[vlc-devel] Update on the VLC project

[Felix Paul Kühne]

On 03.05.2012, at 21:53, Pierre Ynard wrote:

>> - any false accusation, or slander,
> 
> Truth is a subjective view, who's going to decide whether some
> accusation is true or false? A judge?
The most important part here's IMO the person who _feels_ accused or slandered. As you said, there is no objective way of telling. However, the person in question will know (and will leave the project, feel hurt, etc.).

> 
>> - any kind of threats,
>> - ad hominem attacks,
> 
> These are way too vague. 
No, these are general. General statements need to include as much situations as possible.


>> The tone on the repositories has been mostly fine, lately, with no
>> commits wars nor pushing of very discutable piece of code.
> 
> Sounds like the technical decision process is going fine then, no need
> to arbitrate this......…
Nope, absolutely not, as you might have seen by reading my lengthy discussions about improvements targeting the iOS platform in the last couple of weeks.


> 
>> In order to avoid the same situation we've been into, I suggest a few
>> things:
>> - the creation of a technical arbitration committee, to avoid the
>>   YES/NO discussions, and whose decision will be final, like Debian or
>>   Rockbox,
> 
> As you and I just agreed upon, the technical decision process is the
> least of our problems. A technical arbitration committee wouldn't
> help with the lack of orientation for PR/legal action, the lack of
> orientation for technical developement, the lack of roadmap, the lack of
> orientation for fostering our third-party developer community, and the
> lack of management of personal (as in, not technical) conflicts.
> 
> I don't think that the current technical arguments mislead the final
> decisions. Let me ask you one question: will Rémi be in the committee?
> If so, then the problem will still be there, but shifted, and possibly
> worse if it gives more authority to Rémi to assert his opinions. If
> not, then you're arbitrary excluding him from the decisions. Not that it
> would solve a big problem: there are decisions that have been made in
> the past, lua stuff for example, despite his disapproval, and it didn't
> prevent development from going on fine anyway. The only thing that this
> would achieve would be mitigating the tensions and harshness of the
> "YES/NO discussions", by hiding them behind a phantom committee, which
> is not the right solution for the right issue.

+1 on Rémi's statement on these 2 paragraphs.

>> Recidive would increase the length of the ban.
> 
> I expect a lengthy ban for Rafaël then, as he's a recidivist
> already......…
That's the way it would go, if these rules take effect. But note that these rules aren't there to kick any specific individual out of the project. This isn't the intention. The idea is get a common sense on how to get along.


> [cut] 
> all of this to suggest "solutions" that have already been tried before and obviously
> failed, and announce that we have to wait yet more until a next meeting
> to see a real sanction or anything discussed.
well, we need to have something done now. However, we also need a formal meeting to change the association rules as appropriate. e.g., the technical conflict solution finding board should have backing by the VideoLAN association IMO, which requires an assemble générale, which will is set to take place in Tallinn.


> What I believe is that there is no happy option, and you guys are
> too afraid of doing what needs to be done, whatever that is.
So what would be "whatever" in your opinion? Where are your overwhelming ideas how to solve this?


> Also, while I greatly welcome new participants to this discussion to
> give their opinion, seeing as first replies Ludovic and Felix magically
> popping out of nowhere to one-up you is a bit pathetic, as they were
> sure enough by your side while you were writing these guidelines…

As I told you yesterday, I definitely didn't pop out of nowhere. There's still proof of that on gname, if you want to read up. Additionally, I still tend to have an opinion of my own and still tell j-b more than 3 times a week that he's a jerk. Regardless, there is nothing wrong with discussing such a lengthy mail before as we did (no idea about Ludovic actually - that guy seems to live in his email inbox, I fear), since this is more productive than sitting in your ivory tower and thinking about how the world could be if you're the designer or something (no offense intended here).

Best regards,

Felix