gnome (foundation) weather report
I just come across this entry, i hit via the Planet Gnome feeds. As a Gnome user, and packager, i come ashamed of it. Murray Cumming may have had all the reasons of the world to be mad with Jeff Waugh, but he lost them all, by writing what he wrote, the way he wrote it. If he does not act quickly – showing him as a grown up, and apologizing – he just ends painting himself as bad, or as worst, as he painted Jeff Waugh. Open Source is not a religion, Open Source is a process, a process where there should be no place for certain types of behavior, and for certain types of language. I don’t know for sure if Jeff Waugh is a good fit for the Gnome foundation, probably there are way better choices, but one thing i know now for sure – Murray Cumming is a catastrophic one. Jeff Waugh got democratically elected before, and, good or bad, i’m sure he did his best. There are better choices – great! – that is what periodic elections are for.
From true leaders one expects a capacity to unite, not to divide or fuel even more, already heated disputes, from leaders we expect them to achieve peace, not to come with war declarations. Murray Cumming didn’t show up as an uniter, or one able to get the best even from those he thinks are bad people, he just showed up in incandescent rhetoric as a far {left|right}1 wing jihadist. That’s not, i think, the portrait we – gnome/open source community community – want to show to the world at large…
1 your pick here.
Addendum.
It’s really sad seeing so many savvy people failing to see what – to me – is the bare essential in any kind of society – that whatever are our disagreements we all agree (with the other side) to disagree. No one, as fair i can tell, ever asked Murray Cumming to ’shut up’, all what, i and others, had asked was – plain and simply, for him to agree with Jeff Waugh in a very plain point – that they both agreed to disagree. And that would mean for them to keep two layers clearly separate – the personal, and the Gnome one. By mixing them both, Murray Cumming IMHO failed, and did a disservice to the community at large. Freedom is not about saying whatever comes to our mind, Freedom is knowing, and realizing, above all that our freedom ends just right where the freedom of the other starts. What differentiates us, as a species, is our ability to learn, to interact, to improve things, to make things better. We are too few, so let’s find, and fight, for all the things that unite all us, and not trying to get a race to find all the things which make us different, and… better.
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[...] I’d like to join those (1, 2, 3) who are kindly asking Murray to retract his comments and use this year’s elections to [...]
You know, sometime some things have to be told, even if they seem harsh. To keep everything hidden is not healthful.
Your political metaphors are absolutely bizarre. The reason so many hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East are currently in ruins is precisely because well-meaning folk absolutely barred anyone from speaking dissent because it was so terribly rude and uncivil.
This carries on today, with most any call to decency in the US being shouted down by the establishment as being “incandescent rhetoric” from “a far {left|right}1 wing jihadist”.
– Chris
Chris,
a) I agree that talk is no substitute for action
b) are you insinuating that there wasn’t *any* ‘another’ more polite way to say exactly the same that was said, without recurring to cheap insults and verbal violence ? If, so then we really have a problem – a much bigger one…
[...] is the essence of good elections I’d like to join those (1, 2, 3) who are kindly asking Murray to retract his comments and use this year’s elections to [...]
This is a straw man. The vitriol could have been spared without losing any of the substance, and I can see the merits of that. You, however, declared that:
I don’t know for sure if Jeff Waugh is a good fit for the Gnome foundation, probably there are way better choices, but one thing i know now for sure – Murray Cumming is a catastrophic one
Along with the “jihadist” comment, not only is this precisely as uncivil as calling someone psychotic, it also states – not insinuates – that you believe that a board member’s actions are a firm second to how they write things on their own blogs. This is utterly wrongheaded, and encourages precisely the gaming of the system which was the apparent point of the argument in the first place.
– Chris
Chris,
No! you got it wrong above, (You get it all right on your comment on Luis Villa blog).
My point was, and is, very plain and simple. Even if, by absurd, jdub was, in a black and wait fashion, pure evil, lowering to his (low) levels would be the wrong thing to do, and that is just what mcummings has done. He lowered the level instead of getting it higher. Regarding the ‘catastrophic’ wording it was on purpose – we need (IMHO) leaders who don’t loose their temper in the face of (the first) adversity. I fully agree that some issues are to be discussed in the open, but then, discussing openly is not mud sliding nor plain name calling.
also, there is a very important detail – good or bad jdub was elected, before…
Best Regards,
I do not think Murray’s remarks needed to be changed at all. The things he said seemed to be clear and the examples of ineptitude about Jeff should make everyone concerned about any projects he is working on.
You believe that the alleged 5+ year disruption to the project is equal to an uncivil blog post?
This was a large part of the allegation. That the silence of those who had been wronged had contributed to the perpetuation of the problem.
– Chris
Seems to me the only question is whether Mr. Cumming’s allegations are true. If they aren’t, clearly it was wrong of him to make them.
If they are, they seem quite clearly to be about Mr. Waugh’s nature as a person. They aren’t political claims or claims about Mr. Waugh’s policies or even about his abilities as a coder–they are claims about his personal behaviour and the motivations that seem to him the only plausible explanations for that behaviour. I don’t quite see how Mr. Cumming could have conveyed the information without getting personal. You think getting personal is unnecessary because whatever the truth of Mr. Cummings’ basic claims, you’re sure Waugh did his best–but in fact, nearly the entire post was precisely claiming that Waugh made no attempt to do his best in the sense of helping Gnome, but was in fact pursuing a very different agenda. Given that, Mr. Cumming could not have conveyed the information he did without getting personal.
You want to be saying that you respect his right to say what he had to say but he shouldn’t have said it in that uncivil way. But in fact that wasn’t a choice here–you’re really saying he shouldn’t have said it at all. And the thing is, if it’s true it’s really important and needs saying.
António,
The other chris has got it right on the head, you’re totally out of your depth if you think some half hearted “rebuttal” will get you anywhere here. The point is thus:
Someone very much associated with the project has some REAL CRITICAL things to put on the table and he’s put it into the open, you’ve looked Murray in the face, said “I don’t like your choice of words” and decided that the WAY HE SAID IT, overshadows in any small way, WHAT HE HAS SAID.
If you have a rebuttal, make it, don’t add to the problem by clouding the issue in exactly the same way that Murray says that Jeff does, you’re acting in the exact same way, by acting vague and barely intelligible. You need to start nailing Murray to the wall.
If you want anyone to take what you’ve said seriously, forget the “You’re a clown” type language and start pulling the legs off the spider, so to speak, you need to start analysing, breaking down, DEBUNKING and removing doubt.
All you’ve done here, is “blah blah blah blah, I don’t like murray, blah blah blah”
Whoopy doo, what a great addition to the conversation that was, now perhaps you can get back to doing whatever you were doing before, whatever that was.
Stop making stupid additions to an already stupid problem, if you have a problem with what he’s written, say so, put it on the table, but just complaining and moaning, is just childish.
What he’s written, is in a very harsh tone, but sometimes tough love works, sometimes people are sleepwalking and to wake them you need to slap them, if they keep going, their problem, but to just keep it in the family, never solves anything.
So, back to the POINT, less with the crappy blog posts.
chris thomas
Sometimes you need to say things in a polite way, but sometimes that doesn’t work.
Regarding the ‘catastrophic’ wording it was on purpose – we need (IMHO) leaders who don’t loose their temper in the face of (the first) adversity.
Murray mentioned five years of dealing with the problem, I don’t think that’s loosing the temper in the face of the first adversity.
Sometimes you need to stop being respectful to the people that don’t deserve respect, and say things the way you think they are. Also, sincerity is healthy.
I don’t know Jeff Waugh, but I see other people agreeing with Murray, and I certainly feel the lack of strong leadership in GNOME.
[...] night I read Murray Cummings post about Jeff Wauge, I got to there from a link on António Meireles blog and I wrote back to analyse what had happened, I first went to Murray’s blog, read his very [...]
[...] night I read Murray Cummings post about Jeff Waugh, I got to there from a link on António Meireles blog and I wrote back to analyse what had happened, I first went to Murray’s blog, read his very hard [...]