bad faith) strip me from commit
rights.  This can either be the end of the story or the start of a long
rant started by me on how unfairly I was treated by Guix.  Bad optics.
Now let's say you assume I'm acting in good faith while I am not.  You
might want to (politely) ask me to come up with an explanation as to
why I introduced this bug.  I might respond or not.  Depending on my
response, you might even be fooled into believing I acted in good faith
until I conveniently introduce another bug.  At some point, you will
probably have to conclude, that I'm not.  In this scenario, I am kept
around longer than necessary and my repeated introduction of bugs
produces headaches to everyone, particularly when I circumvent the
review process.

To be honest, the way I presented 3, it looks very grim, but
realistically speaking, I don't think all of the maintainers will be
fooled for very long.  With regards to the recent issue, we have a
clear account from Raghav as to what happened as well as their
statement, that they have since learned to be less misleading in their
commit messages.  I often collaborate with Raghav or review their
patches and when doing so I can feel clear commitment from their side,
but also a sense of eagerness, that at times I feel uneasy about. 
Rather than worrying, that they might intentionally do bad, I fear they
might do bad out of haste and I'm still in the process of learning how
to best communicate that to them.  They are awfully fast at churning
out patch sets and at times I find myself outpaced, especially
recently, when Guix has not been the only project I'm working on. 
Writing long essays by email also takes precious time away from patch
review, working on my own contributions or leisure.  In short, I'm
slowly starting to feel a little too stressed.

But enough about my complaints.  Long story short, I think we ought to
assume good faith when engaging in criticism, so as to not discourage
people, who otherwise do good work.

Regards,
Leo

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

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

> Let us assume for
> the sake of argument I were to introduce a bug into Guix.  There are a
> number of ways this can happen, but let's focus on the important
> distinction here, which is me purposefully introducing that bug vs. it
> happening due to oversight.
>
> Let us imagine the following four scenarios:
> 1. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I indeed am.
> 2. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I am not.
> 3. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am not.
> 4. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am.

This is a false dilemma <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>,
because you've missed a very important case, namely:

5. You assume *nothing*.

This is, in fact, the current scenario.  I'm not making any assumptions.
That is truly the state of my mind on this question, and I think it's
the only rational position to take.

In particular, I don't feel the need to introduce assumptions in order
to justify my question in the opening email of this thread, namely
whether someone who pushed a "cosmetic changes" commit that removes
security fixes should have commit access.

That question does _not_ imply that anyone acted in bad faith.  From my
perspective, it doesn't matter for our purposes.  (Of course, it would
be good to know, but I'd rather not be distracted by questions that we
have little hope of ever answering.)

My primary concern here is to protect our users, and the integrity of
our systems and of Guix itself.  I don't know how to do that if we
tolerate committers who repeatedly push commits with misleading commit
messages.

In order for meaningful oversight of Guix to be practical, it is of
*paramount* importance that the summary lines of commits be reasonably
accurate.  I have neither the time nor the interest in scrutinizing
_every_ commit pushed to our repository, just in case the summary lines
are misleading.  Therefore, I claim that we *must not* tolerate
committers who repeatedly push commits with misleading commit logs.

We are lucky that this incident was discovered.  There's no guarantee
that the next one will be.

This is _not_ about being a beginner.  No technical expertise should
have been required to avoid this incident, only some basic care before
pushing commits.  Even the most cursory glance at the commit log should
have immediately raised red flags, because its summary line clearly
contradicts the next few lines of the commit log itself:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.

* gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove patches.
* gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
* gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
[replacement]: Remove.
(cairo/fixed): Remove.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I don't know what went wrong here, but it doesn't really matter to me.
Whatever the reason, I don't want someone who pushes commits like this
to have commit access.  If people want to condemn me for saying that,
so be it.

     Regards,
       Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Hi Mark,

Am Sonntag, den 02.05.2021, 15:29 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> Hi Leo,
> 
> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
> 
> > Let us assume for
> > the sake of argument I were to introduce a bug into Guix.  There
> > are a
> > number of ways this can happen, but let's focus on the important
> > distinction here, which is me purposefully introducing that bug vs.
> > it
> > happening due to oversight.
> > 
> > Let us imagine the following four scenarios:
> > 1. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I indeed am.
> > 2. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I am not.
> > 3. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am not.
> > 4. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am.
> 
> This is a false dilemma <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>
> ;,
> because you've missed a very important case, namely:
> 
> 5. You assume *nothing*.
I think you're nitpicking here.  If "good faith vs. bad faith" is not a
boolean value, I could also be acting without one or the other, but
clearly I either have evil intentions or I don't – there's no middle
ground.  Likewise, there's no middle ground on assuming evil
intentions, you either assume they exist or you don't.  Of course, we
could get into technicalities of how evil you assume my intentions to
be, but that's not going to help us here.

> This is, in fact, the current scenario.  I'm not making any
> assumptions.
> That is truly the state of my mind on this question, and I think it's
> the only rational position to take.
Which one is the rational position now?  Not assuming evil intentions
or assuming them?

> In particular, I don't feel the need to introduce assumptions in
> order to justify my question in the opening email of this thread,
> namely whether someone who pushed a "cosmetic changes" commit that
> removes security fixes should have commit access.
> 
> That question does _not_ imply that anyone acted in bad faith.  From
> my perspective, it doesn't matter for our purposes.  (Of course, it
> would be good to know, but I'd rather not be distracted by questions
> that we have little hope of ever answering.)
IIRC I already answered that question as one of the first things in
this thread (before it got renamed), so I don't want to repeat myself
at lengths here.

> My primary concern here is to protect our users, and the integrity of
> our systems and of Guix itself.  I don't know how to do that if we
> tolerate committers who repeatedly push commits with misleading
> commit messages.
> 
> In order for meaningful oversight of Guix to be practical, it is of
> *paramount* importance that the summary lines of commits be
> reasonably accurate.  I have neither the time nor the interest in
> scrutinizing _every_ commit pushed to our repository, just in case
> the summary lines are misleading.  Therefore, I claim that we *must
> not* tolerate committers who repeatedly push commits with misleading
> commit logs.
> 
> We are lucky that this incident was discovered.  There's no guarantee
> that the next one will be.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but if it's something
along the lines of "Raghav must not be trusted", I disagree.  They
themselves have stated, that they have since learned from their past
mistakes and the only reason this commit was even introduced at this
point was because one of their older commits did not receive careful
review.

> This is _not_ about being a beginner.  No technical expertise should
> have been required to avoid this incident, only some basic care
> before pushing commits.  Even the most cursory glance at the commit
> log should have immediately raised red flags, because its summary
> line clearly contradicts the next few lines of the commit log itself:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> gnu: cairo: Make some cosmetic changes.
> 
> * gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2018-19876.patch,
> gnu/packages/patches/cairo-CVE-2020-35492.patch: Remove patches.
> * gnu/local.mk (dist_patch_DATA): Unregister them.
> * gnu/packages/gtk.scm (cairo): Make some cosmetic changes.
> [replacement]: Remove.
> (cairo/fixed): Remove.
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> I don't know what went wrong here, but it doesn't really matter to
> me.  Whatever the reason, I don't want someone who pushes commits
> like this to have commit access.  If people want to condemn me for
> saying that, so be it.
I don't know why your rehashing this at this point, we went over this
already.  Please refer to Raghav's messages at the time, they were
helpful in clearing up the matter.

Regards,
Leo

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Ludovic Courtès]

Leo, Mark,

Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> skribis:

> This is a false dilemma <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>,
> because you've missed a very important case, namely:
>
> 5. You assume *nothing*.

I’m sorry to inform you that this is not a philosophy or linguistics
mailing list.

I invite you to continue this discussion off-list.  We have a release
coming up that needs everyone’s focus and attention.  :-)

Thanks in advance!

Ludo’.

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

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

> Am Sonntag, den 02.05.2021, 15:29 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>> 
>> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
>> 
>> > Let us assume for the sake of argument I were to introduce a bug
>> > into Guix.  There are a number of ways this can happen, but let's
>> > focus on the important distinction here, which is me purposefully
>> > introducing that bug vs.  it happening due to oversight.
>> > 
>> > Let us imagine the following four scenarios:
>> > 1. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I indeed am.
>> > 2. You assume I'm acting in bad faith and I am not.
>> > 3. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am not.
>> > 4. You assume I'm acting in good faith and I am.
>> 
>> This is a false dilemma <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma>,
>> because you've missed a very important case, namely:
>> 
>> 5. You assume *nothing*.

> I think you're nitpicking here.

I don't think so.

> clearly I either have evil intentions or I don't – there's no middle
> ground.

Yes, I agree with this.

> Likewise, there's no middle ground on assuming evil
> intentions, you either assume they exist or you don't.

That's true also, but this is a different dichotomy than the one you
presented above.  In the sentence above, the dichotomy is between:

  (1) You assume bad faith
  (2) You do not assume bad faith

In your list of scenarios above, there's a (false) dichotomy between:

  (1) You assume bad faith
  (2) You assume good faith

It's a false dichotomy because neither of these is the logical negation
of the other.  They cannot both be true, but they _can_ both be false.

In other words, I think that you have conflated "not assuming bad faith"
with "assuming good faith".  Do you see the difference?

This is not mere nitpicking.  It's a very important distinction.
It's analogous to being forced to choose between "faith in god" and
"atheism", without allowing for the possibility of "agnosticism".

Does that make sense?

>> This is, in fact, the current scenario.  I'm not making any
>> assumptions.
>> That is truly the state of my mind on this question, and I think it's
>> the only rational position to take.
> Which one is the rational position now?  Not assuming evil intentions
> or assuming them?

I think the only rational position to take here is to not make
assumptions.

     Regards,
       Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Ludovic,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
> I’m sorry to inform you that this is not a philosophy or linguistics
> mailing list.

*lol*  Indeed, this conversation has wandered quite far off-topic.
Thanks for stepping in.

> I invite you to continue this discussion off-list.  We have a release
> coming up that needs everyone’s focus and attention.  :-)

Sounds good to me.  Let's get back to work :)

     Regards,
       Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Hi Mark,

Am Sonntag, den 02.05.2021, 17:02 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> Hi Leo,
> 
> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
> 
> > Am Sonntag, den 02.05.2021, 15:29 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> > 
> > Likewise, there's no middle ground on assuming evil
> > intentions, you either assume they exist or you don't.
> 
> That's true also, but this is a different dichotomy than the one you
> presented above.  In the sentence above, the dichotomy is between:
> 
>   (1) You assume bad faith
>   (2) You do not assume bad faith
> 
> In your list of scenarios above, there's a (false) dichotomy between:
> 
>   (1) You assume bad faith
>   (2) You assume good faith
> 
> It's a false dichotomy because neither of these is the logical
> negation of the other.  They cannot both be true, but they _can_ both
> be false.
> 
> In other words, I think that you have conflated "not assuming bad
> faith" with "assuming good faith".  Do you see the difference?
> 
> This is not mere nitpicking.  It's a very important distinction.
> It's analogous to being forced to choose between "faith in god" and
> "atheism", without allowing for the possibility of "agnosticism".
> 
> Does that make sense?
When it comes to interactions, "good faith" is defined as being "fair,
open and honest".  Negate any of these, and you arrive at some form of
bad faith.  I think more commonly "bad faith" means that the honesty is
negated, while openness is contrasted with lack of transparency and
fairness with unfairness.

You could say "Well, technically, I don't know whether they're being
honest", and that is correct, but it is also a form of casting doubt,
which I would argue constitutes an assumption of bad faith.  Of course,
"you're not sure about it", but the other party is still guilty until
proven innocent.

I'm not sure what definitions of "good" and "bad" faith you're using,
but please consider that I meant "acting in bad faith" to be the same
as "not acting in good faith".

> > > This is, in fact, the current scenario.  I'm not making any
> > > assumptions.  That is truly the state of my mind on this
> > > question, and I think it's the only rational position to take.
> > Which one is the rational position now?  Not assuming evil
> > intentions or assuming them?
> 
> I think the only rational position to take here is to not make
> assumptions.
You're always making an assumption, however.  Even if it's not one
governed by the situation at hand, you have a natural bias to trust or
distrust others in their words.  Claiming you don't is misleading
yourself and others.

Regards,
Leo

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Hi!

Yasuaki Kudo <yasu@yasuaki.com> writes:

> I don't know the details of the case at all but let met mention this:
> https://communityrule.info/
> It comes from the world of worker cooperatives and I think them "rules of the community" is discussed a lot there as well 😄

Thanks for sharing, I didn't know about this!
I think it's a great starting point.  I like these ones in particular:

    https://communityrule.info/create/?r=consensus
    https://communityrule.info/create/?r=jury

communityrule.info helps identifying different types of governance, with
different strategies to various decision problems.

Let's note this down and bring it back up in a thread that's more
focused on the governance question of Guix.

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Hi Giovanni,

> Guix is a GNU project and AFAIU GNU project management is well
> documented:
>
> https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-structure.html

This applies to GNU at the top level, but it does not specify how
sub-projects (referred to as "packages" in the aforementioned document)
are governed locally.  This question is mostly left unanswered as I
understand it.

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

I think we're mostly going in circles at this point, so I think we
should finish up this conversation, as Ludovic suggested.  I'll let you
have the last word on most of our conversation threads, but I feel
compelled to briefly counter one claim of yours:

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

> Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 23:13 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>> 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?
>
> In your very first message you made it seems as though Raghav single-
> handedly authored and pushed the changes in question and called into
> question their reliability as a committer.  The former was based on
> "facts", that turned out half-true – Raghav did push that commit, but
> they did so thinking that Léo did proper review, which they did not –

Here, once again, you've failed to point out any of my *actual* words to
back up your (bogus) claim that I "fumbled on the facts".  Instead, you
speak of how I "made it seem".  You put more words into my mouth.

That's not nice.  Please stop it.

     Thanks,
       Mark

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

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Leo Prikler]

Hi Mark,

Am Montag, den 03.05.2021, 05:00 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
> 
> > Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 23:13 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
> > > 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?
> > 
> > In your very first message you made it seems as though Raghav
> > single-
> > handedly authored and pushed the changes in question and called
> > into
> > question their reliability as a committer.  The former was based on
> > "facts", that turned out half-true – Raghav did push that commit,
> > but
> > they did so thinking that Léo did proper review, which they did not
> > –
> 
> Here, once again, you've failed to point out any of my *actual* words
> to back up your (bogus) claim that I "fumbled on the
> facts".  Instead, you speak of how I "made it seem".  You put more
> words into my mouth.
If you want to read your actual words, they were
> Behold, Raghav's "cosmetic changes" to our 'cairo' package
Again, those were not Raghav's changes, they were added by Léo and
"once again" pushed by Raghav, who trusted them on the matter.  You
made an incorrect assumption based on incomplete information.  I call
that fumbling.  It was an honest mistake based on the facts you thought
present at the time, but nonetheless a mistake.

Please don't assume I'm acting in bad faith and throw around words like
bogus lightly.  I don't think I'm making any extraordinary claim here,
my statements should follow from the words themselves or the
interpretations of a casual observer.  I am not aiming to grossly
misrepresent you here, I'm trying to help you find an answer to the
question 
> Is it possible that you read more in my messages than I
> actually wrote?
The answer is "Yes, always".  People don't just derive raw information
from messages, there's all sorts of other cues – including social cues
– that swing with them.  Even in newspaper articles or scientific
literature, there is such a thing as framing.  You absolutely have to
consider many forms of subtext both when reading and when writing.

I hope this clears up any remaining misconceptions.  If not and you're
fine having me as conversation partner, I'm still willing to answer
(some) questions off-list.  Again, I am not attacking you for calling
attention to an objectively bad commit, I think it was right of you to
do so.  All of what I'm saying here should at worst be seen as
"criticism of your tone".

Regards,
Leo

Re: Criticisms of my "tone" (was Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes)

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Leo,

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

> Am Montag, den 03.05.2021, 05:00 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>> Leo Prikler <leo.prikler@student.tugraz.at> writes:
>> 
>> > Am Samstag, den 01.05.2021, 23:13 -0400 schrieb Mark H Weaver:
>> > > 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?
>> > 
>> > In your very first message you made it seems as though Raghav
>> > single-handedly authored and pushed the changes in question and
>> > called into question their reliability as a committer.  The former
>> > was based on "facts", that turned out half-true – Raghav did push
>> > that commit, but they did so thinking that Léo did proper review,
>> > which they did not –
>> 
>> Here, once again, you've failed to point out any of my *actual* words
>> to back up your (bogus) claim that I "fumbled on the
>> facts".  Instead, you speak of how I "made it seem".  You put more
>> words into my mouth.

> If you want to read your actual words, they were

>> Behold, Raghav's "cosmetic changes" to our 'cairo' package

I don't know how the genitive case is used in German, but in English, it
can mean a great many things, from possession (Mark's bicycle) to mere
association (Mark's community of friends) and many other things.  It
certainly does *not* imply single-handed authorship as you suggest
above.

I'll grant that you are correct in your speculation that at the time I
wrote the words above, in my *mind* I more-or-less assumed that Raghav
had authored the commit.  After all, Raghav digitally signed and pushed
the commit, whose metadata indicated that he was the sole author.

However, I never *wrote* anything that implied he was the sole author.
Therefore, I still maintain that in my actual communications, I didn't
"fumble on the facts" *at all*.

I'm going to _try_ to refrain from responding again, because in order
for this exchange to be finite, *one* of us must eventually let the
other one have the final word.

       Regards,
         Mark

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

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Bengt Richter]

Hi Pierre,

On +2021-05-03 09:25:21 +0200, Pierre Neidhardt wrote:
> Hi Giovanni,
> 
> > Guix is a GNU project and AFAIU GNU project management is well
> > documented:
> >
> > https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-structure.html
> 
> This applies to GNU at the top level, but it does not specify how
> sub-projects (referred to as "packages" in the aforementioned document)
> are governed locally.  This question is mostly left unanswered as I
> understand it.
>

You may find some clues here:
    https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html#whatmeans
And links to more :)

> Cheers!
> 
> -- 
> Pierre Neidhardt
> https://ambrevar.xyz/

-- 
Regards,
Bengt Richter

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Hi Bengt,

>> This applies to GNU at the top level, but it does not specify how
>> sub-projects (referred to as "packages" in the aforementioned document)
>> are governed locally.  This question is mostly left unanswered as I
>> understand it.
>>
>
> You may find some clues here:
>     https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html#whatmeans
> And links to more :)

Thanks for sharing.  I've read it and it does not seem to be concerned
with the question of governance.

At the bottom, I found this long manual which may offer more discussion:

  https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/

But one has to dissect it first :)

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Pierre Neidhardt <mail@ambrevar.xyz> skribis:

> Thanks for sharing.  I've read it and it does not seem to be concerned
> with the question of governance.

For the record, you can read about Guix roles and responsibilities at:

  https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2019/gnu-guix-maintainer-collective-expands/

The “Contributing” section of the manual discusses specific policies:

  https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Contributing.html

Evidently, some aspects have yet to be formalized.

HTH,
Ludo’.

Re: A "cosmetic changes" commit that removes security fixes

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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Hi Ludo,

Thanks for the links, it's a good starting point.

> For the record, you can read about Guix roles and responsibilities at:
>
>   https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2019/gnu-guix-maintainer-collective-expands/

I think a good next step would be to store this information at a more
accessible location on https://guix.gnu.org.  A visitor looking for this
kind of information may not think to browse the blog entries.  It's
also not convenient, since it gets buried deeper and deeper as articles
get published.

> The “Contributing” section of the manual discusses specific policies:
>
>   https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Contributing.html

This page mentions the code of conduct, which gives some guidelines on
communication, but as I understand it, it does not say anything about
structure or governance.

The code of conduct itself could be expanded.  For a start, we could
address some characteristic communication issues that have occurred on
the mailing list over time.  For example, we could add a section on
"Accountability != blame", to paraphrase Jelle.
Another section (a very important one in my opinion) could be about
giving the benefit of the doubt and _ask why_ before policing someone.

Food for thoughts!

Cheers!

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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