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Disclaimer: I work at Red Hat. I don't think you quite understand the relationship Red Hat has with its employees ("associates" in company lingo but I abhor su

Disclaimer: I work at Red Hat. I don't think you quite understand the relationship Red Hat has with its employees ("associates" in company lingo but I abhor such doublespeak). Allowing those employees to act and speak independently is kind of a core value. That freedom is only curtailed when it directly impacts paying customers to the extent that it would be considered a breach of that relationship. Upstream, in the open-source community, almost anything goes. Yes, that means systemd developers can be a bit priggish. It also means other developers, also employed by Red Hat, can call them out for it. It's the only way to ensure the diversity and meritocracy that are essential to innovation. Otherwise, you end up not being able to trust a word that employees of a company say because you know they'd never dare say anything even slightly inconsistent with the party line. I used to see that when I worked at EMC, just for example, and it's really quite stifling. Personal attacks on Poettering should not be redirected anywhere. For one thing, personal attacks don't get anyone anywhere. Legitimate criticism of his views should be directed at him, just as legitimate criticism of my views should be directed at me and legitimate criticism of your views should be directed at you. There's no reason to bring any third party into it. No matter how much you hate them or why, that's simply irrelevant.

baconmania 11y ago
>Legitimate criticism of his views should be directed at him Meanwhile, on the GitHub issue: >Locking this one. Note sure which peanut gallery site linked this... This is clearly a guy who thinks his own opinion is above reproach and the unwashed masses have no right to question him.
- stephen_g 11y ago
  Most of the discussion on that issue was just useless noise after it got picked up by HN and other sites though, so it makes sense to close that one down for now.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    After it happens enough time you would think a lightbulb would turn somewhere...
    - the_why_of_y 11y ago
      I think there was a light going on: they found that bugzilla.freedesktop.org doesn't offer the right ACL tools to keep the trolls away, so they migrated to github.com's issue tracker.
Sanddancer 11y ago
I know I'm a tiny fish in the game, but because of the behaviors of Red Hat employees, I am disenclined to purchase products they make, and even use Linux as a whole. People ask my advice, I give it, but don't have control over pursestrings, or anything like that. However, the behavior of Red Hat employees, like Poettering, Sievers, and Drepper before them makes me believe that Red Hat is not an organization that does a good job of creating leaders. The aforementioned people are poor stewards of projects, showing poor technical decision making and poor communications ability, and it reflects poorly on the organization as a whole. Poettering, being a high profile employee of Red Hat, is one of the faces of the company. Because of this, I would argue that Red Hat has a duty to step in from time to time to tell him that what he is doing is harmful in the long term. If they don't do it soon, I can almost guarantee there will be a lot fewer support contracts for Red Hat in the months and years to come; they just don't create dependable developers.
- Dr_tldr 11y ago
  What you're doing is a bullshit power move in attempting to threaten someone's job because you don't like their attitude. One discussion where someone was an arrogant douche might be outweighed by the sum total of all their contributions. If all Poettering did was community outreach, you would have a much stronger case that he's bad in all aspects of his job and should be fired. Trying to pressure Red Hat by saying it 'reflects poorly on you' is basically saying 'you should get rid of this guy even if you think the good outweighs the bad, because I don't like him.'
  - Sanddancer 11y ago
    No, this is a decision on the fact that he has made many many discussions where he was an arrogant douche. This is a decision made where he's made many many technical flaws, such as including the fundamentally broken efivarsfs in systemd, in choosing poor defaults for other portions of systemd, like pointing the default ntp server against a source which says not to use it as such, like in making the easily-corrupted journal an inexorable part of systemd. He has a long track record of making questionable decisions and then getting downright petulant when criticized. He's being paid in part to be a leader of a few high profile projects when he shows a lack of leadership ability. That's why I feel he should be gotten rid of.
krick 11y ago
> That freedom is only curtailed when it directly impacts paying customers So that's basically what uint32 proposes: to make an impact.
Selm 11y ago
You're just a pack of SJW faggots that oppose men marrying female children ("Girls not brides"), support feminism, women's rights, and are in bed with the governments that support cunts and suppress men. It is no suprise that you push for a swiss cheeze security nightmare: the better to penetrate all popular computing systems and find those who oppose you pro-CUNT world view (Currently every marry-young-girl culture is being bombed by the United States of America: your contract employer).
digi_owl 11y ago
That sounds like a lovely bit of legal ass covering.
uuoc 11y ago
> Disclaimer: I work at Red Hat. The problem you seem to miss is that his arrogant antics _do_ reflect on Redhat, and reflect badly on Redhat. I for one will _never_ use anything from Redhat, nor pay Redhat any money for anything as long as Poettering and the rest of his crew (Seivers et. al.) are employeed by Redhat. I am sure I am not alone in this viewpoint. As more realize that the problem is a problem at Redhat, eventually Redhat management will be forced to intervene. PS as an employee, you should be pointing your upper management to these types of discussions, for the very reason that the actions of a loose cannon group is reflecting very badly on Redhat as a whole.
- fanf2 11y ago
  Another example is Red Hat's long support of the awful Ulrich Drepper.
- notacoward 11y ago
  > As more realize that the problem is a problem at Redhat, eventually Redhat management will be forced to intervene. I think you're missing the point. It's not about who you tell. It's about who you're criticizing. Red Hat is not the one making these comments. If you condone a company summarily removing a project leader you don't like, then you also condone a company summarily removing a project leader you do like. That doesn't end well. In fact, I could name projects on which I feel Red Hat has forced their will on upstream entirely too much, to the detriment of both. It's not the way a meritocratic community is supposed to work. I think in general it's better to let technical communities deal with their own issues, and in general Red Hat is wise enough to recognize that. Believe me, I know where you're coming from. I almost didn't join Red Hat myself because of people like Ulrich Drepper (who was still there) and Al Viro (who would even have been in my group). I understand the sentiment. Criticize Poettering if you want, make sure Red Hat knows the effect that his behavior has on your purchasing decisions, but don't blame them for trying to do the right thing by adhering to a policy with a solid philosophical and practical foundation behind it. Do you want corporate overlords to be meddling in every project's internals?
- kiproping 11y ago
  This is what I hate. This whole attack the employer for the employees opinion. This is backward and disgusting. This is the same tactic used by tumblr and twitter in their witch-hunts against people who have an opinion they don't like. It's despicable.

baconmania 11y ago

>Legitimate criticism of his views should be directed at him Meanwhile, on the GitHub issue: >Locking this one. Note sure which peanut gallery site linked this... This is clearly a guy who thinks his own opinion is above reproach and the unwashed masses have no right to question him.

stephen_g 11y ago
Most of the discussion on that issue was just useless noise after it got picked up by HN and other sites though, so it makes sense to close that one down for now.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  After it happens enough time you would think a lightbulb would turn somewhere...
  - the_why_of_y 11y ago
    I think there was a light going on: they found that bugzilla.freedesktop.org doesn't offer the right ACL tools to keep the trolls away, so they migrated to github.com's issue tracker.

Sanddancer 11y ago

I know I'm a tiny fish in the game, but because of the behaviors of Red Hat employees, I am disenclined to purchase products they make, and even use Linux as a whole. People ask my advice, I give it, but don't have control over pursestrings, or anything like that. However, the behavior of Red Hat employees, like Poettering, Sievers, and Drepper before them makes me believe that Red Hat is not an organization that does a good job of creating leaders. The aforementioned people are poor stewards of projects, showing poor technical decision making and poor communications ability, and it reflects poorly on the organization as a whole. Poettering, being a high profile employee of Red Hat, is one of the faces of the company. Because of this, I would argue that Red Hat has a duty to step in from time to time to tell him that what he is doing is harmful in the long term. If they don't do it soon, I can almost guarantee there will be a lot fewer support contracts for Red Hat in the months and years to come; they just don't create dependable developers.

Dr_tldr 11y ago
What you're doing is a bullshit power move in attempting to threaten someone's job because you don't like their attitude. One discussion where someone was an arrogant douche might be outweighed by the sum total of all their contributions. If all Poettering did was community outreach, you would have a much stronger case that he's bad in all aspects of his job and should be fired. Trying to pressure Red Hat by saying it 'reflects poorly on you' is basically saying 'you should get rid of this guy even if you think the good outweighs the bad, because I don't like him.'
- Sanddancer 11y ago
  No, this is a decision on the fact that he has made many many discussions where he was an arrogant douche. This is a decision made where he's made many many technical flaws, such as including the fundamentally broken efivarsfs in systemd, in choosing poor defaults for other portions of systemd, like pointing the default ntp server against a source which says not to use it as such, like in making the easily-corrupted journal an inexorable part of systemd. He has a long track record of making questionable decisions and then getting downright petulant when criticized. He's being paid in part to be a leader of a few high profile projects when he shows a lack of leadership ability. That's why I feel he should be gotten rid of.

krick 11y ago

> That freedom is only curtailed when it directly impacts paying customers So that's basically what uint32 proposes: to make an impact.

Selm 11y ago

You're just a pack of SJW faggots that oppose men marrying female children ("Girls not brides"), support feminism, women's rights, and are in bed with the governments that support cunts and suppress men. It is no suprise that you push for a swiss cheeze security nightmare: the better to penetrate all popular computing systems and find those who oppose you pro-CUNT world view (Currently every marry-young-girl culture is being bombed by the United States of America: your contract employer).

digi_owl 11y ago

That sounds like a lovely bit of legal ass covering.

uuoc 11y ago

> Disclaimer: I work at Red Hat. The problem you seem to miss is that his arrogant antics _do_ reflect on Redhat, and reflect badly on Redhat. I for one will _never_ use anything from Redhat, nor pay Redhat any money for anything as long as Poettering and the rest of his crew (Seivers et. al.) are employeed by Redhat. I am sure I am not alone in this viewpoint. As more realize that the problem is a problem at Redhat, eventually Redhat management will be forced to intervene. PS as an employee, you should be pointing your upper management to these types of discussions, for the very reason that the actions of a loose cannon group is reflecting very badly on Redhat as a whole.

fanf2 11y ago
Another example is Red Hat's long support of the awful Ulrich Drepper.
notacoward 11y ago
> As more realize that the problem is a problem at Redhat, eventually Redhat management will be forced to intervene. I think you're missing the point. It's not about who you tell. It's about who you're criticizing. Red Hat is not the one making these comments. If you condone a company summarily removing a project leader you don't like, then you also condone a company summarily removing a project leader you do like. That doesn't end well. In fact, I could name projects on which I feel Red Hat has forced their will on upstream entirely too much, to the detriment of both. It's not the way a meritocratic community is supposed to work. I think in general it's better to let technical communities deal with their own issues, and in general Red Hat is wise enough to recognize that. Believe me, I know where you're coming from. I almost didn't join Red Hat myself because of people like Ulrich Drepper (who was still there) and Al Viro (who would even have been in my group). I understand the sentiment. Criticize Poettering if you want, make sure Red Hat knows the effect that his behavior has on your purchasing decisions, but don't blame them for trying to do the right thing by adhering to a policy with a solid philosophical and practical foundation behind it. Do you want corporate overlords to be meddling in every project's internals?
kiproping 11y ago
This is what I hate. This whole attack the employer for the employees opinion. This is backward and disgusting. This is the same tactic used by tumblr and twitter in their witch-hunts against people who have an opinion they don't like. It's despicable.