Re: Misconduct of GTK+/glib Bugtracker Admins

[IgnorantGuru <ignorantguru openmailbox org>]

On Sun, 7 Jun 2015 21:17:15 +0200
John Tall <mjtallx gmail com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 8:59 PM, IgnorantGuru
> <ignorantguru openmailbox org> wrote:
> > On Sun, 7 Jun 2015 19:25:56 +0200
> > John Tall <mjtallx gmail com> wrote:
> >
> > > GTK+ is not a Red Hat project.
> >
> > Another good example here is this very complaint.  A real free
> > project would have developers who are held accountable for their
> > actions.  One reason I sent this complaint to this list is because
> > there's simply no where to take it.  And there has been no response
> > from anyone in an official capacity.  These developers are abusive
> > and give misinformation, and if you confront it in the bug report,
> > they delete comments and threaten to block you.  If I was to work
> > the complaint up the chain of command, guess whose desktop it would
> > land on?
>
> I don't think you understand how GNOME works. There is no chain of
> command, just a lot of more or less related projects that are
> developed closely together.
>
> > You can read my Rotting In Threes article if you haven't seen it
> > for more examples of how these developers were and are treating
> > people - this is hardly a new problem in your project:
> > https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes/
>
> I don't think we're getting anywhere with this. You have obviously
> been very negative on GNOME for some time now. Maybe you should have
> spent all that time on actually improving the platform.
>
> John

I'm not a GNOME hater - I really don't care much about it at all.  I don't use any DE anymore, and have never 
liked them in general.  I never used GNOME, but I tend to be more aligned with the old GNOME philosophy, and 
my software falls on the G side, so I have many GNOME users (and many who have recently abandoned it).  I 
certainly have no interest in contributing to it.  I use Openbox.  I might contribute to GTK+ but it is 
effectively a closed project  - you can't contribute unless you follow Red Hat orders.  I've spend a great 
deal of time developing free software, if you're implying I've never contributed to anything.

You say there is no chain of command, yet some people have commit privs and some don't.  Some people can 
block and delete comments and some can't.  Some can decide developers or admins are stepping out of bounds 
and address the problem, while others can only watch and make excuses.  Obviously that's a chain of command, 
not merely peers, whether you call it that or not.  And most of those people are in that corporate club - 
GTK+ can't go anywhere Red Hat doesn't approve of, and they decide the engineering direction (often 
completely against the wishes of users and long-time contributors - I hear from them plenty via my blog).

As for the Red Hat company, like many people I ignorantly thought they were just an old Linux distro.  I 
didn't have any bias there either.  Yet now I know their size (in the billions), their affiliations with mega 
corporations, govt, and military (their largest customer is the military actually [quoted from 2006]), and 
how they dictatorially control most of Linux via systemd, kdbus, udev, udisks, Xorg, and many more - all 
projects where Red Hat controls the development, the commits. Doesn't leave much else.   Everyone running 
Linux runs Red Hat (unless you have no Xorg or udev, for example).  You can call this conspiracy but you'll 
notice they're simple facts.  Even Linus spends most of his time fighting Red Hat.  That's nothing new, nor 
is corporate incursion into Linux, but the engineering has definitely changed radically lately, taking us to 
a Microsoft Windows-called-Linux (the whole systemd debate).

Thus I think taking GTK+ out of Red Hat's hands, in any way possible (forking, etc), is wise.  I also think 
that getting control of their developers that obstruct and try to rule the bugtracker is wise, iif you think 
you really do have any say anymore.  If you don't do it, they're just destroying and overwriting the work 
people put into it.