Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 21:36:39 -0800 From: "John L. Utz III" <john@utzweb.net> To: John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com> Cc: (Hui) <billh@gnuppy.monkey.org>, bod@freebsdfoundation.org, brian@collab.net, calvin.austin@sun.com, rwatson@freesbsd.org, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-java@FreeBSD.ORG, Brent Verner <brent@rcfile.org> Subject: Re: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation) Message-ID: <863cn2nf6g.wl@utweb.net> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.20030205185810.jdp@polstra.com> References: <20030206021823.GB4193@gnuppy.monkey.org> <XFMail.20030205185810.jdp@polstra.com>
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John; Thankyou so much for taking the time to summarize the discussion between you and bill. Others have indicated that posting private email is impolitic. That may be so. Perhaps it might have been best to ask bill before posting, but that seems somewhat redundant given that the whole thread was about bills desire to disseminate this discussion to a wider audience. :-) Given the heat of the discussion, i can certainly see myself posting it under the title of 'Bill's Job Interview', but i think that after i thought about it a while after i wasnt so terribly annoyed by his tack, i'd probably reconsider. I am certainly no stranger to going off on people on FreeBSD mailing lists who have pissed me off. I can recall going absolutely ape on Rod Grimes because he thought it was ok to snoop on users. ( no, dont start! :-) ) And just a few months ago Murray felt it pertinent to reprimand me for an ad-hominem attack on somebody on freebsd-mobile. So, obviously, i share bill's penchant for hyperbole in my e-disagreements. sorry. i wish i was better. i wish he (bill) was better too. But, it seems to me that your snapshot of the discussion lacks context: Where's the Request for Proposals? Where's all the eager emails from the 100's of developers that felt they where smart enuf to do the job? Where's all the wailing and gnashing of teeth email from everybody else that didnt get the job? Where's the msg's that got Mr. Zelkin the job? Where's the msg's where Mr. Zelkin said to bill "Dude, umm, just to let you know, the FBDF is going to *pay* me to work on stuff that you have selflessly slaved over for thousands of hours pro-bono, and i think it's important that i, as an *ethical* sort of person, should clue you in."? While conceding the possibility of taking you out of context, i want to address the '100 people could have done this job'(paraprased) statement. IMHO, this is not about competency. There may be other, more competent people than bill ( there are *probably* more competent people then bill, sometimes he codes kinda' funny ). This is about decency. And human relations. And *enthusiasm*, which is really the only glue that sticks projects together. Bill has busted galactic ass to get us this far. So have lot's of other people, but it seems like bill was the only stakeholder excluded from the decisionmaking? If i where him, i'd be achingly pissed off too! So, the end result is that we get a totally cool 1.4 jdk at long last. that's good. but we deeply alienate someone who did a lot of work to make that possible. that's suboptimal, and it doesnt look like it ever needed to happen. yes, i recognize that some folks think that the quality of his work might be less than optimal, and that his style can be distinctly uncollegial. That doesnt diminish his contribution, and i hope that he continues to work on the jvm despite this *incredibly* *demotivating* experience. and i hope he doesnt take my faint dissin' personally. but if he does, tuff fucking shit! :-) i hope that FBSDF takes a slightly more open approach to dolin' out the loot in the future. i take justin's point that running the FBSDF is a lot of work. and i assume that this probably *wasnt* a 'fuck bill' session, it was just folks trying to get something done. but going slower and being more public would have done a world of good. Take the lessons of NASA's shuttle disaster to heart: talk long, talk loud, talk often. i've been on this list for a dang long time now, and this sudden emergence of 1.4. stuff just seemed really surprising, and now i know why. i dont think it was good to be surprised. just my us$0.02 johnu freebsd user since october of 1993, aka spaz@u.washington.edu At Wed, 05 Feb 2003 18:58:10 -0800 (PST), John Polstra wrote: > > Oh, for cryin' out loud, Bill, this is ridiculous. > > Folks, the entire mail exchange between Bill and me can be found > here: > > http://people.freebsd.org/~jdp/huey/ > > Draw your own conclusions. > > John > > Hui wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 05, 2003 at 07:10:06AM -0500, Brent Verner wrote: > >> On the HotSpot note, is there any work being done on getting 1.3.1's > >> HotSpot working? AFAIR, it would not build with 1.3.1-patchset-7. > > > > BTW, I've decided after a walk to get food to withhold my patches given > > the current political climate in our development group and I'd like to > > announce my resignation from the project effective immediately... No joke. > > > > Found out about something recently that almost certainly was kept purposely > > from me some how. I haven't figured out where the failure is, so sometime > > my need to pass before the developments become more clear. > > > > The basics are that the FreeBSD Foundation is grossly dysfunctional and > > should *not* be the corporate entity group to recieve grants. That > > should be dealt with more directly by the sponsor's management layer > > if they have a desire to do support FreeBSD development. > > > > I'd like to see the removal of John Polstra as Vice President of the > > organization and for other current or potential sponsors to pressure > > either a political change or public apology along with an acknowledgement > > of this leadership failure. > > > > There are other failures closer to our group that need to be address > > too. > > > > I'll have an explanation of this soon with a psychological, social and > > polical analysis of what transpired. It's pretty amazingly fucked up. > > > > More to come... > > > > bill > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-java" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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