Well at least that is what krh says, but i don't think he is right. Moreover i think he does not even know how to read English or maybe my English is bad enough to be unreadable.
I'll explain the situation.
He has asked that all my patches go though the mailing list so we can discuss them, a fair thing. The problem is that all/most of my patches are being put back by small even sometimes bad suggestions (see http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/poppler/2005-June/000517.html where he suggests changing an enum to an int). BUT i COULD live with that.
The big problem is when he goes on and commits http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/poppler/2005-June/000541.html a HUGE patch that allows real selection (a nice thing) but without sending it to the mailing list. Where is the discussion? That is what really makes me sad, my patches have to be discussed but his not, maybe being a Red Hat employee gives you superpowers and your patches are never bad? Not sure about that...
This makes me wonder if what everyone says about fd.org is right and that all they want is to drag kde people to make them loose their time trying to get their patches accepted. I'm almost sure this is not true ;-) but it is what it really seems to be happening.
So i send him a mail explaining that and all i got is an answer saying I'm rude and paranoid, that he has made all he can to make his selection patch available for all backends and that it's kpdf devels choice to work or not on poppler.
So here is my answer Kristian, i do not care if the selection patch is available or not for all the backends or not (well i do, but the mail was not about this), what i do care is about the DOUBLE moral there is in patches, mine got discussed and yours not. Also you should not say that i can choose not to work with poppler, as if kpdf does not get to use poppler, poppler will be just an evince extension, and you don't want that, right?
Update: Per Kristian's request i've made the mails public at aacidtokrh and krhtoaacid.
10 comments:
You are mixing up one individual developer (Kristian Høgsberg) and freedesktop.org as an organisation.
Daniel Stone <daniel@freedesktop.org>
so how many individuals does it take before it becomes indicative of the whole?
i think aaron is right. very often, the behaviour of one employee of an organisation is really typical of that of others within the same organisation... if this is true for freedesktop.org, that's bad. of course, it is STILL bad to judge by one person, as it is very well possible it was an excess.
Hi Albert,
I'm sorry that it has come to this, but can I ask you two things:
1) You're quoting me out of context rather badly, and since you've chosen to go public with this, I would appreciate if you would also publicize the mails we exchanged that led to this.
2) Do not mix this up with freedesktop.org - you're free to think that I'm an arrogant maintainer that dares to review your patches, but don't represent freedesktop.org.
Thanks,
Kristian
After two messages you still don't see the point, i do not say you should not review my patches, what i say is that as you want to review other people's patches i want to do the same with yours.
This is very interesting Kristian. Please answer this very simple question: why can you review other people's patches and can others not review yours?
If else, can freedesktop explain this please? I hate to see any double standards being applied and perhaps this is part of the reason some are not that too enthusiastic about freedesktop in some regards?
this is all needlessly hostile and counter productive. I'll never understand why some people have a hard time accepting fdo just because its not the same culture as kde, and not everyone thinks like them.
really this needless US v. THEM is rather childish. get over it and work together like adults.
I might miss the point, but why should a maintainer have to put up his own patches for review? Isn't the asymmetry between a maintainer and an contributor kind of the point of being a maintainer?
Well, if after all that time (months?) Albert still cannot get poppler to level of xpdf embedded in kpdf then it may be more productive to abandon that failed experiment let poppler be evince-specific library. You can see frustration in Albert's mail and I really can't blame him - after seeing patches important for Evince getting of fast track and his own patches stalled or ignored it is no wonder he starts to question direction poppler is taking. Kristian really should make a decision - is poppler supposed to be Evince backend (and maybe kpdf too - but only as second-class citizen) or really common xpdf implementation? Right now his words and actions are contradicting.
To Daniel: sorry, freedesktop.org is made of individual developers so it is not plausible excuse.
From the emails, I see a common geek pattern: Albert tries to make a (valid) point with incredibly rude manners, and then Kristian can easily deflect the criticism by asking for better behaviour. Not a new issue, this happens all the time with some friends of mine :)
Both are right: Kristian in asking for a civilized discourse, and Albert in calling for fair treatment (especially considering the "bad image" that FDO has with many of those developers they are reportedly cooperating with).
Keep up the good work guys.
Giacomo
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