[Mageia-sysadm] [RPM] cauldron core/release tagtool-0.12.3-2.mga1

[Romain d'Alverny]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 12:10, Tux99 <tux99-mga at uridium.org> wrote:
> Quote: rdalverny wrote on Thu, 03 March 2011 11:07
>
>> >From my point of view, if one doesn't want to provide her real name
>> and/or a working public email contact, I wonder if she really
>> understand what the stakes are in contributing and collaborating
>> within a public open source project that aims to provide a trustable
>> platform to a significant number of people (and I wouldn't even
>> consider mentor her).
> [...]
> But these days the way the Internet has become I try to keep my personal
> details (and yes that certainly includes my name) completely off the
> Internet. I hope you can accept that.

I totally do.

But please accept that I don't see this as a move that fosters public
(and in-project) trust and matches my expectations from people joining
the project. It's not only about you and me, it's about the people out
there that could be interested in joining any of us because of our
involvement in the project.

It's not a matter of tools only. It's too a matter of being openly
confident in what we do, and show it. Whatever happens, we're proud of
what Mageia is and what we do there all together.

> I don't see why that makes any difference for a public open source project,
> in fact there are many projects where this is normal (especially those
> creating audio/video software with potential patent issues).

Which even encourages this gray situation in favor of sw patents then, IMHO.

> Also you moved way beyond the issue here, this discussion was about putting
> real names and email addresses in the changelogs nothing else, and I have
> given specific reasons why I don't think that's a good idea and I have
> suggested several compromises.

I saw that, yes, but this specific issue relates to the more global
matter of, as I said: anonymity, accountability and reachability in
and out of the project. This infuses back to Changelogs where the
point is to facilitate _all_ (existing and new) _contributors_' life
(among whicih, knowing/contacting each other).

See initial request from Thierry too, that specifically raised this
against previous common practice among Mandriva packagers:
https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-sysadm/2011-March/002952.html

> Specifically with regards to the email address in the changelog (apart from
> spam concerns) I think that's wrong because it encourages users to not
> follow the correct procedures.

See replies from others, they are not users only and they welcome to
have this info in the changelog and commits.

> The correct procedure would be to open a bug report or post any other
> queries on the dev ML.

Of course. That does not justify to make it harder for people to
identify/contact you for a legitimate matter, related or no

On the practical side, that's the same with a website: putting a
contact form instead of an email address contact for the sake of
avoiding spam or "funneling" the message is moot, if not suspect (and
same with those companies that can't put their team people names in
the "About Us" page, but just some pointless speech about what they
do).

Unless you do an excellent job that does justify a form-based
workflow, just use a direct, personal contact: email just works fine;
few do it really well; most forms, if not all, suck. Big time. In many
ways. Email sucks too, but at least its experience is more
predictable.

Romain