Proposal: Author status for Teo Mrnjavac and Alejandro Wainzinger

[Leo Franchi]

On Saturday 22 August 2009 02:06:30 Seb Ruiz wrote:
> 2009/8/22 Nikolaj Hald Nielsen <nhnfreespirit at gmail.com>:
> > I propose that we add Teo and Alejandro to the list of Amarok authors.
> > Both have been with us for a while now and have completed 2 large
> > projects. I believe that both will be important members of the Amarok
> > team for a long time to come.
>
> Yes, as do I.
>
> > Also, it has been quite a long time since we added new authors.
>
> Please don't use this as a justification for adding authors. This is
> an entirely bogus reason.
>
> > Reasons for suggesting Teo:
> >
> > - Did not get accepted to GSoC last year but still completeld his
> > project. - Initially the quality of code and community interaction was
> > not great, but this has improved immensely since.
> > - Helped me out by getting a major rewrite of the playlist layout
> > editor done in time for 2.1 when I did not have time.
> > - Has worked his butt of this GSoC to make the playlist in 2.2 the
> > coolest most configurable ever, and has cleaned up the structure of
> > the playlist code while doing so.
> > - Has already moves on to (and pretty much implemented) a project of
> > his own design that I think will prove very significant, namely
> > OpenDesktop integration in the "About" dialog. I think this is very
> > cool and find it very likely that other apps will start using this
> > code.
> > - Has attended Akademy in 2008 and helped me man the booth at
> > OpensouceDays in Copenhagen last year,
>
> Whilst the above are all true, I think that Teo still has a lot to
> learn about our community. I find that at times he can be abrasive
> with other team members and doesn't take criticism well. Whilst he is
> a good coder and is creating, Teo needs to learn about playing as a
> team member and developing software not by himself but rather with
> others. He has obviously done this significantly with you, Nikolaj but
> I haven't really seen him form any significantly strong bonds with
> other community members. Teo should be commended on the improvement on
> his code quality and development skills since he first started
> committing to the project last year. He needs to remember, that with a
> good natural ability comes stubbornness, and with stubbornness comes
> arrogance (and eventually complacency).
>
> I support Teo as a member of our team, however would like to see some
> improvements in his community and people categories before
> recommending him to be promoted to author.

I think I somewhat understand the instances of friction that came up between 
you over the past few months. From what I remember, I sided with you in the 
conclusion that Teo's feeling of ownership over his own code was too great, 
and made it hard for him to accept criticism and changes to it. 

However, I think it was a learning experience, and I think he's taken that 
lesson to heart. While it is true that the same identical situation has not 
come up again, I think that were the same conditions to present themselves the 
vitriolic debate wouldn't even get started this time. 

I don't see this as a valid point to be taken against Teo's proposed Author 
status. 

wrt both of them:

Regardless of the above point, both have been contributing to Amarok for ~1.2 
years (May/June) so it's hard to point to long-term involvement to the 
project. 

Looking back at some history, Sept. 2006 was when nhn first committed his 
magnatune code (aug was his patch to the list), and the "proposal" email to 
amarok-devel was June 2007.

So, I'm hesitant to use that fact as a reason to not support their induction 
to the Author list.....so

I support their inclusion as an Author.

leo