The Trouble with FreeBSD (lwn.net article)

[aht0]

Came across an article https://lwn.net/Articles/712308/

Your thoughts about it?

 

[ASX]

Rice said, he was there to speak about the past; by looking at how FreeBSD ran into trouble, perhaps we can all learn something useful about how we run our projects.

Leadership is hard, Rice said. If the project had had an established code of conduct at that time, it might have been in a better position to deal with this rock-star developer problem.

Considering what happened in the past [ Dillon ] and what happened just few days ago with marino@ , that's all blah blah nonsense, having a code of conduct didn't helped at all.

(By the way, I'm associating only the outcome of the cases about Dillon and Marino, the removal of commit bits, and not their personal habits, also because I was not here at the time of Dillon case).

 

[ShelLuser]

My thoughts... A lot of people overreact. Sure it can be tedious and all, but the real question in my opinion is if things work or not. FreeBSD maybe slow with adapting some new standards but quite frankly that's exactly what I like, and I think the same applies to others. While other projects have seen plenty of time spend in changing their source repository / version control system FreeBSD has only seen one change in the past (CVS to Subversion). I don't get this fascination some people have with "the latest and greatest", I'd rather focus on "getting the job done", and I get the impression that this approach is also living with FreeBSD. If Subversion gets the job done, why bother with something else?

I know: because 'something else' = 'better'. But that will only last until the next hot thing comes around. So you'd risk ending up in an endless cycle involving plenty of time and effort which, in my opinion, is much better spend on the project itself.

As to code of conducts and such... I always compare that to a gentlemen's agreement; which has one flaw: it needs two gentlemen. Code of conduct is nice and all, but if the underlying mindset is off then nothing is going to change that I think.

The author also talks about fixing problems, but I can't help wonder if some problems actually need fixing or are real problems at all.

 

[roddierod]

I was a user at the time when Dillion was around and I still have no idea what exactly happened. Dillion went from being on television (TechTV) promoting FreeBSD and it strengths to being kicked out the door. Now it seems to be the same with Marino. There is a thread on the freebsd-ports mailing listing asking for an explaination to the Marino case and the the official response (at least responses from persons with @FreeBSD.org addresses) is we aren't going to talk about it because that would be against the COC and the commit messages fully explains it. For me personally that is not enough. There are people defending John and it sounds to me like he has a strong personality and demands good work from people, some thing most people today don't like.

I think all this COC/SJW crap is sad and going to ruin FreeBSD. FreeBSD will end up with a bunch of developers that get along and no one will push anyone because you might hurt someones feelings. If your feelings/beliefs/knowledge aren't challenged you don't grow or learn, that is my belief.

I've been a FreeBSD user since 1997, I have maintained ports and help debug drivers for release in the past and I am leaving because of politics which is sad to me.

 

[marino]

Well, I told people days ago that the decision would not hold up to public scrutiny, so that any request for transparency and details would be defected.

Right, would you want an organization you volunteered for to drag your
name through the mud for some reason?

Er, haven't the public expulsion and removing maintainership of 63 points accomplished just that?

I don't think it's our place (the
project) to say more than we already have publicly. Please drop this
before it gets out of hand. Discussing people personally/negatively in
a public forum is not appropriate.

translation: This is a deflection. If we give you those details, it probably will blow back hard on us, so better to go with the "trust us, we have background information you aren't privy to and we're doing the right thing, who needs transparency?" routine.

This response is exactly what I expected. I could provide context if told what the final straw(s) were but I think that's exactly what they're scared of.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

I don't recall if this was posted here already or I'm thinking of somewhere else but, if you pay attention, notice that this article is 75% stuff that has nothing...NOTHING...to do with FreeBSD and everything to do with personalities.

I haven't re-read the article but it's another BS article written by Linux people. If I feel like wasting my time, I'll find my previous response to it and re-post it here.

 

[ASX]

if you pay attention, notice that this article is 75% stuff that has nothing...NOTHING...to do with FreeBSD and everything to do with personalities.

may be .. but I strongly disagree with you, it go as far as suggesting improvements:

With regard to leadership, that could be fixable but it, too, would require an attitude shift in the core team. The team does not need to be an architectural leader, it needs to be a "scaffolding leader". It just needs to ensure that "the things the project needs to do a good job" are available. The core team should focus on how FreeBSD is made, rather than what it should be. Its job should be reducing friction for developers.

what the article doesn't address is about the "communication failure" also in charge to the "core team" which is increasingly evident considering the nature of the answers on the freebsd-ports mailing list.

Draw you own conclusions.

 

[kafka0]

If Subversion gets the job done, why bother with something else?

I know: because 'something else' = 'better'. But that will only last until the next hot thing comes around. So you'd risk ending up in an endless cycle involving plenty of time and effort which, in my opinion, is much better spend on the project itself.

Absolutely, to me, this is a fundamental cultural difference between Linux and BSD: the former has a tendency to adopt things at a very early stage, causing a lot of breaking changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse (the thing in question is proved problematic and is dropped as quickly as it was adopted), while the latter usually waits for things to mature and prove themselves enough before considering them for adoption. Also, only fix what needs fixing.

I don't recall if this was posted here already or I'm thinking of somewhere else but, if you pay attention, notice that this article is 75% stuff that has nothing...NOTHING...to do with FreeBSD and everything to do with personalities.

I haven't re-read the article but it's another BS article written by Linux people. If I feel like wasting my time, I'll find my previous response to it and re-post it here.

I agree, I found very little substance in the article and a lot of bias (I recall that things aren't much smoother on LKML and that a number of incidents have already happened that this very article would find intolerable).

 

[drhowarddrfine]

This is a lot of who is calling the kettle black. There is a lot more clashing and personalities and disruptions with Linux this past few years than in the history of FreeBSD.

 

[gkontos]

The arguments that the author presents are not compelling at all. The article could be also considered as pure trolling.

Last year, we migrated our email collaboration platform from Linux to FreeBSD. It didn't take much to convince the rest of the team as soon as I showed them how easy it is to use the latest stable software, without having to use third party repos. Eventually, they saw that with FreeBSD we had better performance and a much more stable environment. Everybody are also very happy because they can keep the systems up to date without the need of frequent reboots. Let alone that some had terrible experience with systemd, the process is a win-win situation.

We are migrating our hosted services to our own clustered hardware this weekend. We have tested the new architecture using FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE for over 2 weeks. For some it was really impressive that I could just shutdown one server and have VRRP take care of everything without the client noticing even a glitch. Well, welcome to FreeBSD were we do not use the latest bleeding edge technology but instead we rely on simple things that just get the job done.

 

[Tabs]

Yeah this article is just trolling - having come from Linux (after being forced off open solaris) it's so refreshing to move to something 'old' where people don't care for bling or change for changes sake. I think we'll see a steady increase in uptake of FreeBSD as others see Linux moving away from the UNIX principles and philosophies

 

[kafka0]

I think we'll see a steady increase in uptake of FreeBSD as others see Linux moving away from the UNIX principles and philosophies

I must say I never thought of it this way... There might well be an opportunity for the BSD here!

 

[ANOKNUSA]

I actually watched the original talk last week and enjoyed most of it. (Benno seems to be a little nervous about public speaking, but that's not something I can hold against him.) I didn't bother clicking on the link to the article until I saw all the opinions here, then realized after reading it that it's just one guy putting his own opinions in someone else's mouth.

 

[Datapanic]

...and opinions are like asteroids.

 

[Deleted member 9563]

The arguments that the author presents are not compelling at all. The article could be also considered as pure trolling.

That's how I read it.

...and opinions are like asteroids.

Everyone has got one?

 

[lonestar]

Well, I told people days ago that the decision would not hold up to public scrutiny, so that any request for transparency and details would be defected.

Er, haven't the public expulsion and removing maintainership of 63 points accomplished just that?


translation: This is a deflection. If we give you those details, it probably will blow back hard on us, so better to go with the "trust us, we have background information you aren't privy to and we're doing the right thing, who needs transparency?" routine.

This response is exactly what I expected. I could provide context if told what the final straw(s) were but I think that's exactly what they're scared of.

Just publish it. They deserve to be humiliated.

This sounds like the action of some passive-aggressive government bureaucrat (on their part, not yours). Sorry to hear you got caught up in it, but personally I'd fire all cylinders at them on my way out.

 

[kafka0]

I actually watched the original talk last week and enjoyed most of it. (Benno seems to be a little nervous about public speaking, but that's not something I can hold against him.) I didn't bother clicking on the link to the article until I saw all the opinions here, then realized after reading it that it's just one guy putting his own opinions in someone else's mouth.

Oh, are you saying the talk itself is worth watching, then? Did you get something new or interesting from it? Now I'm curious to know the original version...

 

[marino]

Just publish it. They deserve to be humiliated.

The point is that I don't know what to address. Until I'm provided the "evidence" that led them to decide that I am a serious and repeat Code of Conduct offender, I'll have to wait. People are being told they have no right to private and internal communication, and apparently that includes me. It's been almost a week now and I swear that as of this moment, I've been sent nothing more than the initial "you're gone" letter from Benno (which was essentially the same as the commit message removing my commit bit.)

I'm being called a liar by a guy with a freebsd icon here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/5u7ezi/prominent_freebsd_developer_john_marino_fired_no/

I assure you, what I've said is true.
I don't know what justification they are using.
People seem to suspect that if there was something clear and public, somebody (if not portmgr) would have pointed it out by now.
So play "Where's Waldo?" and see who can figure it out with what's available publicly.

(Of course I recall interactions with friction but nothing I deem worth of an expulsion, not even close.)

 

[ASX]

As to code of conducts and such... I always compare that to a gentlemen's agreement

Good point:
a few at times the real issue start to emerge and I can read between the lines that some disagreements about ports managements in general exists/existed between @marino and and portsmgr@;
* https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/59705/page-2#post-343095
* https://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=434407+0+current/freebsd-ports

instead of clear up the disagreemeents someone (among core team and/or portsmgr team) decided to hide their decision behind some fictious code of conduct issue; ultimately a BIG management failure.

Who is not acting as a gentlemen in this story ?

core@ and portsmgr@ would be better to emerge from the mud they put themselves in, apologies and fix what they did wrongly.
.

 

[ANOKNUSA]

Oh, are you saying the talk itself is worth watching, then?

The talk is by a FreeBSD Core Team member who wants to talk about historical circumstances that have affected the project, and how they might affect future development. The LWN article is just some guy using the video as a jumping-off point to voice his own opinions. The content of the article is related to the content of the video, but the article's intro and conclusion seem to be more the author's opinion.

 

[kafka0]

The talk is by a FreeBSD Core Team member who wants to talk about historical circumstances that have affected the project, and how they might affect future development. The LWN article is just some guy using the video as a jumping-off point to voice his own opinions. The content of the article is related to the content of the video, but the article's intro and conclusion seem to be more the author's opinion.

OK. When I read the article, I was afraid it was only a depressed, apologetic talk that was featured mostly to pick on FreeBSD (to put it bluntly). I'll watch the video this week-end, then!

 

[drhowarddrfine]

I'm being called a liar by a guy with a freebsd icon here

Meh. Reddit. The padded cell of the internet.

 

[ShelLuser]

instead of clear up the disagreemeents someone (among core team and/or portsmgr team) decided to hide their decision behind some fictious code of conduct issue; ultimately a BIG management failure.

Who is not acting as a gentlemen in this story ?

core@ and portsmgr@ would be better to emerge from the mud they put themselves in, apologies and fix what they did wrongly.
.

I don't think people who aren't directly involved with all that can draw such conclusions to be honest.

As to "hiding"; I think that was a right move to make. When it comes to applying a punishment to someone for whatever reason then that is something between the involved person and the people who came to that decision. There's no need to involve 3rd parties in my opinion, especially when those people don't have access to the same kind of information on which the team based their decision.

I think it can also help the punished person to move on. No risk for people who might endlessly keep referring back to that decision and holding it against the one who got punished. In the end most people will easily allow themselves to base their opinion on hearsay and one sided stories.

And yeah, to refer to myself: if you know the rules people expect you to play by and you willingly and knowingly decide to ignore those then there might come a time when a punishment is dealt. If you don't agree with some rules then there are other ways to protest against them than placing yourself on the wrong end of them.

 

[Cath O'Deray]

… thoughts about it?

First impression: the positioning of the photograph implies that the man with the beard and blue shirt is not a team player, is someone who's no longer with the project.

Second impressions:



From the article:

… the real trouble with FreeBSD: it is made and led by volunteers. …

Really, that's not troublesome.

… nobody whose job is purely to make FreeBSD more awesome …

I don't envisage that as a job for any one person.

I have other thoughts, but they'll probably not be shared here

 

[marino]

I don't think people who aren't directly involved with all that can draw such conclusions to be honest.

I do.

As to "hiding"; I think that was a right move to make. When it comes to applying a punishment to someone for whatever reason then that is something between the involved person and the people who came to that decision. There's no need to involve 3rd parties in my opinion, especially when those people don't have access to the same kind of information on which the team based their decision.

I'm a "2nd person" in this equation, the one directly affected by the decision. Shouldn't at least *I* have access to the kind of information used as justification to expel me after after a tremendous amount of work and time donated to FreeBSD? And shouldn't *I* be allowed to share that information as I see fit?

I think it can also help the punished person to move on. No risk for people who might endlessly keep referring back to that decision and holding it against the one who got punished. In the end most people will easily allow themselves to base their opinion on hearsay and one sided stories.

Which is why people are rightfully saying "We don't trust you. Give us a least a peek of what he did, otherwise we're gonna draw our own conclusions".

You say this "helps" me. What helps me is the truth.
Every day where leadership is not forthcoming looks worse and worse.

If I broke the code of conduct in such a serious way, somebody would know, right?
It should not be hard to provide, especially when I am not asking for privacy.

They can publish the whole damn dossier. I don't care, I'm not ashamed of my actions.
And with that --- refusal to provide can only be driven by embarrassment on their part.
I've said from minute #1 that A) nothing they had would withstand scrutiny and B) because of that, nothing would be provided.
So far I've been 100% accurate.

The only thing that's left is personal, probably driven by 1 or 2 people. As COC is highly subjective and vague intentionally, enough people were swayed by BS arguments that they finally wore down enough for a majority vote. Now that significant backlash is occurring and they realize any "hard" evidence they have will cause further uproar, they're hiding behind protecting my privacy as a justification for not being transparent.

I mean, I must have done something TERRIBLE right? Or many clear cut transgressions? How hard is proof of bad behavior really?

ShelLuser, at some point you're going to be a lemming. Don't trust leadership so blindly, especially this leadership which has a history of people in authority making drastic decisions for questionable reasons.