Re: Recent disciplinary action taken

[AreYouLoco?]

Hi,

I am following project since few years. Happy coreboot user here.

And I was hesitating but finally I decided to post to the list.

Banning core developer for 1 year because of some disagreements sounds a bit harsh to me. Especially that I used to post questions on the IRC channel and mailing list and Nico was the only that actually took my personal struggles building coreboot as well as helped fixing one issue. If not that I would probabbly pass and walk away from actually using coreboot. And now I recommend it to others.

Its not defending. I just would like to express my personal experience here. That we are people. We make mistakes. If someone is not behaving maybe the person has some bad-bad day. Some kind of consecuence should be taken. Because without that we wont learn. Am I wrong? Bit still one year ban seems harsh to me. Thats it.

Just my 2 cents.

Orest,
aka AreYouLoco?

On October 3, 2024 2:05:12 PM UTC, [e-mail] wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> Re: Recent disciplinary action taken (Sergii Dmytruk)
> Re: Recent disciplinary action taken (Angel Pons)
> 2024-10-02 - coreboot Leadership Meeting Minutes
> ([e-mail])
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2024 15:03:42 +0300
> From: Sergii Dmytruk 
> Subject: [coreboot] Re: Recent disciplinary action taken
> To: Arthur Heymans 
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Hi
>
> I second that.  First Nico was banned from flashrom, now from coreboot.
> I saw no real basis for the previous decision and see none for this one.
> I even thought of him being overly nice in our recent interactions.
>
> In general, he seems to care much more about the projects than many
> others and actually put in the effort.  This can result in having strong
> opinions and disagreements, but that's not a bad thing.
>
> Regards,
> Sergii
>
> On Wed, Oct 02, 2024 at 11:55:55AM +0200, Arthur Heymans wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > I am not happy with this decision.
> > We are a community with a lot of passionate individuals that differ in
> > their communication style.
> > Differences in communication styles cause friction, there is no way around
> > it.
> > Commenting beyond the mere technical on how we treat each other in a
> > community is appropriate and not a violation of respectful conduct.
> > To the contrary, sometimes a more heated discussion is to be preferred to
> > be being "nice" all the time.
> >
> > I remember on one of my first patches in 2016, that Nico commented that the
> > code looked so bad he wanted to cry.
> > It's not "nice" but it was really bad code and I learned a lot since then,
> > thanks to the honest and truthful communication of the community.
> > More direct communication is preferred by lot of people, including myself.
> >
> > I believe Nico is a good actor in our community and a 1 year ban does more
> > harm than good.
> > I personally thoroughly enjoy having him as a reviewer.
> >
> > I ask the leadership to revisit this decision. Coreboot is a hard project
> > to get into and driving the most competent people away is not a smart move.
> >
> > Arthur
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 9:40 AM David Hendricks via coreboot <
> > [e-mail]> wrote:
> > > Dear coreboot community members,
> > >
> > > Recently there was some unpleasant activity on Gerrit which violated our
> > > community’s guidelines regarding respectful conduct. In this case the
> > > coreboot leadership team determined that the behavior in question fit a
> > > long pattern about which the individual had been previously warned. As a
> > > result we have decided to remove Nico from our community for a period of 1
> > > year. We hope this will be a sufficient cooling off period and that we will
> > > not need to take more drastic steps in the future.
> > >
> > > As we've said in the past, we trust that developers in our community are
> > > acting in good faith and can generally resolve issues on their own. In
> > > cases where two sides cannot reach an agreement, for example in a code
> > > review, we expect all engagement to be respectful and to help drive toward
> > > a solution. For technical matters this often means starting a mailing list
> > > discussion, bringing an issue up during the coreboot leadership meeting,
> > > starting a task force to tackle a large problem, or other means of
> > > gathering input and collaborating.
> > >
> > > Personal matters should be brought to the leadership team directly. We'll
> > > listen to any complaints or frustrations, but cannot tolerate personal
> > > attacks made on Gerrit, the mailing list, or other forums. It is always
> > > required that we treat others in a professional manner and communicate with
> > > respect, regardless of how strongly we may feel about a particular issue.
> > >
> > > If anybody feels that a discussion has become too heated, or that somebody
> > > is not being treated respectfully, or are simply unsure of how to proceed
> > > in a difficult situation, please reach out to the coreboot leadership and
> > > we will chart a path forward together.
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > coreboot mailing list -- [e-mail]
> > > To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2024 14:27:00 +0000
> From: Angel Pons 
> Subject: [coreboot] Re: Recent disciplinary action taken
> To: David Hendricks 
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Message-ID:
>    
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>    boundary="0000000000001580ce06237f3ca0"
>
> Hello list,
>
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2024 at 7:40 AM David Hendricks via coreboot <
> [e-mail]> wrote:
> > Dear coreboot community members,
> >
> > Recently there was some unpleasant activity on Gerrit which violated our
> > community’s guidelines regarding respectful conduct. In this case the
> > coreboot leadership team determined that the behavior in question fit a
> > long pattern about which the individual had been previously warned. As a
> > result we have decided to remove Nico from our community for a period of 1
> > year. We hope this will be a sufficient cooling off period and that we will
> > not need to take more drastic steps in the future.
>
> David, I see you are one of the three members of the leadership team [1].
> Could you please provide the following, privately if necessary?
> the minutes for the meeting in which the decision was made (which might
>
> contain references to the documents below; if the meeting minutes are not
> available, I would like to know why)
> links to the aforementioned "unpleasant activity on Gerrit"
> the guidelines from [2] or [3] (I could not find a document called
>
> "community guidelines") that were violated
>
> Not knowing what happened nor why makes me afraid to contribute, lest the
> same fate befall me as well. Especially considering that Nico has been a
> role model for me as I was learning the ropes of firmware development, so
> most of the things about coreboot as well as authoring and reviewing
> changes I have learned from him.
> > As we've said in the past, we trust that developers in our community are
> > acting in good faith and can generally resolve issues on their own. In
> > cases where two sides cannot reach an agreement, for example in a code
> > review, we expect all engagement to be respectful and to help drive toward
> > a solution. For technical matters this often means starting a mailing list
> > discussion, bringing an issue up during the coreboot leadership meeting,
> > starting a task force to tackle a large problem, or other means of
> > gathering input and collaborating.
> >
> > Personal matters should be brought to the leadership team directly. We'll
> > listen to any complaints or frustrations, but cannot tolerate personal
> > attacks made on Gerrit, the mailing list, or other forums. It is always
> > required that we treat others in a professional manner and communicate with
> > respect, regardless of how strongly we may feel about a particular issue.
>
> A tiny remark about professional manner: when interacting with others I
> know, I like sprinkling a bit of humour in my messages, but without being
> disrespectful towards anyone (no dark humour and no making fun of others)
> or compromising my knowledge/abilities (do not overdo it and consider that
> not everyone might get it). I believe this does not make me unprofessional,
> but I am happy to listen in case anyone disagrees.
>
> Other than that, I agree with the above, but I also believe it is important
> to be aware that misunderstandings can and will happen, especially
> considering that people from all over the world can contribute, each with
> their own culture and tradition. Not everyone is a native English speaker
> (even if it does not seem like it, I am not). Not everyone is capable of
> noticing when a discussion is getting too heated/tense, let alone do
> something to end it before it is too late (I am trying to get better at
> this). Not everyone communicates the same way, e.g. autistic people tend to
> communicate in direct and literal ways that can be misinterpreted by
> non-autistic people [4] (I am autistic, I have had this happen before),
> whereas other autistic people have no issues with this communication style.
>
> I believe that the information in [4] (especially the list of 12 rules) is
> valuable and I would appreciate having them integrated into our own
> guidelines, although I agree they should be guidelines rather than
> strictly-enforced rules: misunderstandings are *still* inevitable and will
> happen. In case of a misunderstanding, I think the most sensible way to
> proceed is for someone (preferably one of the participants) to notice that
> "something feels wrong" and remain calm, disengaging from the discussion if
> needed (e.g. wait before replying to an email or review comment). If
> possible, try to bring it up without pointing fingers, e.g. "I feel this
> discussion is heating up: is there anything I can do to help, or am I
> reading into things?" or (quoting a response) "This sounded quite rude to
> me, was it intentional?". This requires being able to recognise that
> tension is building up and restraining one's impulses; I understand this is
> not trivial to accomplish, especially if one is susceptible to getting
> angry (e.g. me).
> > If anybody feels that a discussion has become too heated, or that somebody
> > is not being treated respectfully, or are simply unsure of how to proceed
> > in a difficult situation, please reach out to the coreboot leadership and
> > we will chart a path forward together.
> > _______________________________________________
> > coreboot mailing list -- [e-mail]
> > To unsubscribe send an email to [e-mail]
>
> Best regards,
> Angel