6 ms·

I don't know. "We should have asked the project owners before moving their projects". Why did this lesson had to be learned? This seems so naïve it is hard not

I don't know. "We should have asked the project owners before moving their projects". Why did this lesson had to be learned? This seems so naïve it is hard not to interpret it as dishonest. There must be an explanation on why they didn't have any second thought about it and did not even took the time to notify the owners that they were making this change without any action on their part.

benatkin 5y ago
I think they are trying to model it after the Apache foundation. They did request/demand admin privileges first.
- sbergot 5y ago
  I don't understand how asking for priviledges first and taking them anyway makes it better.
  - benatkin 5y ago
    Yeah, I think it was a mistake for them to just do it. I see what led to that mistake, though. IMO was reasonable to want to have this migration all done within months. They probably should have told people they need to make this change and said if they don't think the program is right for them now that it's changed, they can leave, but that they must comply if they want to remain. It's difficult to run a hands-on open source organization like Apache. It would be hard to lose some members, but better than having a lot of disagreements and having to maintain old organizational processes.
ziml77 5y ago
Maybe they thought that it was clear that they had the authority to move member projects to GitHub Enterprise. Maybe they thought that moving to GitHub Enterprise is solely a helpful move since it gives extra features to the the projects for free (by that I mean that maybe they considered it to be the equivalent of simply setting a flag on the project that gives it access to those features). Maybe there was miscommunication internally due to not having well-define protocols and someone thought it was safe to move the project. I don't know if they'll tell us exactly what was going through the mind of the person who triggered the move, but I don't see any reason to assume that they can't change how they operate to be respectful of the project maintainers.
- benatkin 5y ago
  Yes, part of the point of a foundation like .NET, Django Software Foundation, or Apache, is to have authority. It helps the creators of an open source project focus on doing what they enjoy, which is typically creating and maintaining software, and removes a lot of the hassle.
- sbergot 5y ago
  > Maybe they thought that it was clear that they had the authority to move member projects to GitHub Enterprise. Seeing the various owner reactions this was obviously not clear for them > Maybe they thought that moving to GitHub Enterprise is solely a helpful move since it gives extra features to the the projects for free (by that I mean that maybe they considered it to be the equivalent of simply setting a flag on the project that gives it access to those features). Maybe there was miscommunication internally due to not having well-define protocols and someone thought it was safe to move the project. If no one in the .net foundation was able to raise an alarm about those transfers because of a "simple" lack of awareness of the importance of project ownership, then I don't see how they can rebuild the lost trust. They have demonstrated an absolute lack of understanding of their OSS community. As you said maybe it is a process issue but simply saying "sorry we shouldn't have done that" is not transparent enough. Clearly at some point they were ok with those transfers since they were carried. And now they understand that it was a bad thing. What happened? Did the twitter/blog post backlash suddenly opened their eyes on the perspective of the project owners? If that is the case then what are the other things they need to realise in order to avoid making other mistakes such as this one?

benatkin 5y ago

I think they are trying to model it after the Apache foundation. They did request/demand admin privileges first.

sbergot 5y ago
I don't understand how asking for priviledges first and taking them anyway makes it better.
- benatkin 5y ago
  Yeah, I think it was a mistake for them to just do it. I see what led to that mistake, though. IMO was reasonable to want to have this migration all done within months. They probably should have told people they need to make this change and said if they don't think the program is right for them now that it's changed, they can leave, but that they must comply if they want to remain. It's difficult to run a hands-on open source organization like Apache. It would be hard to lose some members, but better than having a lot of disagreements and having to maintain old organizational processes.

ziml77 5y ago

Maybe they thought that it was clear that they had the authority to move member projects to GitHub Enterprise. Maybe they thought that moving to GitHub Enterprise is solely a helpful move since it gives extra features to the the projects for free (by that I mean that maybe they considered it to be the equivalent of simply setting a flag on the project that gives it access to those features). Maybe there was miscommunication internally due to not having well-define protocols and someone thought it was safe to move the project. I don't know if they'll tell us exactly what was going through the mind of the person who triggered the move, but I don't see any reason to assume that they can't change how they operate to be respectful of the project maintainers.

benatkin 5y ago
Yes, part of the point of a foundation like .NET, Django Software Foundation, or Apache, is to have authority. It helps the creators of an open source project focus on doing what they enjoy, which is typically creating and maintaining software, and removes a lot of the hassle.
sbergot 5y ago
> Maybe they thought that it was clear that they had the authority to move member projects to GitHub Enterprise. Seeing the various owner reactions this was obviously not clear for them > Maybe they thought that moving to GitHub Enterprise is solely a helpful move since it gives extra features to the the projects for free (by that I mean that maybe they considered it to be the equivalent of simply setting a flag on the project that gives it access to those features). Maybe there was miscommunication internally due to not having well-define protocols and someone thought it was safe to move the project. If no one in the .net foundation was able to raise an alarm about those transfers because of a "simple" lack of awareness of the importance of project ownership, then I don't see how they can rebuild the lost trust. They have demonstrated an absolute lack of understanding of their OSS community. As you said maybe it is a process issue but simply saying "sorry we shouldn't have done that" is not transparent enough. Clearly at some point they were ok with those transfers since they were carried. And now they understand that it was a bad thing. What happened? Did the twitter/blog post backlash suddenly opened their eyes on the perspective of the project owners? If that is the case then what are the other things they need to realise in order to avoid making other mistakes such as this one?