3 ms·

I think that's quite one sided. He rejected the commit because the author didn't sign the contributors agreement. He was following the rules. His crime was the

I think that's quite one sided. He rejected the commit because the author didn't sign the contributors agreement. He was following the rules. His crime was the tone of voice. I don't think it's worth forcing someone off a project for that.

Dewie 12y ago
> I think that's quite one sided. IMO argentpyro explained the incident in a pretty neutral manner.
- afandian 12y ago
  Actually reading that particular conversation about the commit (there were several) does demonstrate the reasons for reverting the commit. (And the amazing speed at which things escalated)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
untog 12y ago
I don't believe that was the reason he used in the discussion thread. His reply was: "Sorry, not interested in trivial changes like that."
- shawndrost 12y ago
  He went into more depth later: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568172 https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568... Among other things that might change your impression of Ben: 1) The work that the PR required from him was much more than clicking the merge button. 2) He's a non-native speaker of English and at the time he reverted the commit, he was under the impression that the difference was academic. 3) In his spare time, he teaches young people (especially women) to code.
  - scljstcwombat 12y ago
    Ben's answers on this have always been deeply unsatisfactory: 1) a) the merge was accomplished trivially by another maintainer; the idea that there was "more work" required of ben is demonstrably false. 1) b) he undertook more work to revert the existing commit, also see 2) 2) a) at the time he reverted the commit, there was substantial explanation on the issue on why it was important. 2) b) because Ben failed to check with his own colleague, he was unaware the commit had in fact been signed off - there was no rule problem here, apart from "not telling Ben". 3) lots of people do nice things and are assholes in other circumstances. Apart from the sarcastic tone of his post ("if this gets us scores of female contributors" indeed), the grapevine says he was pretty deeply offensive to Issac over the issue as well.
- afandian 12y ago
  That's precisely what I mean by tone of voice. Egalitarianism (and all kinds of society-improving imperatives) are important, but if someone submits a change that is objectively a small number of bytes (regardless of the social ramifications) and doesn't follow the procedures, then they are causing him a problem. He could certainly have phrased it better (which I characterised as 'tone of voice'), but as you get your daily work done you can't always be aware of the huge weight of people with a cause ready to descend when you slip up. People need the latitude to have an off-day. Who knows what else was on his mind. I know Joyent wasn't his employer, but if I slipped up as part of my work and got a tirade of abuse as he did, I would hope my employer would support me not stab me in the back.
  - centrinoblue 12y ago
    His employer did support him: http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-in-the-node-community/ http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-...
    - afandian 12y ago
      That was a great blog post, one that I don't remember having seen. That's exactly what I'd hope for. It kind of throws into contrast Joyent's. http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

Dewie 12y ago

> I think that's quite one sided. IMO argentpyro explained the incident in a pretty neutral manner.

afandian 12y ago
Actually reading that particular conversation about the commit (there were several) does demonstrate the reasons for reverting the commit. (And the amazing speed at which things escalated)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

untog 12y ago

I don't believe that was the reason he used in the discussion thread. His reply was: "Sorry, not interested in trivial changes like that."

shawndrost 12y ago
He went into more depth later: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568172 https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568... Among other things that might change your impression of Ben: 1) The work that the PR required from him was much more than clicking the merge button. 2) He's a non-native speaker of English and at the time he reverted the commit, he was under the impression that the difference was academic. 3) In his spare time, he teaches young people (especially women) to code.
- scljstcwombat 12y ago
  Ben's answers on this have always been deeply unsatisfactory: 1) a) the merge was accomplished trivially by another maintainer; the idea that there was "more work" required of ben is demonstrably false. 1) b) he undertook more work to revert the existing commit, also see 2) 2) a) at the time he reverted the commit, there was substantial explanation on the issue on why it was important. 2) b) because Ben failed to check with his own colleague, he was unaware the commit had in fact been signed off - there was no rule problem here, apart from "not telling Ben". 3) lots of people do nice things and are assholes in other circumstances. Apart from the sarcastic tone of his post ("if this gets us scores of female contributors" indeed), the grapevine says he was pretty deeply offensive to Issac over the issue as well.
afandian 12y ago
That's precisely what I mean by tone of voice. Egalitarianism (and all kinds of society-improving imperatives) are important, but if someone submits a change that is objectively a small number of bytes (regardless of the social ramifications) and doesn't follow the procedures, then they are causing him a problem. He could certainly have phrased it better (which I characterised as 'tone of voice'), but as you get your daily work done you can't always be aware of the huge weight of people with a cause ready to descend when you slip up. People need the latitude to have an off-day. Who knows what else was on his mind. I know Joyent wasn't his employer, but if I slipped up as part of my work and got a tirade of abuse as he did, I would hope my employer would support me not stab me in the back.
- centrinoblue 12y ago
  His employer did support him: http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-in-the-node-community/ http://strongloop.com/strongblog/collaboration-not-derision-...
  - afandian 12y ago
    That was a great blog post, one that I don't remember having seen. That's exactly what I'd hope for. It kind of throws into contrast Joyent's. http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun