ModMobbers in slashdot: it possible to supress information on the internet ? an example from dotgnu supressing bug reports

Posted 19 Mar 2004 at 21:47 UTC by mdupont Share This

Is it possible to supress information on the internet ? How can a gang of people work together to supress error and bug reports? How can they firewall themselves againt people who seek to exploit them? we take a case study from Slashdot.

The Dot GNU project lead by norbert bello and rhys weatherly carried out by richard bowman is systematically supressing information about the introspector project.

It has via its advocates created a virtual shield in slashdot to supress bug reports and error reports from being published. By downmodding articles in a gang, they attempt to firewall the public about thier own errors, they are attempting to supress information about error reports about code that contained pointer to functions handling errors while compiling the gcc and libx11 source code .

You can read about that right here : this article is downmodded as offtopic even though it is ontopic. I suspect it was one of the modmobbers in the firewall. Here I reply to the troll who carried out the operation


tired of conspiracies, posted 19 Mar 2004 at 22:10 UTC by deekayen » (Master)

Next on tonight's technology news, George W. Bush is actually an alien representative from Venus destined to impose alien ideals on Plant Earth.

There are plenty of places to post bug reports, vulnerabilities, and exploits.

I think you're whining, posted 19 Mar 2004 at 22:12 UTC by johnnyb » (Journeyer)

First, please don't confuse _articles_ with _comments_. Second, this seems just like whining. I would've modded you the same way, probably. Do you call conspiracy every time someone disagrees with you?

Given that DotGNU is not even at a 1.0 release, I would say that public error reports on the project would be misguided, because they aren't saying that they are for public use.

Why do you think that it is front-page advogato news that someone modded you down on Slashdot?

what?? Given that DotGNU is not even at a 1.0 release, I would say that public error reports on the project would be misguided, because they aren't saying that they are for public use. ??, posted 19 Mar 2004 at 22:28 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

can you please elaborate on that?

all errors are for public use of other developers in the open source projects, how can the open source community reject information that is relevant to the project. It is just a matter of time until the real reasons become evident.

an intelligent society is built on intelligent communication, and bug reports to a project is like the pollen of the bees. Both are harvested intro the honey of work of the project members or the bees.

Yes, but you're a jerk, posted 19 Mar 2004 at 23:01 UTC by johnnyb » (Journeyer)

I hate to be blunt, but your behavior is that of a jerk. I certainly would do all I can to ignore you and keep my sanity if you were using a piece of software I had written and were behaving in this way.

"how can the open source community reject information that is relevant to the project"

Maybe because the supplier of the information causes more distraction than help?

"It is just a matter of time until the real reasons become evident."

Like what? Some secret plot to bring you buggy software?

Also note.., posted 19 Mar 2004 at 23:02 UTC by johnnyb » (Journeyer)

When I used the term "public" error reports in my first posting, I was specifically referring to public forums such as Slashdot, not bug report databases.

Ultimately, no, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 01:23 UTC by Mysidia » (Journeyer)

Anyone and their dog can setup a web site or mailing list. People sometimes even manage to spread things over the internet that they're not allowed to (oh, like copyrighted music).

I receive thousands of spams a week in my various mail boxes. Information I would love to suppress, if only it wouldn't likely suppress legitimate mail too.

If it is feasible to suppress some specific kind of information on the internet, then I don't think anyone knows how.

Certainly individual sites can control what their visitors cause them to publish to the world, but this is their right.

Just like it's your right to delete spam from your inbox, or (if you're a maintainer) choose not to add a certain feature or accept a certain contribution to an OSS project.

Merely that people vote your comments to be of low rating, does not imply they are conspiring. You certainly have not shown any evidence to suggest this. Apply Occam's razor: a couple of moderators happen to have the same opinion.

Although Censorship, esp. Censorship Online is a long-debated topic. It's not a new question, and you aren't adding any real insight to it. I.E. What you have said about censorship is not useful IMO.

What do I think? I think the article isn't even about censorship, although it seems to pretend to be at first, while insinuating some XXX-wing GNU.Pnet conspiracy against efforts to report bugs in their software. I agree with the other commentors who liken it to some kind of whining rant, sorry.

The GNU project does a lot of good for the Open Source world. If someone wants to start saying bad things about their development team members for certain projects, then they better sure as **** better be backing up their claims with some logic.

Slashdot moderation of comments, not articles, is a means for the people running that site to help filter the hundreds of comments they get per article, so that the interesting, insightful, and worthwhile comments appear more prominently for most of their users who don't want to read offtopic material, for instance.

The Dot GNU project lead by norbert bello and rhys weatherly carried out by richard bowman is systematically supressing information about the introspector project.

Evidence? This claim without supporting evidence is practically defamatory in my eyes.

Sorry, in my estimation, the claims of this article are not well supported, it doesn't seem to me that it was written well, or provide any particularly novel insight. I don't believe it belongs on the front page.

Evidence, I would love to have a court order to produce it, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 10:32 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

If slashdot wants to publish the true authors of the modding, the we would have evidence. I dont have evidence, but I will put my hand in the fire if it was not someone from modmob.

Please note the following, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 10:43 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

If you would look into the problem at hand, you would see that these bugs were first blocked, but then fixed. That backpeddling is just proof that the bug was valid and welcome. The issue is not if the bugs were are fixed, but the hiding of them and the public refusal to fix them, and trying to downplay the backpeddling.

The reason why this diservice to the users of dotgnu and a violation of the implicit and unwritten rule that you have to share information about problems and solutions with each other and with the users.

Free software needs a free share of bug reports to maintain honesty and this implicit and unwritten rule. When savannah allows the project administor to close and hide bugs that are not closed. It is basically violation the trust of the users and supports of the project. It is basically lying to the public. Therefore this article, however badly written is a statement of the basic rights of the users of free software and is definitly worthly of the front page.

Well, time to calm down, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 11:53 UTC by yeupou » (Master)

As part of the conflict took place at Savannah and at that time I was deeply involved in Savannah, I now some details of the story.

I personally think that sometimes some of the dotGNU people have been unfair to mdupont, especially one person claiming that disregarding reports solely on the basis of the reporter name was acceptable.

However, mdupont apparently never tried to understood how to collaborate with dotGNU people.

To work together, you have to find a way to talk, and asking third parties to be judge of the issue is not an efficient way to go.

Mdupont, this story is a year old, now, isn't it? Do you think your approach solved the issue? Look around, people are calling you "jerk" and "fool", while I do not think you really are. You are just not serving your cause well.

Me detailling the issue: http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/savannah-hackers/2003-12/msg00107.html

A message from Rhys, incriminated by mdupont, explaining on what basis he rejected mdupont contribution (and, as such, explaining how mdupont could contribute without being reject): http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/savannah-hackers/2003-12/msg00140.html

specifically about savannah, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 11:58 UTC by yeupou » (Master)

mdupont wrote:

When savannah allows the project administor to close and hide bugs that are not closed. It is basically violation the trust of the users and supports of the project.

You brought that issue before, and you were given pointers on how to reports bugs for that project. Did you follow the instruction there: that's a starting point.

You cannot force people to work with you unless you are their hierarchical superior. When they're no way to work together, it is the end. Instead of asking third parties to interfere in your (non-)relationship with dotGNU people, why don't you just try to work in the way they work with anybody else?

(apart from that), posted 20 Mar 2004 at 12:03 UTC by yeupou » (Master)

Apart from that specific issue, mdupont, all these moderation systems on website are just plainly stupid, promoting elite crap and oligarchical mentality. What were you expecting from social systems built from scratch two or three years ago, that did not take into account for one second how societies have been built and ruled over 4000 years.

Yes, these systems does not really work. Just have to take a look on the current French governement or American government to get a picture on how good voting systems are hard to create.

So, when can we expect your system?, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 13:39 UTC by Arrowhead » (Journeyer)

Therefore this article, however badly written is a statement of the basic rights of the users of free software and is definitly worthly of the front page.

You are entitled to make yourself heard. Start a project, open a public bugzilla tracking the bugs you care about. Then fix those bugs yourself, you'll find the license on the code in question is designed to make that possible.

But don't confuse free software with free slave labour. If developers aren't reacting fast enough to your liking, you will have to start contributing code yourself, or convince other people to do so.

You're doing a stellar job on the latter... not.

Use Legal Terms, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 16:53 UTC by nymia » (Master)

It would probably be the best of all parties to say and write their post in legal terms as much as possible, since the issue is about an alleged act of whitewash or rubout. To protect the complainant and defendant from defamation, a suitable language should be adopted.

For example, the complainant, mdupont, is alleging persons Rhys et al of committing an offense known as whitewash, with falsification of information. Complainant is also alleging the other party committed an offense againt the rights of users and bug submitters. No response has been made by the defendants.

What say you?

Re: Use Legal Terms, posted 20 Mar 2004 at 17:08 UTC by tk » (Observer)

Forget it. I have no obligation to display other people's opinions and rants on my web site, and neither does anyone have the obligation to display my opinions on his web site. If mdupont wants to rant, he can rant on his home page, nobody'll stop him.

Can public services like savannah, slashdot, sourceforge that are intended to inform the the the potential customers interested in the truth about the free software be used to hide the truth?, posted 21 Mar 2004 at 21:34 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

I demand that the administrators of dotgnu respect my right to report bugs in the appropiate place about thier sofware to the savannah public.

The inconsistent behaviour displayed by first closing the bugs as invalid and then quietly fixing them is not fair or appropiate or even in the interests of savannah or the gnu project.

The public has the right to know the truth status of the project and not be fooled by whitewashed bug reports.

Can public services like savannah, slashdot, sourceforge that are intended to inform the the the potential customers interested in the truth about the free software be used to hide the truth?

The savannah bug tracker is used for a structured and emotionless reporting of bugs. There is nothing personal about my error messages, they are not an attack on anyones personality. It is just that I took the time to share my experience with using some software and choose to do so in a forum where other people are interested. I am sorry that we had so many bad interactions in the past, lets just stick to truth and leave the emotions aside.

I exercise the right as a authorised savannah project member and contribute bugs and patchs to to many projects of a semi regular basis. Sometimes they are trivial, but I try and report and fix problems that I see, even small ones. Many programs such as dotgnu are so huge that it is difficult to debug and fix bugs. I dont have the time to get into every program, and am not interested in the source code of every program, becuase some programs I just want to use.

My bug reports are first closed unfairly and then fixed by rhys. That implies the bug reports are useful and I should continue reporting new bugs.

It does and should not matter what the author of the software thinks about the priority of the bug report, at least they should all remain open until fixed.

The people *work* with or for me are doing so on thier own free will. I am not trying to force people to do anything.

The author is not forced to do anything about the bug, but the other users have the right to know. Starting another project to report the bugs would lose that

Respect to all the people who have a personal advantage to assist me, or peple who are interested in making things better, or who like my ideas.

Respect to all of you who are just willing to think about the problem that I am telling you is a real test of the social fabric that holds the free software community together.

Respect to Rhys for fixing all these bugs, to richard bauman for doing so as well,and respect to norbert for setting up the great infrastructure for dotgnu.

But shame on you for going to far and attempting to whitewash your problems away or the words of the people who you think are causing them.

The public expects that the truth be portrayed about free software and that they dont have to search 10 separate projects for bug reports for one peice software. People who want to help fix problems have the right to be able to see my bug reports.

The dotgnu project has a great team and I really liked working with them. It is great to see such a large group of intelligent people working towards a common goal.

I just want to share my experiences with compiling some real programs with pnet/c with other users. Savannah is the right place to do that, in the bug reports for the project. Savannah provides a public place for people to report bugs, why should I have to report them somewhere else?

Why should *anyone* support the hiding of bug reports to the public?

I have learned my lesson from the dotgnu ban!! I was guilty of endless talking about things with no real plan to implement them. Bantering along endlessly on my newest idea, but not getting it implemented. I accept that I was annoying people and have tried to stay away from dotgnu for months, and have been making real progress on the introspector project.

But I still use the software, I was trying to compile libx11 and the gcc itself using pnet/c and encounter errors. I would like to continue with that, but really am not interested in fixing the bugs in pnet/c. Is that a crime? No, it is that I am just using the software and dont want to have to be encumbered by having to fix it myself for every bug report or branch the software!

I try now to just post patches and bugs to people working on the projects that I am working on. There are a number of free software projects where I try and submit patches and bugs to. There has never been any problems of bugs being closed maliciously.

I hope that this is explained a bit better. mike

mdupont..., posted 22 Mar 2004 at 03:18 UTC by tk » (Observer)

...please, learn to write less verbosely.

Update!! One of the two Offtopic mods has been negated, posted 22 Mar 2004 at 09:45 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

It looks like something positive is happening because of the issue I have made of this! Originally the article was off topic by -2,

Now, thanks to all you people out there, the main article is up to -1 and it seems to be balancing itself out.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100463&cid=8566525

    Moderation -1
  • 60% Offtopic
  • 20% Insightful
  • 20% Underrated

Thanks again!

mike

Reply to "Can public services like savannah, slashdot, sourceforge that are intended to inform the the the potential customers interested in the truth about the free software be used to hide the truth?", posted 22 Mar 2004 at 11:21 UTC by yeupou » (Master)

mdupont, did you read my post?

You ask:

Can public services like savannah, slashdot, sourceforge that are intended to inform the the the potential customers interested in the truth about the free software be used to hide the truth?

Where did you read that these services purpose was to bring the truth, whole truth, nothing but the truth? Savannah explicitely stated purpose is to be a software development platform. Nowhere it is said how hosted projects should be managed.

As I wrote, unless you are hierarchically superior (boss, sponsor, etc...) to the members of project, there is no way at all for you to impose your view; including your views on project management.

In the case of dotGNU, only Richard Stallman can impose something to the project.

If you are not happy with how this project is managed, create your own!

I'm not saying that you should not be complaining about it. You have a right to complain about what you think is wrong, just like you have a right to make a stand for what you think is right. Maybe it could help, even if, in this case, it does not looks very successful. But asking third parties to get involved while they have no more right than you to impose something is just inappropriate. What were you expecting?

What am I expecting? Honesty, posted 22 Mar 2004 at 14:57 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

yeupou, you say that nowhere is it said how projects should be managed. There are many guidelines from the GNU project, from stallman and from others. None of them talk about hiding bug reports, but at least accepting them and archiving them.

So for you, if a bug is closed based on policy, not on merit, then it is just a project management decision? I still think this is cheating the public.

I expect that a certain level of honesty is expected from the project memebers. Just like on ebay, you should have a set of rules that protect people from abusing each other.

As to all the calls for me to just start my own project, again, what is that supposed to help? I have already explained why it is a disservice to the public to have all the bugreports spread out over 10 projects. What is the benefit there?

I tried to use the channels available to me to resolve this problem, but to no avail. If there is no way for me to have my issue dealt with in a fair way, of course I will not just give up. That would be admitting defeat. Instead I try and find a place were people are interested in the truth, where I can get a neutral opinion.

I think that it is fair and needed in open source to allow for a certain level of interaction, and bug reports should not be completly under the control of the project maintainer. Can you really hold it against me for acting the way that I did? Do you think that I have that many options available to me when put into a situation like this?

mike

"The public", posted 22 Mar 2004 at 15:18 UTC by tk » (Observer)

mdupont:

I have already explained why it is a disservice to the public to have all the bugreports spread out over 10 projects.

Oh, please. "The public" really doesn't care about your project. Stop that moral posturing.

You cant force honesty, unless you have some authority, posted 22 Mar 2004 at 17:44 UTC by yeupou » (Master)

mdupont:

you say that nowhere is it said how projects should be managed. There are many guidelines from the GNU project, from stallman and from others. None of them talk about hiding bug reports, but at least accepting them and archiving them.

Firstly, you were talking about Savannah and al. These rules applies to the GNU Project, not Savannah itself, that host many non-GNU projects. If stated rules of the GNU Project seems not respected by this people to you, name that rules and ask GNU leaders to explain their point of view. As I said, apart RMS, nobody as authority on these project leaders.

Secondly, no bugs are hidden. A closed bug is still searchable at Savananh, and most projects got their reports forwarded to some mailing-list, with, usually, public archives. So your reports are in no way hidden. They may be closed wrongly, but, still, nobody removes your contribution: some people just disregard your contribution, and I think they have the right to do so. Just like people not reading this article have the right to do so.

So for you, if a bug is closed based on policy, not on merit, then it is just a project management decision? I still think this is cheating the public.

It would be cheating the public if somewhere it was said that any bug report would be taken care of. Is it? They have the right to disregard your contribution, you cannot and should not be able to force people to listen to you. If you want people listenning to you, you have to catch their interest. And you failed at that job with dotGNU people. I do not blame you, it happens to everybody. But you misinterpret the situation.

expect that a certain level of honesty is expected from the project memebers. Just like on ebay, you should have a set of rules that protect people from abusing each other.

You cannot have such expectation. You are not buying anything, unlike at ebay. And on ebay, there is no rule that force people to buy what you sell: that's what you are asking for, a rule that would force people to be interested in your items.

As to all the calls for me to just start my own project, again, what is that supposed to help? I have already explained why it is a disservice to the public to have all the bugreports spread out over 10 projects. What is the benefit there?

We all agree that everybody should be working together for the best: unfortunately, it does not work so easily. Do you really think you can still work with the dotGNU people right now? Maybe later, but currently, I do not see how could that be. So right now, you have to options: start your own project or incitate people to start the project, drop the issue.

You always talk about rules of the GNU Project. Did you realized that the GNU Project was started because collaboration was no more possible? It is sad, but it happens all the time. And that maybe why Free Software is best: when you fork, when you cannot any longer communicate, you can still work "together" by grabbing each other works.

I was personally highly disappointed by the orientation of GNOME 2. What did I do? First, I complained, and questioned these new orientations. I did not convinced GNOME 2 people -- I did not talked to them directly, I have no time and enough knowledge for that. I did not started a fork either, no time, no knowledge. So I just faced the reality: GNOME 2 was about to be something of no interest to me, and step by step, I stopped using it, because it was not any longer what I was expecting. I still think many bad choices has been made, making GNOME 2 far less interested and promising than GNOME 1 (at least from a user point of view) -- that's a personal point of view, indeed -- but that's life. If it was so so important to me, I would have to do what would be needed to either change GNOME people orientations or to create a fork: a heavy work. But it was not so important to me, and, as matter of fact, I was very positively surprised by KDE 3, so it, in a practical way, fixed the issue.

if there is no way for me to have my issue dealt with in a fair way, of course I will not just give up. That would be admitting defeat. Instead I try and find a place were people are interested in the truth, where I can get a neutral opinion.

It is strange: when people just disagree with you, you claim they ignore the truth. What truth? The truth that you cannot work with dotGNU people? Let's face reality.

I think that it is fair and needed in open source to allow for a certain level of interaction, and bug reports should not be completly under the control of the project maintainer.

You are maybe right. As a matter of fact, many companies and project edicted rules in order to avoid a "maintainer" to do whatever he wants. Debian got rules, for instance, on bug tracking management.

As I said before, it is a management issue, and as long as you are not a manager, there is nothing you can do against. Or maybe you can complain for a while and make a proposal. But if people dont listen to you, like currently, you're just in a dead-end.

Can you really hold it against me for acting the way that I did? Do you think that I have that many options available to me when put into a situation like this?

It is not a trial, it is not about holding charges against you. You probably tried your best, and your motivations are probably good ones. But motivation is not enough, you failed to communicate with them, and this whole thread will not help.

Complaining about it is a failure: it will not change, nobody that have authority on the project made a move. So now, you have to move on. So complaining about it is not any longer a real option, you know it is not a successful mean.

Possible Conclusion : The Bazaar Analogy Soapbox Rant, posted 22 Mar 2004 at 19:56 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

/me gets up on the soap::box and rants one more time : Thanks yeupou for careful explaination. I see that you are right on the level of me having no leverage to accomplish my goals at this point with my current method.

My method has been seen as powerless whining, and not as a powerful solution that demonstrates a real alternative that you would be prepared to fight for and is worthwhile in helping me out with.

But via this discussion we have discussed a lot about how the rights, the rules and the emotions of the free software community. Therefor I would like to introduce some analogies taken from the Bazaar model to help synthesis some new solutions and give the problem a better context in the minds of all you people listening to me out there.

The free software community found at savannah, advogato, slashdot is more like a bazaar in that respect, where each person pays the "rent" of the stand by producing package, however they feel like and according to thier own judgement (within the law). So the software that they produce is like a package that the buyer can download and put into a shopping basket. But the patch as well.

So with that analogy, If the dotgnu people dont want me at thier stand, then I should not put things into thier basket or onto thier stand. If people want my goods (bug reports, possible patches etc) then It would be my job to deliver to those who are interested.

This analogy allows us to solve the rest of the problem, think about it, it is really turning into, how can I become a productive member of the bazaar and not get on other peoples nerves whining all day.

Should I prepared to stop using the dotgnu project, and via using it, maybe stop finding bugs or even producing patches? I think not. They produce good packages that are good for many things. They have not forbidden me from downloading that package nor do they intend to. They just want to be free of my trying to "improve" thier system and making a lot of noise in the process. In the bazaar analogy, I just dont go to thier stand unless to get the latest version, but stay at mine and sell my wares. In this model, I just dont go back to them for support, but support myself. That is more work but forces me to be a productive member of society.

There is an issue with "harrassment" to deal with, and that I will have to leave the people who feel annoyed alone and respect thier decision to not have me around them. If I am disturbing them then I should just concentrate on my stuff and try and be more independant. With the bazaar analogy, I should be at my stand, selling my goods and trying to get more customers.

One way for me to handle this issue is to track the original copy in a specialized tracker on my project with the category to prevent them from being closed prematurly. Then users who are interested can still see the fact that the bug report is open. I should also track the changes to fix it and have a patched version available for delivery. If I am working with many projects, that can all be done via catagories and other mechanisms in one savannah project. With the bazaar analogy, my stand will have current versions of all the projects that I am selling in a package, all working togeather via the common introspector rdf subsystem. That would be my goods to sell.

My bugs reports have been proven to be somewhat valuable by the virtue that 99% of them has been fixed. Now here we get into the situation that might hurt me the most : the dotgnu team could refuse to support the fixing of the bugs in any way. The only way that I could really win is if the customers came to me first for getting a customized version of the dotgnu project, but whent back to the dotgnu team for repairs.

We have not talked about customers bringing goods back in the baazar analogy. That would be in the bazaar like you going back and bringing a item back for repairs. Of course you can only do that if you expect that person to be at the baazar next week. If they are wandering around then you are out of luck.

Of course it would be possible that the dotgnu team could refuse to support the fixing of the bugs in any way. But with luck the existing customers of dotgnu would be interested in trying out my custom version and the bug reports would be reproducable on the original version that they got from dotgnu. Then they would be able to submit the bug report in full detail. In the analogy they would be

The advantage that I provide is then a detailed bug report with a test case that is easy to reproduce that will save people time if they are using my modified version of the dotgnu system .

If I stop posting bug reports of value to the other project, there is a loss that others might be reporting the bug twice and wasting time. That is of course if I am producing something valueable. But If according to the analogy, I am selling a better version and have a well written bug report as a part of my high level of quality in testing, then people might just grab both of them into thier basket, and drop one off at the other stand.

Of course the ideal situation would be to have someone from the dotgnu project picking up the bugs. But that will only happen when there are seen as valueable by someone else besides me.

At least this solution would be feasable and produce less noise.

I have registered the fact that many people are getting annoying by my whining. Hopefully you find this analogy interesting.

Thanks again for your advice, and for your time in listening to me.

mike

ps : if you want to chat, you can find me in the irc.freenode.net:#introspector channel or jabber://mdupont@nureality.ca

people can do whatever they like, posted 23 Mar 2004 at 05:39 UTC by trance9 » (Master)

Mdupont: Free software is about people doing whatever they like. It is not about telling other people what to do. Above you start a post, "I demand that the administrators of dotgnu..." and then go on to berate them for not doing what you would like them to do. Who are you anyway? The King of England? Why should they do what you want? They can do WHATEVER they like. If they like, they can ignore you and delete all your bugs. They can delete their entire software project if that's what they would like to do. They can do whatever they want to do.

The wonderful thing about free software is you also can do whatever you like. If you don't like the way the dotGNU people do things you can copy all their software to your own website and do it differently. Maybe other people will like your version better. Maybe other people won't. But in any case, you are free to do whatever you like.

You are NOT free to go around demanding anything of anybody else.

I'd mod your /. messages down too, posted 23 Mar 2004 at 08:45 UTC by abraham » (Master)

It is a question of style. You come across as a mindless whiner, who are trying to cover your lack of social skills by using big words and conspiracy theories. It does not matter whether your case have any merit, if you are not able to present it coherently.

It is relatively rare that one is giving mod points, and it is relatively rare that an issue one is personally involved in come up on /., so the old saying "never assume malice for what can adequately be explained by stupidity" can be applied to /. moderations. In other words, given that /. moderators rarely have any special knowledge on the issue at hand, you can safely assume that moderation will be done on presentation, not on merit.

Work on your presentation skills. In particular, you will probably find that underselling your case works better than overselling it.

Wrong definition of "public", posted 23 Mar 2004 at 20:49 UTC by deekayen » (Master)

mdupont: I second trance9. Just because a project or website is available to the public doesn't make it the equivilent of a government program. You use savannah, slashdot, advogato, and sourceforge as examples as if they're sponsored by tax dollars with full time employees. All of them could say that they're closing their website to non-subscription paying customers. Then what would you do?

You can't demand anything from them. Rather than berating them, you should be grateful and thank them for spending their free time, extra money, and knowledge to release what they otherwise could make proprietary software to the internet for free, at no cost, and ask nothing in return. That's the best part of all.

You could download 100Gb of files from Sourceforge. The bandwidth you use would show up on the VA Software colocation bills, and nobody at VA Software would send you a bill. You should feel guilty for not contributing something back to the dotGNU project in excess of what they have provided you rather putting forth so much effort to make them look like bad people.

Moreover, Slashdot is not a bug database. I would mod you down in Slashdot for making a bug report in reply to a story on a software release for it being off topic. It belongs in a bug database, not a news syndiation discussion forum. If a project closes a bug with a "Won't fix" resolution, maybe what you think is a bug is nothing more than the intended output or result from what the project leaders think should be happen.

I ran a once popular GPL'ed project. I refused to add certain features to it and it was forked. The fork became more popular and my project died off. Perhaps you could do the same. I know it's possible.

Re: wont fix, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 04:40 UTC by diablod3 » (Apprentice)

Im saying this in a generic, non-refering-to-dotgnu, way: When developers mark things as "wont fix", this often means one of the following:

a) Its a huge bug and the developers are being lazy.
b) Its a small bug, and the developers are being lazy.
c) The developers hate you, and wont fix any bug you report.
d) The developers refuse to rethink the way they implemented something to do things saner, in a non-"bug"-causing way. See also item a.

Rarely, its:
e) There really isnt a bug, and thats the intended behavior. On large projects, intended behavior _should_ mesh with what users think things should do. If it doesnt mesh, see item d.

Now, the perfect developer never does a, b, c, or d; and the user is just being stupid, and its reason e. Sadly, there is no such thing as a perfect developer.

Now, as for gnudot and mdupont: gnudot did something "wrong" (or so mdupont says), mdupont reported it and it got closed under item d, mdupont insulted gnudot in public, gnudot will now refuse all bug reports as under item c _and_ fired back, then both sides don flame-retardant suits.

As I see it, mdupont did something stupid by bitching in public. Gnudot did something stupid by bitching back in public. If this was irc, I would tell you both to put each other on perminent ignore.

Re: wont fix, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 04:57 UTC by tk » (Observer)

diablod3:

On large projects, intended behavior _should_ mesh with what users think things should do.

I have to disagree here. Some users may believe that the Linux kernel should be a web browser, but so what? Developers are also users, and the only users who are allowed to dictate what the project does are, well, the developers themselves.

I must say, throughout this entire thread I've not seen what the "bug" itself really is.

Re: wont fix, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 17:52 UTC by abraham » (Master)

I'd thought "wont fix" would mean:

f) Fixing this could be useful, but is outside the scope of this project.

g) Fixing this would be useful, but would as a side effect open a number of other bugs.

h) Fixing this would be useful, but not useful enough to justify the added complexity.

Reverse Decisions and Whitewashing, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 18:20 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

I just want to repeat myself here one last time, becuase something seemed to have gotten lost :

The bug *did* get fixed. First it was closed because I was banned. Then it was fixed a couple of weeks ago. What I am complaining about is that all my bugs get fixed, but I am still being treated like a criminal.

The issue is that there seems to be no control or consistency in the project. I am banned with the reasoning that I don't produce anything of value, but my bug reports are treated as if they were valuable.

I put alot of time in making bug reports, making simple and easy to reproduce test cases. Giving them good names and trying to imagine how they might be caused.

I remember on day that rhysw said that he cannot wait to get home and fix one of the bugs I posted.

The bugs that I were reporting were complilation errors when using pnet/c on real C code. Like libx11, gcc or perl itself. That was a real test of the c compiler.

The reason why they were fixed is because they were valid bugs, I was one of the first and few people to use or report bugs on pnet/C.

mike

None of the above, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 18:23 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

It is more like :

f: Wont fix because user is getting on my nerves. The bug is there, other people will find it and complain, we will sometime fix it, but we hate having it come from this annoying person, can you please make someone we like do this dirty work of testing our buggy software?

What the &quobug&quo itself really is : savannah bugs item_id 6929, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 21:59 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

tk I must say, throughout this entire thread I've not seen what the "bug" itself really is.

You can read more about this here in my diary entry:

I posted this bug report on Tue 12/02/03 at 14

Item Group:None Resolution:Fixed Assigned to:None Status:Closed Summary: problem with expression statement type evaluation

Original Submission: Before you say that this is never used, the entire gcc is full of them.

typedef struct foo
{
int x;
int y;
} foo_t;

foo_t * a;

int boo() { ({ foo_t * b=a; b; })->x; // test1.c:15: request for member `x' in something not a structure or union }

Bug submission from banned contributor. Closed without considering it as per previously stated policy. rweather Tue 12/02/03 at 16:59

One of the interesting comments was : Without consideration? I wouldnt reject a patch from bill gates himself without consideration, how does this uphold GNU values? alexbsa Tue 12/02/03 at 18:56

THREE MONTHS PASS

Fix committed to CVS - 17 Feb 2004 rweather Mon 02/16/04 at 18:41

History Of backpeddeling :

Date 	Changed By       Action
Mon 02/16/04 at 18:41	rweather BACKPEDDLED from  Invalid to Fixed
Tue 12/02/03 at 16:59	rweather MADE INVALID    

All of them could say that they're closing their website to non-subscription paying customers. Then what would you do?, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 22:23 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

mdupont: I second trance9 Just because a project or website is available to the public doesn't make it the equivilent of a government program.

True

You use savannah, slashdot, advogato, and sourceforge as examples as if they're sponsored by tax dollars with full time employees.

False

I try and contribute to projects and appeal to your sense of ethics. I know that I have no influence, but am trying to make a stand against what I see as discrimination.

All of them could say that they're closing their website to non-subscription paying customers. Then what would you do?

I am savannah, sourceforge, gforge, and objectweb project member. A real netwhore. But I am also setting run my own gforge server on one of my two colocation servers and will be able to provide backup cvs for projects that are affected by attacks. (Until I myself am attacked)

If I was shut down off of sourceforge for having too much disk space, I would offer to pay $50 a year for it or negotiate a deal. The same for savannah. I would pay $1 per bug that someone would submit for me to the site the blocked me. Then I would surly find some captialist who would report the bugs for me. I pay for dyndns, paypal, ebay, dhl, colocation, hardware, deutsch bank, visa, mastercard, deutschbahn, taxis, telefon, dsl, isdn and mobile. All of that is running costs of my new business, the enterprise introspector that I am setting up.

I would be even willing to donate $100 dollars to dotgnu a year if they would treat me at least as a customer and not as a criminal.

Otherwise if they dont want to do that, I am prepared to pay in advance for 100 bug reports to be filed for me in that project.

So there, you have a challenge from me and a proposed solution, any takers?

mike

again, posted 25 Mar 2004 at 23:19 UTC by trance9 » (Master)

mdupont, when are you going to stop?

if you think they run their project badly then copy the code to your own site and do a better job. that's the beauty of free software: if you don't like the developer, or if the developer doesn't do a good enough job, then you can take over!

the dotgnu people can do whatever they like: if they like to ban you from their project and delete all the bugs you file while fixing them, or whatever else, that's their right. why bother complaining about it?

if it makes their project worse off that's an opportunity for you to do a better job. if you really don't care about it enough to go and set up an alternate project then honestly you don't care about it enough to be bringing it to advogato, slashdot, or anywhere else.

Ethics and Morals, posted 26 Mar 2004 at 01:40 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

trance9 : the dotgnu people can do whatever they like: if they like to ban you from their project and delete all the bugs you file while fixing them, or whatever else, that's their right. why bother complaining about it?

They can do what ever they want? Well I think that there are ethical limitations to what should be allowed to do with your contributors. In any case, I have made my stand here.

I am just answering questions and coming up with solutions. I like the idea of paying people to report my bugs.

mike

Re: Ethics and Morals, posted 26 Mar 2004 at 02:06 UTC by tk » (Observer)

I read the bug report. It seems the maintainers are willing to fix the bug, but they'd like to do it in their own time, at their own pace. Now it seems you want them to fix it immediately, within the next second. You call that ethical?

Let me tell you: if this is the behaviour I get from customers, I don't want the $100!

I just want fair treatment!, posted 26 Mar 2004 at 04:51 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

I just ask that the statements about me making no contribution be revised in light of my bug reports being all fixed. mike

A solution, posted 26 Mar 2004 at 10:10 UTC by redi » (Master)

mdupont has been hard done by, and the dotGNU developers have treated him unfairly. I propose we start a collection and use the funds to pay for a team of /.ers to mod his postings up en masse. Please make a donation at http://savemike.sf.net/ and help free the dotGNU one!

Alternatively, if you're of the view that this is clash of personalities and therefore a problem between him and the dotGNU team, and this article has only served to highlight the silliness that has gone on, feel free to donate your money to a better cause such as helping to pay the fine levied by the EU on Microsoft.

Misunderstanding, posted 27 Mar 2004 at 00:23 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

tk writes :"I read the bug report. It seems the maintainers are willing to fix the bug"

Did you comprend that the bug is fixed already and that I never cared if they fixed it, just that other people who use the project have the right to know abou the status of it?

If you read anything up this issue and my summary in the last postings you would see that you might have misunderstood something. Or was it me?

mike

Re: Misunderstanding, posted 27 Mar 2004 at 03:49 UTC by tk » (Observer)

mdupont: People using the project have every right to use the dotGNU software, to modify it, to redistribute it, etc. according to the GPL. They have no right to give $100 a year to make the developers their slaves, or to demand that the developers notify them real-time about every little bug there is in the project, etc.

redi: Hey wait, I thought mdupont's willing to fork out his own cash to help in the Great Cause of Freeing DotGNU From The Clutches Of Evil Developers?

Fair treatment?, posted 28 Mar 2004 at 06:05 UTC by deekayen » (Master)

mdupont: Fixing bugs you report in a free software project has nothing to do with ethics. If I have a legitimate bug in my free software and just don't feel like fixing it, that doesn't mean I'm discriminating against the bug reporter. You use discrimination almost like a KKK guy making a black dude sit at the back of the bus.

I would be even willing to donate $100 dollars to dotgnu a year if they would treat me at least as a customer and not as a criminal.

If you're making a donation for a product that has no price, that hardly makes you a "customer", just a nice financial contributor. I don't know where you're pulling this criminal stuff from though. Seems to me like "criminal" just got thrown in there to over-dramatize your case.

Report bugs when you see them. Contribute patches if they're moving slowly. Thank them when the patches are put in CVS. Donate money if you like the software. Just don't tell a bunch of people that spend their time to create software at no charge or cost to you that they're treating you like a criminal and trying to cover up some strange, one-man conspiracy. You want "fair", but aren't so yourself. If you don't like that, fork it. That's a slap in the face to the original developers in itself (if the fork is successful).

Offer for a Solution to end the discussion., posted 31 Mar 2004 at 11:45 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

deekayen wrote mdupont Fixing bugs you report in a free software project has nothing to do with ethics. If I have a legitimate bug in my free software and just don't feel like fixing it, that doesn't mean I'm discriminating against the bug reporter. You use discrimination almost like a KKK guy making a black dude sit at the back of the bus.

The ethics bit is about honesty. If someone says that the reason for banning you is because you make no contribution, but still obviously appreciates your bug reports, but says they are closed, yet fixes them silently.

That behaviour from rhysw is all not straightforward or honest in the respect to my contributions to dotgnu when focused on the bug reports.

I can see that he does not want me on the chat or mailing list, that is fine, but the bug reports should be at least treated fairly, openly and honstly.

The discrimination against me is deeper than this bug report, and if you read up on any of this, you will see.

deekayen wrote futhermore Just don't tell a bunch of people that spend their time to create software at no charge or cost to you that they're treating you like a criminal and trying to cover up some strange, one-man conspiracy.

The criminal feeling that I have is that I feel that my contributions are being treated is an dis-criminatorial manner. The term criminal is contained in the word discrimination. The heart of the matter is that I would like to deal with these people in a professional, honest and open manner. I have learned my lessons and seen my mistakes of spamming them with too many ideas and not following up on them.

My offer of paying per bug report still stands, I could offer to donate $1 per bug report that is allowed to be entered in and not "closed per policy" of mine as sponsorship directly. I could also donate that money in reverse for the bugreports that I have filed and were fixed (54$) at this time. I will only interact with them via bug reports and patches, and not bother them in any other way. That is my offer to end this discussion.

mdupont

Just to say..., posted 31 Mar 2004 at 16:39 UTC by tk » (Observer)

mdupont:

...the words "discrimination" and "criminal" both derive from the Latin word cernere "to sift, determine". That doesn't look very criminal to me.

If you think you were unfairly discriminated against, do you remember why you were given this discriminatory treatment in the first place? Is it because of race? Or nationality? Or sex? No, it's because of your spamming. Perhaps you can tell me why, after you've spammed the bug database for so long, people should immediately pay attention to your next bug report.

If you've learnt your lesson, the onus is on you to inform the dotGNU developers that you've done so. You've no right to demand that the world immediately accept you.

The term "ass" is contained in the word "embarassment", posted 1 Apr 2004 at 15:56 UTC by redi » (Master)

The heart of the matter is that I would like to deal with these people in a professional, honest and open manner. I have learned my lessons and seen my mistakes of spamming them with too many ideas and not following up on them.

If this article is an example of how you deal with people in a professional manner then god help us all when you behave childishly.

My offer of paying per bug report still stands

Noone has any obligation to accept your offer or your money.

I hereby offer to pay the Queen £5 everytime she does my laundry.

Discrimination is a right, posted 1 Apr 2004 at 18:34 UTC by abraham » (Master)

The right to discriminate against pompous whining lusers by ignoring them until they eventually learn to behave like human beings, is probably the most basic right for any hobbyist or freelance programmer.

Some professionel programmers have given up that right, in the case where pompous whining lusers are paying customers of the company employing the programmer. But please let's not let such inhuman working conditions infect free software projects. Working on free software should be fun!

I give up!, posted 5 Apr 2004 at 11:12 UTC by mdupont » (Master)

OK. Due to overwelming response I drop my charges against the dotgnu folks. I will just leave them alone. Sorry to bother you all.

mike

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