Monday 10 August 2020

Re: Communication Improvements/frustrations

Hi Erich,

On Sun, Aug 09, 2020 at 08:19:34AM -0700, Erich Eickmeyer wrote:
> Hello everyone,

> I would like to profusely apologize for my previous email. I was
> calling-out some nonexistent bad faith which was wrong on my part.
> Steve, if you're reading this, I am so, so sorry. I know you have a lot
> on your plate and have done a lot for Ubuntu in general. I also may be
> unaware of items going on in your personal life. For what it's worth,
> I'm moving my family 300 miles eastward at the end of this month, right
> around Feature Freeze.

I want to say for the record that I do not think one's personal life should
ever be considered a valid justification for violating the Ubuntu code of
conduct, as was suggested had happened. Empathy for one's personal
circumstances is a part of community, but such circumstances should never
be seen as excusing mistreatment of others in contravention of our community
standards.

I'm sorry that any of my comments to you came across as belittling. My
intention has been to communicate as succinctly as possible the information
needed for understanding why the various teams' handling works as it does,
not to belittle.

I think you should also be aware that, where the question of favoritism
between flavors is concerned, UbuntuStudio has a much higher volume of
Ubuntu-specific NEW packages than any other community flavors do today.
Most other flavors are either largely steady state, or take almost all of
their packages via Debian sync. So I would say it's not so much that
UbuntuStudio is being discriminated against, as that the Ubuntu NEW queue in
general has a fairly low "SLA" and this has more of an impact on
UbuntuStudio than on other flavors.

> That said, I guess my frustrations are because the packages I have
> submitted for review are running out of time. With freezes
> fast-approaching, my fear is that I'll need to fix some packaging errors
> and won't have enough time to do so, and that I'll be back in the same
> situation with corrected packages but missed deadlines. I'm also working
> on a fork of ubuntu-mate-welcome (called ubuntustudio-welcome, no
> surprise there) which I *hope* to have submitted prior to feature
> freeze. Feature Freeze Exceptions are a painful process, and I've had
> very little luck in the past submitting them.

We do not generally regard new packages as requiring feature freeze
exceptions; and there's at least an informal policy that packages that were
uploaded before feature freeze will get reviewed prior to release. If the
Archive team is not delivering on this, then please do be noisy about it.

> So, I hope you all understand where I'm coming from. I'm sorry for the
> way I expressed my frustrations in my previous email. My bad faith
> accusations and personal attacks were completely unacceptable. So, I
> hope you can all find it in your hearts to forgive me for my actions.

Apology accepted :)

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer https://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org