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FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby legoboyvdlp » Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:18 pm

Indeed. But wait. I am not accusing you of slander. Besides the curt email, which he apologized for,where has IH - CO made slander?

(Nothing to do with me obviously, but if nobody posts about this for one day/week, it might serve to calm the wildfire of bickering.)
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Torsten » Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:49 pm

Hooray wrote in Fri Apr 24, 2015 5:12 pm:However, I stand by my offer to set up a forum poll to conduct a democratic survey and see how many contributors would want to see IAHM-COL post "as is".


Wow, we have come a long way in this discussion. Many parts of that way were very, very unpleasant for many of us.
We seem to now have reached very nasty point.
Starting a public, pseudo-democratic poll about a single person is completely unacceptable for me, no matter who that person is what what that person did or what the intention behind that poll is.

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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby clrCoda » Fri Apr 24, 2015 7:53 pm

When a website cracker and I had an argument in this forum and an admin decided to remove the entire conversation, I had no problem with that.

I have been fully expecting the exact same treatment with these arguments that have been going on for seems more than a month now.

Admin, be fair and do as you did to me, and go back and delete all of this nonsense. There is not a word of help to the flightgear community in any of it.

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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Hooray » Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:39 pm

You should look at my comments in the proper context, i.e. the terminology used by a few people was "dictatorship" if I remember correctly, which is why I suggested to see if there really is only a minority of people (="dictators")annoyed by what's going on or if there are indeed more people affected (community/end-users), which should demonstrate pretty clearly if such decision-making is purely based on "dictatorship" or community consensus.

Like I said previously, it's not my call at all, so no need to get wound up in this, equally there's no need for any behind-the-scenes messaging about such postings - and the suggestion wasn't about a single person, but about certain behavior. And in fact, phpBB specifically supports this out of the box, and it works very well for thousands of phpBB installations
Please don't send support requests by PM, instead post your questions on the forum so that all users can contribute and benefit
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Buckaroo » Fri Apr 24, 2015 10:01 pm

Hooray wrote in Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:39 pm:Like I said previously, it's not my call at all, so no need to get wound up in this, equally there's no need for any behind-the-scenes messaging about such postings - and the suggestion wasn't about a single person, but about certain behavior. And in fact, phpBB specifically supports this out of the box, and it works very well for thousands of phpBB installations


There was a need for "behind-the-scenes messaging" to the forum team. Torsten's later public post echoed the sentiments I messaged. You are listed as a forum moderator, and a moderator has a greater responsibility than the average member to represent the standards of the community.

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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Thorsten » Sat Apr 25, 2015 6:34 am

Besides the curt email, which he apologized for,where has IH - CO made slander?


In this very thread obviously - did you even read it?
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sat Apr 25, 2015 12:02 pm

Give me three examples. And yes, I have read this whole topic, and the rest.
Nothing to do with me, but if Thorsten, JWOCKY, and IAHM-COL do not speak to each other for a while, and this topic is closed, it might help!!!
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Jabberwocky » Sat Apr 25, 2015 2:46 pm

Are you guys really discuss to ban IAHM-COL for posting what you don't like to be posted? Now that would be ultimate proof for an establishment of wannabe dictators abusing powers. The silencing of opposition is something a little Hitler, a little Kim or a little Ghaddafi would have tried. But this is not 1033 Germany, this is not NKorea and this is not Libya back in the days. This is FightGear, an open source project. It is by it's nature the most open form of anarchy because whenever someone doesn't like a thing, he can sit down, get some work done and changes it. And if others don't like it, they have to discuss it out, come to a consensual decisision and do it or spawn branches. To set up a rigged poll is the worst thing that can happen to any open source project. So, I suggest, you post a really credible apology now, Hooray. And after you did this, you back off. Because if your twisted ideas of silencing what you don't like go only through one time, we have a precedence case and then every member of this community is potentially threatened by organized silencing.
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Thorsten » Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:03 pm

Give me three examples.


Well, that's a strange position.

Israel claimed that it would be clear that I would abuse the GPL license, when, by his own admission later, he wasn't involved in the situation and he found some things he didn't properly understand 'a bit unfair' but couldn't cite where I would actually abuse GPL.

Given that you claim to have read that, let me ask you directly:

Do you find it generally okay to accuse other users this way - in particular, would you be fine if I tell other people in the forum that, for instance, you would be 'clearly mobbing newcomers'? Would it matter you you whether you had actually done anything along these lines or not?

Or do you think that it has to be three times to count, so can I tell to others that you're mobbing newcomers two times and you'll be fine with it?

Or do you think it's okay to accuse me specifically - since I belong to the FG team and don't mince words, I have earned thrown every grain of dirt thrown my way?

What exactly makes you ask for three examples?

Nothing to do with me, but if Thorsten, JWOCKY, and IAHM-COL do not speak to each other for a while


Let me give you another example to see why this isn't working. I take 100 $ from you. You shout: 'Gimme back my money!' We argue. Someone comes into the room and says: 'Guys, you really shouldn't argue, this is bad for the community.' And I say: 'Yeah, there's really no need to argue, let's resolve this peacefully.' And the other person says: 'Hey, I have an idea - why don't each of you take 50 $ and we're done?'

Do you think this is a good idea, or do you think you should have your 100 $ back, because it actually matters to judge the incident who is the rightful owner?
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby durk » Sat Apr 25, 2015 4:25 pm

Jabberwocky wrote in Sat Apr 25, 2015 2:46 pm:The silencing of opposition is something a little Hitler, a little Kim or a little Ghaddafi would have tried. But this is not 1033 Germany, this is not NKorea and this is not Libya back in the days.


Godwin alert: You lost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Torsten » Sat Apr 25, 2015 5:37 pm

I have just watched this and learned a lot.
May everybody involved in this discussion try to pick the parts that fit best:


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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Johan G » Sat Apr 25, 2015 6:26 pm

I watched that talk but from the Google developer conference just the other week. Lets just say that it was an eye opener for me.

There is an enormous amount of noise here in this topic and I am currently working on a summary (not mentioned in the talk, but in the Q&A session after the talk I linked to). More noise is added in particular when some people argue very strongly, repeat themselves and changes their mind here and there. :roll: :|

That the culture here to a very large extent is very little concerned with concepts such as assume good faith or to back up statements with links to sources does not help either. It often seems that with some exceptions the opposite is the norm. :evil:


In particular interest concerning the videos above (both in the above post and the one I linked to) is the fact that such a lot of it is about policies and guidelines, which is the reason I started the topic Published recommendations, guidelines and rules right after seeing it.

For an example of why they could be needed, as a moderator I have very little to lean to in the form of discussed and mostly accepted forum rules (in other words backed up by consensus). Because of that I can pretty much only rely on my own judgment and can of the same reason expect some flames whatever I may do (or don't do). In addition, different moderators will act differently and the moderators will hesitate to take action which unfortunately allow arguments to gather more momentum. But please, lets discuss those issues in that topic.


Edit: A good tip is to make a point to watch a talk on a regular basis, say weekly. Be that Google tech talks, TED talks or whatever. Consider 15 minutes a lower limit. It will expand your universe. :wink:
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sat Apr 25, 2015 6:37 pm

Nothing to do with me, but if Thorsten, JWOCKY, and IAHM-COL do not speak to each other for a while


Let me give you another example to see why this isn't working. I take 100 $ from you. You shout: 'Gimme back my money!' We argue. Someone comes into the room and says: 'Guys, you really shouldn't argue, this is bad for the community.' And I say: 'Yeah, there's really no need to argue, let's resolve this peacefully.' And the other person says: 'Hey, I have an idea - why don't each of you take 50 $ and we're done?'

Do you think this is a good idea, or do you think you should have your 100 $ back, because it actually matters to judge the incident who is the rightful owner?[/quote]

(N.B) about the rest of your post, can you without looking remember every word posted in this topic? I apologise then, IAHMCOL maybe did make a few claims.
I think he owes you an apology.

About that, no. I was thinking more along the line of:
WARNING: Rather violent! (Feel free to remove it if you think it too violent)
http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip- ... apart.html
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby Johan G » Sat Apr 25, 2015 9:20 pm

I will try sum up most of what is stated so far. Also it would seem that some claims need to be debunked and/or backed up. Please correct me if I am wrong on anything (either in PM or preferably in the topic). Also, my personal opinions will be in italics.


Summary

FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS
Both the FGAddon and FGMEMEBERS aircraft repos have high enough bus factors that there should be no worries if one or two people with commit rights would 'walk in front of a bus'.

The FGDATA fork, with aircraft but as submodules and with complete history, was created with the intention that it could be used as a stand in for FGData and FGAddon.

Though the bus factor of both should be enough, procedures ('how') could be documented better.

I think that there also is a need to document policies ('what and why') better. I guess the procedures for both to a large extend are spread out on the developer list and forum here and there (and most probably repeated, though with slight variations, at least over time). Policies for both seem rather informal and could be more formalized (not that this would not necessarily be the same as either 'strict' or set in stone). One good place for documentation is the FlightGear wiki (it also would be transparent about any changes).


Claims that need debunking

Why would FGAddon have to be the only officially sanctioned repo?
FGAddon is the official repo, period. It is located with the rest of the official FlightGear repos and is managed by the same people. These aircraft are also those that can be downloaded from the FlightGear web site and soon from within FlightGear itself. Any other repo would therefore a non-official/third party repo. That said, non-official/third party repo aircraft are not necessarily worse or of less value.

Splitting the aircraft folder away from the rest of the files had been discussed for years. Due to the extremely large size of in particular the FGData repo on Gitorious, there had been friction between FlightGear and Gitorious and something needed to be done (apparently FlightGear have nearly been kicked out twice in the past, according to Zakalawe).

What was done was that Clément took contact with the staff of SourceForge and kindly asked about the possibilities to move there, making sure that they had full knowledge of the size of the repos. SourceForge agreed to host the repos, though unfortunately they would not agree to host the scenery.

It is also quite clear that Clément both reported back to the developer mailing list thus doing it in the open and that he had no intention be the only one with commit access.

The emails and discussion about the move are fortunately archived on the developer list. See in particular the thread [Flightgear-devel] Splitting of fgdata (Apr-Sep 2014).

Sure, I have some disagreements about how hastily it was done. I am not fully sure that SVN necessarily would be the right way to do it, and in particular I am not found of that the commit history seems to have been scrapped. But lets face it, splitting the aircraft from FGData and moving them away from Gitorious had to be done, one way or another.

Some thoughts on commit rights
About commit rights to the FGAddon repository. A common policy among most projects involving people submitting to a repository (be that Git, SVN or just a bunch of files in a directory on a file server) is to not give people commit/write rights before having they have demonstrated that patches and files they request inclusion of are free from larger or obvious errors for a while. After all, few would hire a complete stranger they just met on the street that stated he is good with this or that and right away give him the keys to a work place and its machinery.

I sincerely hope any aircraft developer would not get commit rights right away either, even if they would only have access to their own aircraft. In the same manner a committer that causes problems due to how he would commit could really not be expected to have continued commit access. This would pretty much be the same as if someone who use a machine at work would not be allowed to use it if he would cause a lot of work for other having to fix problems he caused.



The author of the dash DaSH was mistreated
Unfortunately the ticket that has been mentioned for example here, ticket number 3 can not be found so I can not really see what the motivation Clément had for not including the DaSH. However Torsten (without an 'h') stated that:
Torsten wrote in Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:06 pm:The dash was rejected in it's presented state due to technical issues (temporary files, undescriptive name and others). Once these issues are solved and somebody volunteers as a maintainer, it is more than welcome to fgaddon.

In essence, the issue is neither unsolvable nor permanent.

This is one of the clear cut cases where some discussion backed published guidelines would both have made Cléments decision easier as well as would soften any arguments about whether or not it was not right.


Thorsten stole HerbyW's Space Shuttle and replaced it on FGAddon with his own
Initially the Space Shuttle in FlightGear was just a re-entry FDM without even a very simple 3D model. Some work was done over the years to improve that. See for example the topics NASA Space Shuttle (Apr 2007-Nov 2010), Space Shuttle (Jul 2012) and Adventures in Space (Dec 2013). Note that Thorsten (with an 'h') have played around with a space shuttle before one way or another.

As far as I can see HerbyW's version is a fork from the official 'shuttle' one (in essence from this commit in FGAddon) with this being his first commit. Given that it is therefore GPL as well as publicly published Thorsten could not possibly have stolen it.

Also, considering this post ...
HerbyW wrote in Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:06 pm:Thorsten:
...
10. but I guess eventually the orbiter needs to be replaced by Jons

Here are the answer to the main points from the main developer of the space program:
...
10. Ok, replace it and have fun with it. We take ours and have fun too.

... it seems Thorsten had HerbyW's consent to fork his version (even though he formally would not have needed it). Claims about Thorsten abusing the GPL license are thus unfounded. In addition he has in no way made a coexistence impossible in that he added it as 'SpaceShuttle', with this commit being the initial one.

At the other hand, while Thorsten had not yet added it to a repo, as he did not consider his version to be in a publishable condition yet, IAHM-COL downloaded the preview and added it to the FGMEMBERS repo (hopefully he misunderstood Thorsten). Though annoying, this is is fully in line with the GPL (as Thorsten admits):
IAHM-COL wrote in Mon Mar 30, 2015 6:10 pm:... Is it GPL?

Thorsten wrote in Mon Mar 30, 2015 6:28 pm:If you're really asking for the license, as it's based on GPL stuff (lots of things from Vitos' Vostok, some leftovers from the FG Space Program thing, Jon's attempt...) it has to be GPL. If you're asking whether you can put it onto a repo, I can't prevent you from doing it, but there's a reason I have not done it... What ends up on a repo should basically work for a number of use cases and be somewhat tested whereas this is not yet at this stage...

IAHM-COL wrote in Mon Mar 30, 2015 6:36 pm:... I will mount it in FGMEMBERs so our FGDATA next users can fetch, and enjoy. ...
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Re: FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

Postby drdavid » Sat Apr 25, 2015 11:20 pm

@hooray--

A couple of weeks ago I posted a message offering my services as a moderator or to be just a listener as this dispute was escalating. Daily, I have been monitoring how the posts have been going. The situation calmed down for about a week, but now in the past few days, in this thread, it has re-escalated. My observation is that your inserting yourself into the conversation in the way you did was deliberately inflammatory and uncalled for and pushed the escalation even higher.

For one thing, in reading through the comments in the thread, other than an occasional comment by Thorsten and Curt, none of the 20 or so core developers (as Thorsten has pointed out) have even been engaged in the conversation. So, your claim that banning IH-COL from the Forum is needed because he is taking up too much of their time is simply indefensible. I would challenge you to provide proof they are spending any time at all following this.

I also strongly suggest you watch the tone and wording of your attacks on IH-COL. You must comply with the FG requirements for civil discourse just like the rest of us. There is no double standard where core developers get to say anything they want, while the rank and file are held to a higher standard.

I am disappointed in you. We have worked cordially on several projects in the past and I have respect for your wide range of skills. But your behavior is uncalled for and looks like a 10-year-old being a bully in a school yard, rather than a mature adult bringing proper crisis management skills to the conversation.

Frankly, I think Curt should delete all of your posts on this thread. They are that inflammatory and inappropriate, violating the FG standards for civil discourse.
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