Re: Deity project schedule problems

[kaih@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen)]

dwarf@polaris.net (Dale Scheetz)  wrote on 22.09.97 in <Pine.LNX.3.96.970922165458.9150H-100000@dwarf.polaris.net>:

> Sorry to be late to the party ;-)

Sorry that there even is such a party. Still ...

> First: I agree with Vincent and Manoj that it was my understanding that
> the Diety group was composed completely of Debian developers and was, like
> the QA and Testing groups, a part of the Debian project.

<aol> Me too! </aol>

This is surely reflected in all those discussions where people said "don't  
bother with dpkg/dselect, we'll have deity".

I don't know, and don't care, who is to blame for this state of affairs. I  
only hope we can salvage something constructive from it. But tere doesn't  
seem to be much hope :-(

> Second: I disagree with Bruce, that the Diety group was (or even could be)
> being held to a schedule. It has always been my feeling that the reason
> dselect never got fixed was that the "fix" would take longer than one
> release cycle and thus never got done. By seperating the problem away from
> dselect and providing the "space" the problem was made managable. Putting

Well, supposed to be managable. I do agree that undiscussed deadlines  
(that's how I read this) weren't a good idea, but it sure looks as if the  
project was dying.

> I never asked for "source" because I was led to understand that there was
> nothing but a spec (which I was encouraged to look at and give feedback)
> and that the source would be built once the spec was "OKed". I understood
> the need for the "semi-closedness" of the group. As expected, others
> don't.

I for one didn't. I just didn't feel like starting a revolution over this.  
Now I'm wondering if that was the correct reaction.

> To Brian: I agree with most everything you said (even several of the snide
> remarks) but I can't agree that Deity is "outside" Debian. I do agree that

I don't agree with the "snide remarks" by anyone here. However, they  
certainly demonstrate that the working climate "at the top" was already  
very bad. Unfortunately, I don't really have any idea what to do about  
that.

> To Bruce: I have gotten clear signals from you in the past that the
> hardest part of your job is dealing with the lack of repect that you are
> forced to put up with from various individuals. Your behaviour in this
> thread is an excelent example of that kind of disrespect. I know I didn't
> see the preliminary private communications that "boiled your pot", and I
> don't really care much about that, but your first (opening) posting to
> this thread was argumentative, agressive, and not very professional. One
> of your responsibilities as "our leader" is to present a "good example" to
> the rest of the group. If I had to judge from this thread, I would be
> forced to give you failing marks.

That's sometimes very hard. I've been in that position (not as boss of  
anything, only as programmer, but people relying on the software probably  
didn't quite see the difference), and people sure felt the same way about  
some of my posts, even if that wasn't intended.

Often, the feeling behind posts like that is one of strong frustration.  
Unfortunately, letting this show alienates people, and not letting it show  
makes you ill and doesn't make people realize that you've reached the end  
of your rope.

There doesn't seem to be any good solution.


MfG Kai


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