Re: [Gdbheads] Trust

[Stan Shebs]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> > Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 11:37:18 -0800
> > From: Stan Shebs <address@hidden>
> >
> > I've been pondering a while just what it is that people are really
> > unhappy about, and I think the deepest underlying problem is a lack of
> > trust. You see it in the desire to have private meetings, in the
> > accusations about cabals, attempts at public censure, and so forth.
>
> I don't agree with your analysis.  To me, this whole thing begins and
> ends with inability of members of the development team to turn
> technical differences of opinions into consensus that leads to a
> solution which everyone can live with.  There are several possible
> ways of reaching a compromise in such situations, but none of them
> appear to be working in the cases in point.
But *why* aren't they reaching consensus? To borrow from Sherlock
Holmes (sort of :-) ), "when you've eliminated all the rational
explanations, all you're left with is the irrational". There's an
emotional component that needs to be addressed.

> The symptoms of distrust that you cite are, in my opinion, just normal
> human reactions to the fact that a group of maintainers held
> semi-private discussions before bringing the issues in the open.
> People who were not invited are naturally upset, to say the least.
The issues that brought all this on, such as the first instances of
Andrew's public nastiness to Jim, happened quite some time ago, long
before there any discussions about it.

For that matter, why should a group of engineers cc'ing each other
in private mail be upsetting to anybody? Unhappiness over being
"not invited" is a completely irrational reaction; I thank the gods
I'm not cc'ed on every piece of mail sent between the people I know,
and if the messages are discussing me, so what? I would be only
concerned if they were plotting to harm me, in which case I would
be distrusting and justifiably so.

> So I don't think the problem is trust.  I cannot speak for others, but
> it is my firm impression that, all the accusations notwithstanding,
> there's still trust between us when technical issues are at stake.
> Just read the GDB mailing lists for a while, where those same people
> conduct discussions about GDB development.  You cannot do that as
> calmly as we do if there's no trust.
The distrust is there - not in every discussion to be sure. Sometimes
you have to read between the lines, notice non sequiturs ("why would
so-and-so bring this point up in the first place?"), etc. They seem
obvious to me when they happen, but of course now that I go to the
archives for examples, I can't find them. :-) I'll have to try again
later.

> Of course, I'm half the world away of you-all, so I could be mistaken.
>
>
> >    Do you trust the other GDB maintainers?
> >
> > For myself, I'll answer "yes, completely" for the global
> > maintainers. I think any one of them could take over all of the GDB
> > work tomorrow and make a success of it. My trust in the write after
> > approval folks is variable, since some of them I know well and trust a
> > lot, while others are unfamiliar to me.
>
> Me, I trust all the maintainers and contributors.  I need a real good
> reason to distrust someone, whereas trust is something I grant by
> default.  So being unfamiliar with someone doesn't mean I don't trust
> them.
That's great to hear! But I'll bet you a beverage of your choosing
that not every maintainer will be willing to make the statement,
which would tell us all that there are indeed some who are distrustful
of their colleagues.

Stan