Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3625 mails)

[Andreas Jaeger <aj@xxxxxxx>]

Clayton <smaug42@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

> I attended a conference in California last year and Josh Berkus was a
> presenter.  He talked for an hour on this very subject.... his
> presentation is here:
>
> http://www.powerpostgresql.com/download/TFCKUpload/25.pdf

I'm aware of the google presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/oscon2007/os-fitzpatrick-sussman

Where they say that at one point you need to make a stand against them.

Thanks for that link.

> He makes a clear point about "Poisonous People" that all open source
> communities should pay attention to.... To effectively _destroy_ your
> community.... quoting....
> =======
> Maximize the damage they can do!
> 1. Argue with them at length
> 2. Denounce them venomously
> 3. Ban them
> 4. Argue with them in other projects
> 5. Allow them back into your project
> 6. GOTO 1
> =======
> It seems that we as the openSUSE community are following these steps
> exactly.  That is _not_ a good thing.

We're at number 3 and did not allow him back in the project.  He come
back under disguise - took a shortcute ;-)

Read again what I wrote: 

  In the meantime, we would like to remind others on the mailing lists
  to stop responding to his emails.

I agree, we have to stop at number 1 and discourage him instead of
encouraging.

> Something to think about.  Do we take steps to eliminate dissenting
> opinions?  Or do we allow it?  Do we label someone as poisonous to the
> community and ban them?  What if the point they are making, although
> maybe poorly stated, is a valid one?

We're not speaking about his points about KDE4, we're speaking about his
violation of our rules in the past.

> This is a critical point in this community's evolution... and whatever
> action that is taken, it MUST be taken with full knowledge of the long
> term effects.

Let's followup on the project mailing list, reply-to is set,

Andreas
-- 
 Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform / openSUSE, aj@xxxxxxx
  SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
   Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
    GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F  FED1 389A 563C C272 A126