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Author: Daniel Reurich
Date:  
To: devuan developers internal list, Jaromil
Subject: Re: [devuan-dev] Nominations for Devuan Council (Re: Notes - Devuan meet Oct. 04/05 2017)
On 09/10/17 22:10, Jaromil wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Oct 2017, fsmithred wrote:
>
>> Can we reach a consensus on whether to use consensus or majority
>> rule? I've seen consensus in action in a large group, and it can
>> slow the arrival to a decision, but it helps keep everyone focused
>> on the common goal.
>
>
> I believe for now it depends if this negotiation becomes too political
> (because people believe the decision must be taken to fence some
> "group politics") or based on factual contributions and skillset
> needed.


But technical skills is secondary here, primary is being able to assess
impacts and ensure appropriate granting of permissions, and we have
consensus to proceed on infrastructure implementation proposals before
plans are set in stone. Also being able to step guide people before
they build complete solutions to what they perceive are problems, and
that includes saying. No, that's not what we need, not to block them
developing, but to stop them creating a huge distraction as we had with
scorsh.

You'll have to note, that I'm not an acedemic, and thus tend to take the
attitude that whilst we should allow people broad scope to make and
learn from their mistakes, we can't allow unbridled experimentation on
our core infrastructure especially when our focus should be on getting a
release out. There are always exceptions to the rule.



>
> I believe this lead change should be addressing the biggest problem I
> personally (IMO) see in Devuan: lack of a driver forward and
> boycotting behavior toward those who take the lead. I see Parazyd's
> attempt for instance right now being frustrated despite he is avoiding
> personalisation and is regularly updating on tasks and blockers. I
> believe Daniel's behavior in the last response is boycotting and
> includes personalising insults and admittedly lack of activity from
> his side.


Jaromil, here you are being divisive and insulting. You have the keys
to everything and could step in and do it yourself! Instead you choose
to using it as an opportunity to point the defame me and claim I am
blocking when that's never been my intention, or explicit action. If my
inaction concerns you then we can discuss that, but sometimes stepping
back and waiting others is a good way to test the resilience in the
system. I won't let things be broken, nor will I be beholden to anyone
that implies I owe them anything including my exclusive attention!

I have no problem broadening access to ci.do and git.do so parazyd can
get on with that which he needs to do to progress getting ascii out.

(In fact I have gone ahead and granted him master on devuan-packages
group in gdo and also permissions so he can trigger builds/rebuilds
directly within the CI. I'd like to allow him full control but want to
discuss that with you further before taking that step). That's not a
political move either, just a pragmatic one to fix solve the real
blockers (in that everyone turns to me first, rather then trying to find
another reasonable way).

And then you wonder why nextime doesn't respond? I've been trying hard
to get his interest again but I find it hardly surprising that he's lost
interest given that he's so constantly maligned by you and others. It's
not as if he hasn't and doesn't contribute anything. He does, both in
hosting resources and also having significant key knowledge that no-one
here fully obtained. This is something I've worked hard at obtaining
not with the intention of undermining him, but instead to support Devuan
when he is not available, so that he can attend to his other interests.
Jaromil, denigrating and sidelining nextime as you currently are doing
is only serving to drive him away, and also scuttling my chances of
getting timely access to that key knowledge to do the final parts of the
ganeti networking components.
>
> To solve this repeated stall, I believe we need to include Parazyd in
> the leadership to give a strong signal that Devuan values who drives
> forward the project.


I strongly disagree with his appointment at this point in time, because
you are perfectly capable of adding expressing his perspective towards
reaching consensus on matters, but I will consider acceptable that he is
able to stand as your proxy when you are not around. Jaromil, having
you and parazyd holding 2 of 5 positions when you work so closely
creates an imbalance of authority and allow for more easily steering
decisions in favour of Dyne or your preferred direction, in essence
scuttling the foundation for consensus building in that each member of
the leadership would represent an equal voice.
>
> I also welcome other nominations, but believe that the most important
> role for Devuan now is not downstream distro development, but focus on
> system administration and package development.


I disagree strongly with Devuan's primary focus being made on enabling
derivatives. Making it easy for derivatives has always been an
important goal, but putting them as the priority will erode Devuan as a
base by creating a vacuum of willing skilled participants, which will
hurt the derivatives. Neither should we bind derivatives so closely
that they can't switch away from Devuan should they choose to do without
destroying Devuan.

> In this regard I do not understand if fsmithred has accepted the nomination
> (since it wasn't stated in the nomination), but invite him to decline it.


Fsmithred did accept the nomination otherwise I wouldn't have put his
name forward. That should be rather obvious, and I hope that he would
not decline it. I stand behind his nomination.

>
> Regarding exclusion of nextime from the lead, I have understood from
> him he'd prefer not to be excluded, but he has not replied to any of
> my emails or PMs in the last 2 weeks and he is not replying on a
> urgent task (VPN inclusion of new CI arms), which is a very bad sign.
>

The answer to this is quite simple, he's upset at what he perceives to
be a `Coup d'état` by you on the behalf of Dyne to take control of
Devuan. And as I've already expressed privately to you and proven by
setting up the builders, that the VPN is in no way needed for the
buildhosts.

> Therefore in light of current nominations I am in now favor of having
> a new 5 person leadership that drives Devuan forward and establishes
> priorities, composed by me and Daniel as remaining leaders and then
> Evilham, Ralph and Parazyd as new leaders, with a total 5 quorum 3 on
> votes when needed.


I'd be happy to have Ralph, and Evilham or fsmithred added to the
leadership, but prefer nextime to remain, provided he will weigh in when
a deciding opinion is sought.
>
> I hope we can reach consensus about this process, it may be easy since
> there are no other obvious candidates to this.


Jaromil, I hope we can reach a consensus that doesn't throw nextime
under the bus, or give you/Dyne an unequal weight in leadership of the
project and puts to bed these spurious claims you continue to make
against me.


Sincerely,
    Daniel.


--
Daniel Reurich
Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd.
021 797 722