5 ms·

I am not versed in all the details here, but it is clear there is a diverge of expectations between MS and some of the repo owners. This is just part of busines

I am not versed in all the details here, but it is clear there is a diverge of expectations between MS and some of the repo owners. This is just part of business. Legal agreements and projects are complicated. Not everything is going to be spelled out. In a good business relationship you acknowledge this and work in good faith to resolve differences when they occur. However, top comments make clear there is a dire need for professional communications training among these programmers. There is entirely too much emotion on display here. Stuff like this: While I appreciate that this must have been hard to write, this is a total non-apology and just about meets the incredibly low expectations I and others had for the .NET Foundation's public statement. .. and the other comments like it, are not productive. There is a difference in expectations, so resolve it by making offers to MS for proposed changes. Ultimately there is a negotiated settlement or you walk. That's it. Don't bring emotions into it.

drfxyjhdyfrhgc 5y ago
Did you look at the Contribution License Agreement? It appears that the issue at hand was in fact "spelled out". Repo owners aren't unreasonable to interpret this action as bad faith. I would agree that their message would be better communicated with a more amicable tone.
- dclowd9901 5y ago
  > I would agree that their message would be better communicated with a more amicable tone. This was entirely GP's point.
  - drfxyjhdyfrhgc 5y ago
    Yes, I agreed with his point and disagreed with his characterization of the situation.
- cies 5y ago
  It says: "owned or managed". It does not say "owned AND managed". MSFT has been in the business of using legal to make money. This is not the Apache Foundation. This is a non-profit arm of MSFT.
- RNCTX 5y ago
  I don't see why you think people should respond in an amicable tone to an employee of a corporation blatantly attempting to seize ownership of assets which currently do not belong to them.
gatlin 5y ago
I think more highly of people who are honest about their emotions and express them, instead of pretending that the motivating force behind almost all of our personal behavior isn't "relevant." Emotional ≠ unproductive.
- judahmeek 5y ago
  It's not a question of whether they express their emotion, but how they express it. It's possible to express anger without burning bridges.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I don't. The essence of civilization is suppressing animal instincts in service of a higher goal.
  - psysharp 5y ago
    No, it's abstractions of animal instincts, and that difference is huge.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I don't think so. A lot of those instincts, such as killing, are pretty strongly proscribed.
  - vcmak 5y ago
    I've been around long enough to know that the higher goal is to line the pockets of those who establish and enforce the "polite" interaction rules. They give orders to the workers (in the broadest sense, workers can be productive professors) and skim off a percentage of the output.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      OK, sure, that's the order we live under, and it's not ideal. But better than running around foraging all day, and if you wish to change it it's better to save the rage for situations where it's called for.
RedShift1 5y ago
I don't see anything wrong with that quote. Can it be expressed more "softly"? Sure. But that person is expressing his opinion and I don't see any problem with that. You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO. There seems to be a more general trend going on, some think themselves or others must be protected from "harshness" (even though I consider the above quote to be only a mild example - see the rest of the internet...). For example Linus Torvalds gets a lot of flak for his opinions on some pieces of code he doesn't like but every time I read those emails, I feel like people are blowing it way out of proportion. I'm sure it's not fun to be on the receiving end but his arguments are typically sound and likes to write a lot to really drive his point home. I'd rather be told I'm working on a dead end than a "nice comforting letter" explaining how my patch can't be accepted _right now_ because of x and y with wording that could be interpreted as "it could be accepted later" just to be friendly even though the code is structurally bad and needs to go back to the drawing board. It would give hope where there is none and I think that is worse than "no your code sucks because of x y and z". I think in this case here it was ok for disappointment to be expressed.
- judahmeek 5y ago
  > You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO. This sounds like victim-blaming. I can imagine neo-nazis using this type of statement to defend someone who yelled the N-word in a black neighborhood. The truth is that inflammatory language, which GP's quote was, is rarely constructive.
- indigochill 5y ago
  I'd say the key thing wrong with it is that it's not actionable. It doesn't express what the commenter would like to see changed. It's just general vague disapproval. Harsh or soft, criticism should always be actionable. The way you describe Torvalds' feedback, that's actionable, when someone is told what makes their code unacceptable, so they can correct course and try again. EDIT: I should edit to add, the post that the quote is from -does- in fact then go on to point out what it finds unacceptable. But I'm commenting just on the quote.
- 5y ago
xunn0026 5y ago
Excuse me? The post is a non-apology. It starts with a minor PR while in fact it turns out to be about the whole organizational structure which was a surprise to people that joined it?! This is a fundamental problem, not a minor PR and how the process for merging that is. As for emotions and business you are also quite wrong. Emotions will give you some pretty good hints about reality. Ignoring those and trying to be 'productive' is a sure way of being tricked all the way to the bank. There's a reason emotions exist and to lobotomise yourself won't make you a better business person.
- fsloth 5y ago
  "There's a reason emotions exist and to lobotomise yourself won't make you a better business person." This. If the other party has identified you as a mark for their scheme, non-emotional professional haggling will result in the worst case in profit for the hostile party, and even at best will be a total waste of time for you and exhausting. I.e. it's "Excuse me sir I notice an acidic liquid flowing from your direction. I would appreciate if you could either maneuver yourself or stop the said liquid flow as the volume of fluid gets in contact with my countenance." v.s. "Stop peeing on my face you **hole!" You should not aggravate situations beyond reasonable bounds, should not become a sosiopathic professional victim and so on - but for a person of healthy psychological state, your emotions definetly are a valuable guide.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    I find it fairly important to be “human,” in my interactions; professional, or otherwise. That said, I’m also responsible for keeping the tenor of my communication constructive. There will be mistakes (on my part, and on the part of others), as well as miscommunications, but they can be kept to a minimum, and addressed on a case-by-case basis. I’m a big believer in sincere, appropriate, apologies. They have been enormously effective, in my own career. I won’t apologize for breathing your oxygen, but I also won’t avoid taking responsibility and accountability for what’s mine. When we weasel out of responsibility, we also surrender agency and power. If it’s our fault, it is also our bailiwick. An apology may seem like a weakness, but it can actually be the opposite.
RNCTX 5y ago
> There is a difference in expectations, so resolve it by making offers to MS for proposed changes. Here's some more rude commentary for you: you are showing your hand, and it's a very poor / weak one. You seemingly operate under the assumption that corporate-speak is some sort of invisibility cloak that gives the denizens of said corporations free reign to exploit whoever they like, and those exploited should politely ask for their soylent green in return. Well, if I were giving my humanities-grad opinion to those developers in terms of dealing with people like you, I'd tell them to immediately recognize and refuse to deal with people like you, and more specifically to tell you that "if you want me to participate in your HR-speak, you can pay me a salary, until then the discourse is not on your terms. Maybe you should tell your boss to send someone else."
- samhw 5y ago
  oh, hi Stallman
jsiepkes 5y ago
> I am not versed in all the details here You should probably read the conversation in the PR: https://github.com/reactiveui/splat/pull/778 https://github.com/reactiveui/splat/pull/778 > there is a dire need for professional communications training among these programmers. Maybe, but probably not why you think. Once you've read the PR's conversation you'll see this isn't about someone just merging a PR which wasn't approved. This about someone submitting a PR, a maintainer asking for discussion before merging it, ignoring the maintainer and just merge the PR, the maintainer asking why it wasn't discussed and then making a snide remark to the maintainer. So I agree that the "Sorry for merging a PR" isn't going to cut it here. The merging of the PR was the least of the problem. It's a hollow corporate-style apology where someone is allowed to be called out for. It's like saying: "Sorry I hurt your toe" after you pushed someone of a cliff.

drfxyjhdyfrhgc 5y ago

Did you look at the Contribution License Agreement? It appears that the issue at hand was in fact "spelled out". Repo owners aren't unreasonable to interpret this action as bad faith. I would agree that their message would be better communicated with a more amicable tone.

dclowd9901 5y ago
> I would agree that their message would be better communicated with a more amicable tone. This was entirely GP's point.
- drfxyjhdyfrhgc 5y ago
  Yes, I agreed with his point and disagreed with his characterization of the situation.
cies 5y ago
It says: "owned or managed". It does not say "owned AND managed". MSFT has been in the business of using legal to make money. This is not the Apache Foundation. This is a non-profit arm of MSFT.
RNCTX 5y ago
I don't see why you think people should respond in an amicable tone to an employee of a corporation blatantly attempting to seize ownership of assets which currently do not belong to them.

gatlin 5y ago

I think more highly of people who are honest about their emotions and express them, instead of pretending that the motivating force behind almost all of our personal behavior isn't "relevant." Emotional ≠ unproductive.

judahmeek 5y ago
It's not a question of whether they express their emotion, but how they express it. It's possible to express anger without burning bridges.
emodendroket 5y ago
I don't. The essence of civilization is suppressing animal instincts in service of a higher goal.
- psysharp 5y ago
  No, it's abstractions of animal instincts, and that difference is huge.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I don't think so. A lot of those instincts, such as killing, are pretty strongly proscribed.
- vcmak 5y ago
  I've been around long enough to know that the higher goal is to line the pockets of those who establish and enforce the "polite" interaction rules. They give orders to the workers (in the broadest sense, workers can be productive professors) and skim off a percentage of the output.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    OK, sure, that's the order we live under, and it's not ideal. But better than running around foraging all day, and if you wish to change it it's better to save the rage for situations where it's called for.

RedShift1 5y ago

I don't see anything wrong with that quote. Can it be expressed more "softly"? Sure. But that person is expressing his opinion and I don't see any problem with that. You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO. There seems to be a more general trend going on, some think themselves or others must be protected from "harshness" (even though I consider the above quote to be only a mild example - see the rest of the internet...). For example Linus Torvalds gets a lot of flak for his opinions on some pieces of code he doesn't like but every time I read those emails, I feel like people are blowing it way out of proportion. I'm sure it's not fun to be on the receiving end but his arguments are typically sound and likes to write a lot to really drive his point home. I'd rather be told I'm working on a dead end than a "nice comforting letter" explaining how my patch can't be accepted _right now_ because of x and y with wording that could be interpreted as "it could be accepted later" just to be friendly even though the code is structurally bad and needs to go back to the drawing board. It would give hope where there is none and I think that is worse than "no your code sucks because of x y and z". I think in this case here it was ok for disappointment to be expressed.

judahmeek 5y ago
> You could also argue it lays the foundation for further escalation but that's on whoever chooses to engage in it IMO. This sounds like victim-blaming. I can imagine neo-nazis using this type of statement to defend someone who yelled the N-word in a black neighborhood. The truth is that inflammatory language, which GP's quote was, is rarely constructive.
indigochill 5y ago
I'd say the key thing wrong with it is that it's not actionable. It doesn't express what the commenter would like to see changed. It's just general vague disapproval. Harsh or soft, criticism should always be actionable. The way you describe Torvalds' feedback, that's actionable, when someone is told what makes their code unacceptable, so they can correct course and try again. EDIT: I should edit to add, the post that the quote is from -does- in fact then go on to point out what it finds unacceptable. But I'm commenting just on the quote.
5y ago

xunn0026 5y ago

Excuse me? The post is a non-apology. It starts with a minor PR while in fact it turns out to be about the whole organizational structure which was a surprise to people that joined it?! This is a fundamental problem, not a minor PR and how the process for merging that is. As for emotions and business you are also quite wrong. Emotions will give you some pretty good hints about reality. Ignoring those and trying to be 'productive' is a sure way of being tricked all the way to the bank. There's a reason emotions exist and to lobotomise yourself won't make you a better business person.

fsloth 5y ago
"There's a reason emotions exist and to lobotomise yourself won't make you a better business person." This. If the other party has identified you as a mark for their scheme, non-emotional professional haggling will result in the worst case in profit for the hostile party, and even at best will be a total waste of time for you and exhausting. I.e. it's "Excuse me sir I notice an acidic liquid flowing from your direction. I would appreciate if you could either maneuver yourself or stop the said liquid flow as the volume of fluid gets in contact with my countenance." v.s. "Stop peeing on my face you **hole!" You should not aggravate situations beyond reasonable bounds, should not become a sosiopathic professional victim and so on - but for a person of healthy psychological state, your emotions definetly are a valuable guide.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I find it fairly important to be “human,” in my interactions; professional, or otherwise. That said, I’m also responsible for keeping the tenor of my communication constructive. There will be mistakes (on my part, and on the part of others), as well as miscommunications, but they can be kept to a minimum, and addressed on a case-by-case basis. I’m a big believer in sincere, appropriate, apologies. They have been enormously effective, in my own career. I won’t apologize for breathing your oxygen, but I also won’t avoid taking responsibility and accountability for what’s mine. When we weasel out of responsibility, we also surrender agency and power. If it’s our fault, it is also our bailiwick. An apology may seem like a weakness, but it can actually be the opposite.

RNCTX 5y ago

> There is a difference in expectations, so resolve it by making offers to MS for proposed changes. Here's some more rude commentary for you: you are showing your hand, and it's a very poor / weak one. You seemingly operate under the assumption that corporate-speak is some sort of invisibility cloak that gives the denizens of said corporations free reign to exploit whoever they like, and those exploited should politely ask for their soylent green in return. Well, if I were giving my humanities-grad opinion to those developers in terms of dealing with people like you, I'd tell them to immediately recognize and refuse to deal with people like you, and more specifically to tell you that "if you want me to participate in your HR-speak, you can pay me a salary, until then the discourse is not on your terms. Maybe you should tell your boss to send someone else."

samhw 5y ago
oh, hi Stallman

jsiepkes 5y ago

> I am not versed in all the details here You should probably read the conversation in the PR: https://github.com/reactiveui/splat/pull/778 https://github.com/reactiveui/splat/pull/778 > there is a dire need for professional communications training among these programmers. Maybe, but probably not why you think. Once you've read the PR's conversation you'll see this isn't about someone just merging a PR which wasn't approved. This about someone submitting a PR, a maintainer asking for discussion before merging it, ignoring the maintainer and just merge the PR, the maintainer asking why it wasn't discussed and then making a snide remark to the maintainer. So I agree that the "Sorry for merging a PR" isn't going to cut it here. The merging of the PR was the least of the problem. It's a hollow corporate-style apology where someone is allowed to be called out for. It's like saying: "Sorry I hurt your toe" after you pushed someone of a cliff.