Re: [Gdbheads] Re: Feb's patch resolution rate

[Elena Zannoni]

Ian Lance Taylor writes:
 > Elena Zannoni <address@hidden> writes:
 > 
 > > Your proposal has a fundamental flaw.  Trusting that voting achieves
 > > its purpose means to trust that people are acting fairly and that
 > > everybody's opinion gets a fair chance based on technical merit.  Here
 > > you are, instead, openly stating that voting is about convincing
 > > people to be on your side, instead of believing that they can achieve
 > > an independent opinion on their own.  In the past you have actively
 > > lobbied against people behind their back, with mailing lists and
 > > weekly phone conferences set up for the purpose.  You also have
 > > admitted that you have personal grudges against Andrew.  Therefore I
 > > definitely don't trust that voting in this community is going to be
 > > fair.  I am not against voting per se, but here, I have my serious
 > > doubts about it.
 > 
 > I'm not sure that this is a fair criticism.  Of course voting is about
 > convincing people to be on your side.  That's why you vote: to decide
 > who has been more convincing.  That is not a fundamental flaw in Jim's
 > proposal; it's the point of the proposal.
 > 

I guess I wasn't clear, I meant convincing people other than on
technical grounds is not ok.

 > You say that Jim doesn't believe that people "can achieve an
 > independent opinion on their own."  But when you go on to say that Jim
 > is influencing people in various nefarious ways, aren't you making the
 > same mistake?  People can make up their own minds no matter what Jim
 > says.  Jim and I used to work in the same office (and you did too) and
 > I never saw Jim exercising any hypnotic powers.
 
I don't want to turn this into a personal attack on Jim. As you said,
I have worked with Jim for more than 6 years now, and I never had any
conflicts with him (other than some minor technical ones at times).
It's definitely not hypnotism, however I do notice a tendency for him
to be really able with words (it's a gift, definitely) and a tendency
for people to take those words at face value.  Sure, people can make
up their own mind, and do their homework, verifying statements, but
sometimes it's just easier not to do that. Note that I mean people
here in a broader sense than just the members of this community.

 > 
 > Personally, I wish that Andrew would spend more time convincing people
 > to be on his side.  I find his e-mail messages to be indirect and
 > elliptical, and he seems to avoid answering questions directly.  As I
 > said earlier today, the job of being a GNU maintainer is an inherently
 > political job.  And one aspect of being a politician is communicating
 > clearly.
 
Here I agree with you. I wish Andrew did.

 > Ian