[kde-community] Statement of support for our devs?

[Carl Symons]

On Monday, October 21, 2013 07:54 Martin Graesslin wrote:
> On Sunday 20 October 2013 09:42:29 Carl Symons wrote:
> > On Sunday, October 20, 2013 13:08 Alvaro Soliverez wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > I think this post by Mark Shuttleworth (
> > > http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1295 ) deserves some kind of
> > > formal statement of support for our devs.
> > > It is an unequal statement, and it was a personal attack on one of
> > > KDEprojects because we made a decision based on technical grounds they
> > > don't like.
> > 
> > While I appreciate looking out for contributors in the KDE Community, I
> > don't see this post as antagonistic towards KDE or KDE developers. There
> > are some trollish flamebait bits, such as the stuff about SystemD. Lennart
> > Poettering and Kay Sievers may take that personally. But it seems like a
> > needless poke in the eye considering that Mark's baby uses Upstart instead
> > of SystemD.
> > 
> > It's not clear to me what KDE project was attacked. What are you referring
> > to?
> 
> Well I personally considered it as an attack on KDE. Lennart considers it as
> an attack on himself and I have seen Thiago say it's about Intel. That's
> the big problem with what Mark wrote: it's so broad that it matches
> anybody. I think there are very specific pieces which make it clear that
> also KDE is meant - the part about Windows (systemd doesn't support
> Windows), the project known for lots of options, etc. etc. I asked Mark to
> clarify, but this still hasn't happened.

I was not fully aware and did not think of the KWin/Windows connection. 
Definitely an attack on Lennart and his fellow systemd developers and a 
thoughtless one at that. Shuttleworth already had his response...Upstart.

Your responses to the Mir and KWin issue seemed complete to me. In my 
technically naive view, you made clear the well-reasoned and principled basis 
for KWin development. There was no need for further discussion. Shuttleworth's 
latest comments on this issue indicate that he still disagrees.

> 
> > I also think that it's odd that he writes "...competitors to Canonical..."
> > in reference to those who have "NIH'd" Canonical's stack. I have not heard
> > any KDE person refer to Canonical or any other free software project as a
> > competitor.
> 
> Just for the record: I do so :-) We as in KDE Plasma are competing against
> Unity. It's not a bad thing to say in my opinion. It's just a matter of
> fact. As a community we have huge overlap and possibility to collaborate,
> still on some areas there is competition. Also if I count ownCloud to KDE
> we would see a competition against Ubuntu One.
> 
> > Asking Mark to tone down his posts is a waste of energy. He does what he
> > wants. And he has every right to do so.
> 
> No, I think this is something that has to happen. As the Ubuntu fanboys take
> him as a role model. If it's fine for Mark to attack others, than there is
> nothing wrong with the fanboys doing the same. Having been in the first
> line of the receiving side of a shitstorm from the Ubuntu community (as
> mentioned a few times: I was close to quitting working on free software due
> to that) I must say that it's not good that Mark now makes situation even
> worse. That's the same as we say that Linus behavior on the LKML is not
> acceptable. He sets the tone on what is appropriate behavior.
> 
> So as I already wrote in another reply to this thread I would suggest that
> the CWG gets in contact with Jono.
> 
> Cheers
> Martin


Understanding your experience, I understand better and agree in part. This is 
an asymmetric argument--Shuttleworth has orders of magnitude more readers and 
devoted followers than you do. He bought them and apparently owns them. I 
especially understand better now the price that you paid for his inconsiderate 
actions and remarks.

So I should have been more complete with these ideas. 

"Asking Mark to tone down is a waste of energy." It hasn't worked before. 
There is no sign that it will work now. Better to focus on other things.

"He does what he wants." He is on his own mission. To me it looks like this--
being smarter and richer than everyone else, not to mention being a spaceman, 
he is ego-driven to shape everything in reach as he thinks it should be. FOSS 
exists to further his goals. After all, he has a goal of having Linux on 
hundreds of millions of now-Window-users' machines...with the implicit 
understanding that Linux=Ubuntu. Who doesn't want that?

"He has every right to do so." Generally, people have the right to say 
whatever they want. But It's a cruel world, and they will get whatever 
response they are due. In this case, Mark has had his say. It's not clear what 
he was trying to achieve. It's not out of the question that he may have even 
been trying to create the response he's getting. Unfortunately for him, FOSS 
communities don't play that way.

I still think that the best response is no response. Or at least a quiet one.

Carl