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Re: My resignation from Emacs development


From: Daniel Radetsky
Subject: Re: My resignation from Emacs development
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2024 01:17:06 -0800

On Tue, Nov 26, 2024 at 08:06:53PM -0600, Adam Porter wrote:
> 1.  As has been clearly stated, Stefan is not in charge of this project--the
> maintainers are.  Any change made by anyone, including Stefan, only persists
> with their approval.
> 
> So to blame Stefan is to imply a responsibility he does not bear, which is
> unfair and wrong.

I'm not sure that's necessarily true; if Stefan is making a
positive decision and the other maintainers are merely
acquiescing, then blaming Stefan on the grounds that he's
the driving force behind the decision isn't totally
unreasonable.

But it's aside the point: Whether or not its right to blame
Stefan, it seems that Alan _does_ blame Stefan, and this is
useful information for anyone who seeks to reconcile the
parties or improve future decisionmaking. When you tell Alan
he's unfair and wrong to blame Stefan, you encourage him and
others in the future to just shut up and not air their
greivances. This might reduce on-list drama, but I don't
think it will convince the Alans of the world to change his
perspective or not leave the project. At best it will cause
them to leave more quietly, which I don't think is what
anyone wants. Or more likely, as in this case, it won't even
do that.

> 3.  As has been admitted by Alan himself, he made a relevant change without
> discussing it first, and one that apparently forced the hand of the
> maintainers to deal with.  That would seem to imply his own having committed
> the same kind of misdeed which he accuses Stefan of committing.

I don't think you get what's going on here. This isn't a
debate you can win. I mean, you can win it, but you don't
get anything for winning. So this kind of Tu Quoquery isn't
of any use even if it was apposite. And as it happens, I
don't think it is; it's not just a question of whether a
similar act was committed, but whether it was committed in
circumstances in which it produced a similar amount of harm.
Whether or not Alan's previous action was also a violation
of the hypothetical rule, it demonstrably did not make
anyone angry enough to resign the project.

Maybe such an accusation might shame the original speaker
into dropping his objection on the grounds that none are
without sin or something, but it doesn't do anything to
redress his injury. And as it doesn't seem to be shaming
Alan into silence, I'd let this point go.

> You seem to imply that this information has only now been revealed.

No, only that I only now became aware of it.

> Alan's feelings about and reaction to these technical issues are Alan's
> concern.

They're also our concern if we want him to continue with the
project. Your line of reasoning seems to be bending in the
direction of "if he can't control his feelings about these
issues, we don't need him on the project." If that is your
position, you should be explicit. But I think it's a silly
position.

> Disagreements about how to
> manage a project like this are common, and they needn't always be made
> public--especially, they should not be in the form of public character
> assassination and ritual defamation.

People should ideally not get angry enough to say mean
things about other people in the course of a project, but
sometimes they do.

I don't know about you, but I didn't take anything Alan said
about Stefan particularly seriously. As in, as far as the
concrete accusations, I barely took them in. The
overwhelming issue for me was: some member of the project is
extremely unhappy and wants to leave. Can this be salvaged?
So I don't see any need to reprimand Alan for "character
assassination" insofar as he didn't even come close to
successfully assassinating Stefan's character for me. Maybe
I'm weird for being able to reserve judgment on Stefan for
this, I don't know.

> I don't think that any project ought to govern itself by acceding to "my way
> or the highway" demands--what could be more unhealthy.

I don't know; what is your way?

The point is that it's not a question of bowing or not
bowing to arguably-unreasonable demands. That's just not the
right way to think about this. Instead: everyone involved
has the right to negotiate for their position, and it's the
job of project leadership to decide if they're getting a
good deal or not. If Alan decides that this particular point
is a my-way-or-the-highway situation for him, that's fine,
he's entitled to feel that way. We can then think it over
and then say very politely "Ultimately we decided to go with
'highway'. Thank you very much for all your help in the
past." What we've done here is not to "stand up to his
unreasonable demands" or "refuse to let him walk over us" or
any such silly framing of the issue. Instead we decided the
best way to get what we want, which was to reject his deal.
Make sense?

> All of that is fine, though Alan's decision is regrettable.  What isn't fine
> is to misplace blame on Stefan, for a decision that the maintainers
> themselves support, and one that no one is fully satisfied with.

Again, I don't see why this is all that important...

> social [problems] can be forgiven--if the parties are
> willing.

Except insofar as, in my opinion, every time you say "You
should not misplace blame on Stefan" it gets slightly harder
to hear the part where you say "If you decide to come back,
all is forgiven." Right now, I wouldn't bother saying the
first thing _at all_.

> But each one must decide for himself.  And once a participant has made his
> decision, for the good of the project and its participants, he ought to stop
> publicly litigating it.

To be fair, he's publicly litigating it because, in addition
to trying to talk him down, people are also challenging him
on it. I could just as well say that once he's made his
decision, for the good of the project people should stop
inviting him to litigate it. But I know that's unreasonable.
Inevitably, people are going to talk about this because
that's what people do. Those big brains aren't just for
show.

> And any outside participants who feel a duty to offer their input ought to
> do so with the utmost care, and only after fully informing themselves of the
> context and all parties' views, lest they only throw fuel on the fire.

Respectfully, I feel like your comments pose a greater risk
of fueling the fire than mine do. It doesn't seem to me like
you're keeping your eye on the not-fueling-the-fire bit with
sufficient assiduity. You have (understandable) opinions
about proper conduct and respect for reputations, and you're
putting them forward at a time when you might be better
served by holding them back for the time being. And I do
mean _you_ might be better served, in the sense that you
personally might thereby acquire a slightly better emacs.

--dmr



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