Re: [PATCH] Revert Abortion joke removal.

[Jeff Law <law at redhat dot com>]

On 05/08/2018 10:27 AM, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On May  8, 2018, Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh@gotplt.org> wrote:
> 
>> No.  The intial commit got approvals from no less than 4 developers,
> 
> and opposition by one developer and the ultimate maintainer, and who
> knows how many other silent opposers like myself who decided not to post
> right away because there were other oppositions on the record already.
I've purposefully tried to keep my comments on this discussion to a
minimum -- I'm not a glibc steward or glibc maintainer.  Furthermore, I
have professional and personal relationships with many of the folks in
this discussion.  I don't want there to be any concerns of backlash if
the views of others on this thread do or do not line up with my own.

Having said that I do think I have some contribution to the discussion.

Simply I think the "joke" is inappropriate *for the glibc manual in this
day and age* and I see no fault in Zack's approval of the patch that
removed the joke.  Might it have been better had he reached out to RMS
prior to removal?  Sure.   Hindsight is 20-20.

How one views Alex's subsequent actions probably depends largely on how
one sees the governance model for glibc.

If you see RMS as the "ultimate maintainer", the putting the "joke" back
is carrying out the wishes of the ultimate maintainer and absolutely the
right thing to do.

If you don't see RMS in that role, then Alex's actions seem like they're
violating the consensus rules of the project.

And so I don't see malice or bad faith on either side.  Just a
fundamental difference of opinion on the underlying project governance
question.


I can't answer the governance question for glibc.    I might even argue
that now isn't the time to try and answer it -- tensions are relatively
high and based on prior experience tacking that question for GCC the
discussion could well bring more tension.

Getting everyone to take a deep breath, potentially tabling the
discussion of the joke, and returning to discuss project governance may
be the better way forward and guide the project for what to do about the
joke.  Those discussions can be hard.  If my input based on prior
experience is desired, I'm happy to try and help.



Jeff