Re: Misconduct of GTK+/glib Bugtracker Admins

[IgnorantGuru <ignorantguru openmailbox org>]

On Sun, 7 Jun 2015 23:34:44 +0200
Gergely Polonkai <gergely polonkai eu> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I didn’t really want you to believe me, I just shared my experiences,
> that’s all. I got help several times from these “Red Hat employees”
> before, although I wouldn’t say it came in an instant; I must confess
> that sometimes I bugged them or IRC before they answered my calls.
> The keywords here are patience, persistence and and politeness. I’d
> like to think I bear all these virtues and use them well. Reading
> your bug report and the original message, I think if you state your
> problems without getting personal with either them or the companies
> they work for (or you think they work for), you could have gotten
> more far.
>
> Yes, I also think they were not very respectful, but to be honest, you
> called for it: if you threaten someone by any means, don’t be
> surprised if they strike back. It goes just like this everywhere in
> this world.
>
> I will leave this thread alone now. Of course, if you have anything to
> discuss with me we can do that in private, and I hereby grant you to
> publish our discussions with my name if we do so.
>
> I still hope your problem gets solved, as I can see the use case and
> the annoyance of your users.
>
> Wishing you the best,
> Gergely Polonkai

Gergely,

It's not that I don't believe your experiences, but your rather negative interpretation of my motives and 
methods.  I'm not suggesting such developers can't be manipulated to do minor things by kissing ass - raging 
egos often can be manipulated that way.  How they respond when someone sticks to facts and relevant 
viewpoints is what matters - that's professionalism vs favoritism and bias.

I don't claim to be the most patient person, and we knew each other already, but my discussing Red Hat's 
history on that bug was not anger nor was it ranting.  I have a half million visitors to my blog that I have 
discussed all of this with plenty.  Ranting in a bug report doesn't make much of a dent.

Instead, I was informing others dealing with them that there was a history to the bug and their preferred 
solutions, and that some of what was being said was inaccurate.  I was providing important and very relevant 
context on it being an inter-DE issue, and I was disclosing their conflict of interest.  Even if this 
involves a company name or a developer's name (and I only mentioned them generally), it is relevant to how 
the bug is being addressed, and by whom.  The FACTS I presented just happened to be unflattering to their 
particular ears, so they thought it was fine to just delete and threaten people to remove the information.  
Nor is this an isolated case, but merely one of a long series of examples.

They conduct themselves as tyrants, simply put, and this project's contributors seem to be whipped into 
accepting such treatment.  I'm surprised to see a considerate person like yourself defending their behavior.  
I have no hatred of them - the internet is full of arrogant fools.  Yet putting them in charge of your 
project and doing as they say is another matter.

You also give them a benefit of the doubt I do not.  To me, their reason for instantly responding to and 
commanding all such bug reports is to control their direction for Red Hat and ilk.  To this end, they largely 
obstruct, rather than resolve.  Remember, these are not just good-hearted fellows donating their time.  
They're paid by a very large corporation and do what they're told to do, and don't do what they're not told 
to do.  And that very large corporation has different views on direction than most users of GTK+.  So you 
needn't defend them - they have plenty of PR people  and money to take care of that.

You might start defending the interests of yourself and libre software development instead, as I'm sure 
they're not the same as Red Hat's interests.