Re: News about the macro archive

[Peter Simons]

Tom Howard writes:

 >> That impression I have is very closely related to
 >> reading statements that are FACTUALLY UNTRUE.

 > I you want to call me a liar (or imply that I am one),
 > please be decent enough to refer to the exact points
 > where I lied.

I am sorry, you misunderstood me. I was just saying that
lots of the things you post are WRONG; I didn't mean you
imply you were doing it on purpose.


 > From this end it became a flaming when I dared to try to
 > convince you that a verbose license statement would be
 > better then just a keyword.

Don't forget to mention that "convincing" in this context
really means: "... when I was trying to commit verbose
license statements instead of the keyword that we agreed on
and when I didn't listen to you telling me a dozen times to
please not do it and kept debating and debating even though
the problem could have been long solved in a third of the
time either of us spend debating something we agreed on to
do otherwise earlier."


 > The stupid thing is that all you had to say was "Yeah
 > mate, I agree, but I want to use the keyword for the
 > moment and then when all the changes are complete switch
 > them a verbose license."

Tom, the stupid thing is that you didn't just do what we
agreed on! Let me quote from the private e-mail I sent you
on 2005-01-21:

 | Anyway, if you update your 'ac-archive' tree, you'll see
 | that I have converted all macros to the "new" format now.
 | All keywords are in place now. The value of @license
 | defaulted to "GPLWithACException", so if you want to
 | change any of the macros' states already, just edit that
 | to say
 |
 |   @license AllPermissive
 |
 | instead.

Where in that e-mail did you find anything about adding
verbose license disclaimers? So why did you do it? Why
didn't you speak up _right away_ instead of saying nothing
and doing something different than I expected?

Why didn't you reply: I am not convinced a mere @license
keyword will be enough to make everybody happy. How about I
add the verbose text?

Then I would have said: That's not necessary, my tool will
replace that tag with the verbose text. Until then, please
just edit the tag.

You may think that I should have communicated my intent more
clearly. Well, be my guest. I think you should have listened
to what I _did_ communicate.


 >>> I've made the licence changes that you requested (and
 >>> as your requested).
 >>
 >> I am sorry, but it is a little late for that.
 >
 > Yes, but only because instead of having a proper
 > discussion, you got annoyed and made the changes
 > yourself.

I did it myself because after a very lengthy discussion it
was becoming perfectly clear that you wouldn't do it, Tom.
And by the way: It took a bit over 30 minutes to do it. Now
that there is no more need to do anything -- because I did
it --, NOW you suddenly are all cooperative and teary eyed
and can't understand what happened. That sounded a lot
different a few days ago.

How about those "missing macros" that I didn't assign
properly? You've asked whether I'd want you to take care of
those and I said: Yes! Please do. Now check this out:

  peti:~/work/autoconf-archive/m4src$ cvs up
  peti:~/work/autoconf-archive/m4src$

See what is happening? _Nothing_ is happening.


 >> I appreciate it when people admit that they were wrong.
 >> Thank you for that.

 > And I would appreciate likewise if you admitted moving
 > all the files you knew I was working on without telling
 > me was wrong. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath.

You know what? I'll do something even more powerful than
apologizing for unreasonably using the version control
system that exists to coordinate asynchronous work from
different people. I'll tell you how to _solve_ a problem
like this the next time you have it. It's highly
sophisticated software developer know-how and I don't
usually tell these kind of secrets on public mailing lists,
but what the hell! Clearly, I fucked up, so I have an
obligation to share that little secret with you now.

Watch closely:

  mv legacy/*/*.m4 m4src/
  cvs up -P

I realize you couldn't possibly have that idea. So here we
go: I apologize for hopelessly screwing up the immense
effort you have been putting in something I didn't want by
moving a couple of files into a flat directory space using a
version control system.


 >> Since this is a project I do in my spare time, I am not
 >> interested in going through the immense effort of
 >> finding consensus, I am interested in running the
 >> archive I want to run.
 >
 > I see this is where we differ most on opinions. For my
 > projects, it's all about the community that surrounds it,
 > for the GNU archive, it's all about you. At least that's
 > how I read the above. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If you regard me not wanting to do what you want me to do as
not caring about the "community", then I guess you are
right.


 > Did I ever "interfere" with your work?

Well, no. Fortunately I made this massive CVS reorganization
that prevented you from interfering.


 > To all the people I have represented (possibly falsely)
 > in this discussion: Please tell me I'm wrong.

I have great difficulties taking people seriously who appeal
to authority rather than stating rational reasons for the
things they believe are right. It doesn't matter jack squat
how many people you can recruit to shout: "You are right,
Tom!" You could say the most insane thing -- like, "Windows
makes far more secure Internet servers than Unix does" --,
and you'd easily find thousands of people who'd agree with
you. So what does that say about the security of
Windows-based Internet servers? Zilch.


 >> I suggest we both speak for ourselves.

 > Guido has responded in agreement to some of my posts and
 > Alexandre likewise, I'll wait till I hear negative
 > feedback from the users and contributors first.

Okay. Then wait a little before you start speaking for
yourself. Fine with me.


 > If someone was pretending to represent me, and their
 > opinions differed from mine, I would speak up.

Yeah, Tom, but the little hidden assumption you make is that
you'd _know_ about it. Sorry to burst your bubble, but this
mailing list has approximately 7 subscribers.


 >> The reason why I don't trust you, Tom, is not this
 >> exchange; it is the fact that you were ignoring the
 >> agreement we had on how to update the content for the
 >> license disclaimer addition.

 > I was not ignoring you, I was trying to discuss it with
 > you.

You were trying to discuss it with me only _after_ you did
it differently than we agreed on? How is that gonna help
anyone?


 > If I was just ignoring you, I wouldn't have mentioned on
 > the list how I was doing the changes, I would have just
 > committed them my way. Please have the courtesy to
 > retract the above statement.

No. You did NOT mention on the list that you were doing
something other than I thought until the CVS move "broke"
your efforts. That was when I learned you were about to
commit verbose license disclaimers instead of the proper
keywords. And I have every indication that you _would_ have
committed them instead of the proper keywords, like we
agreed you would.


 >> I have no use for people who change plans without saying
 >> anything, especially if their spontaneous decisions
 >> spoil _my_ plans.

 > How did anything I committed spoil your plans?

Let me rephrase: "... their spontaneous decisions would have
spoiled _my_ plans."


 >>> [The ac-archive-build tree] did actually work, and I
 >>> gave you instructions on how it worked.
 >>
 >> [No, it did not, and I indicated so on the list.]
 >
 > I honestly do no have any such follow up. Can you please
 > point me to the exact email as I think I never received
 > it.

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/ac-archive-maintainers/2005-01/msg00222.html

Peter