Drawing my own conclusion
by davidnielsen
A man I once was proud to call a friend, with whom I have shared many good moments over the years, Jesse Keating recently gave me some blunt advice on the advisablity of continuing my work with Fedora. Draw your own conclusions.
Along with the recent onslaught of mail I have gotten, focusing not on the technology or with aims of providing constructive criticism. Instead focusing on calling me names or implying that I am deluded and dishonest. Like the kind mail I found in my inbox this morning from one Matthew Woehlke:
David Nielsen wrote:
I have instead gotten disrespectful personal mail
[snip]
Looking back at the IRC log I am left with a foul taste in my mouth,
mentions of what RHEL supports and how it’s not a bad thing to
discriminate based on language.
[snip]
I am frankly disgusted by this whole affair, especially since my
honesty and motives were brought into question.
I’m going to guess a lot of that “disrespectful personal mail” revolves around the use of mono? And why shouldn’t it? Lots of people (myself included) have a special hatred of Microsoft’s Trojan Horse, and good reason to question the honesty and motives of people that push it. (Which is not to say I don’t believe there are honest people that are either deluded or simply don’t care.)
If you’re going to promote the technology of a Linux-hostile, GPL-hating, monopolistic bully of a company that regularly engages in racketeering, encourages people to violate the GPL, and is currently suing against Linux… well, some people aren’t going to like that :-).
Personally, the only thing I would want to do with mono code would be to port it to !mono. YMMV.
My conclusion is that any further work with Fedora is not something I have a desire to do, it will not be welcomed and I have no interest in fighting to contribute my time and work for free. I do owe the users of the products I maintain or do work on in Fedora an apology, I wish I could continue to say Fedora will provide a pleasant experience for your applications of choice. However as they do not for me, I cannot do so for you. For that I am sorry, I hope things will change and that capable people will pick up the work on Mono I outlined with such joy over the last week or so, I cannot in good conscience do so anymore.
With that I will delete my FAS account, remove myself from Planet Fedora and cease being involved with the project in any way. Not without a tear in my eye though, I have gotten to know a lot of great people in Fedora, some I have had the privillage of calling friends. I will miss working with them.
System.NullReferenceException 
man, how can you do that to us? Come on, we need you! Don’t get discouraged so easily, I’m sure there are people who use mono, and don’t forget, your work is always appreciated although not all of the users might explicitly say it. If you don’t do the work, no-one will, and we are left mono-less and some cool apps use mono, then what are we gonna do?
The thing is, if Mono and applications using it remains second class citizens and it is considered perfectly legimitate to lashback the way I have experienced. Then I think people who care about Mono may need to make a choice between Fedora and Mono. That being said, other people will surely continue the work, maybe not with as much ambition, maybe with more – I know that the Mono SIG has some talented people who have a burning passion for Mono on Fedora. I am sure you will continue to find your Mono apps available under Fedora in the near future. I am just one guy, there are many others.
Personally I will be switching to another distro entirely, I am tired of fighting. I am tired of feeling like the technology doesn’t matter and having my motives questioned. When the time I spend on Fedora is time I take from spending with friends, family and my beloved fiancée I don’t want those feelings and that tiredness associated with that work.
My recommendations for distributions with good Mono stacks would be Foresight Linux who has great package management, and their Mono stack always seemed to work great for me plus they have Banshee as the default mediaplayer which I like. Debian/Ubuntu (They have well researched packaging guidelines and directhex/Jo Shields who does a lot of that work is a great person who deserves much praise). Finally naturally openSUSE, who have messy spec files but wonderful support for everything Mono, I am not a big YaST fan but the distro is very decent overall.
I have a feeling I will settle on Foresight. It embodies a lot of the things I liked about Fedora and improves on many of the things that frustrate me about Fedora. I just wish it had a more vibrant community attached to it, it really deserves it.
[…] 7, 2009 at 6:52 pm (fedora) This is a shame. I thought Fedora is about Friends. According to this […]
Does this have more to do with RH’s opposition to Mono in the vein of Microsoft as a competitor or the religious fervor and zealotry sometimes displayed by well meaning folk?
Maybe people on the “right” side need to become a little more open minded from time to time…
I would say both, when I don’t feel like my work matters nor is welcome, and I then end up the receiving end of this level of abuse.. well it doesn’t inspire me to continue, the quest just seems futile and the cost to high.
I do Free Software work because it’s fun, this isn’t fun. Not the slightest, not in any regard. I simply don’t see why I should continue to put my time into Fedora given that.
I also fail to see why anyone else would, it’s a hobby, they are supposed to be something to take joy from.
Everyone has their own opinion, and I will give mine: The best distro to work for, other then Fedora, is Ubuntu. Their head community people have been calling for volunteers to increase the work surrounding Mono and have a huge love for banshee: http://tinyurl.com/7wrdur and Canonical isn’t anti-mono since some of their new job postings desire Mono as a skill: http://tinyurl.com/dzjwpn.
I don’t anything at all against Foresight, but from experience I recommend switching to Ubuntu. You will get a lot of respect from the community as well as the commercial backer and will have a user base Foresight could only dream of.
PS. It will be sad to see you go. Fedora will not be the same without you.
Ubuntu is a strong distribution and I have always enjoyed talking to directhex. I also am lucky enough to get to call upon Jorge Castro from time to time for chatting and exchanging of ideas. Ubuntu is definitely on the list of possibilities for a new home. I am not as such looking to start contributing again, I want to take a bit of time, assess if I think I can make a positive impact and if I enjoy the community of whereever I end up then I would love to be part of it. I also might take up some personal project such as writing some code for Banshee.
Outside the fact that I won’t touch Fedora again, I see the future as being wonderfully open to me. I look forward to poking at various things and seeing what place to call home.
I think you are a little unfair.
Fedora provide Mono by default (for tomboy). Ubuntu does not (even the last alpha).
_Today_ RHEL does not provide Mono. Mostly because RHEL 5 was based on FC6 and this one does not have Mono (F7 has Mono). RHEL is a pay supported product. This mean Red Hat can’t provide Mono if Red Hat does not have some C# skin or if there is no benefit to its business.
Since Fedora provide Mono by default, RHEL 6 is very likely to provide Mono.
Any way, perhaps RHEL will not have Mono for some business reasons. But Fedora should provide Mono (even if I am not a big fan :-)).
Fedora is an *open* and community project, RHEL isn’t. RHEL is a product.
Btw, mono is protected by OIN :
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_linuxdefpop.html
Red Hat fully support OIN and then also protect everybody from any threat around Mono.
Sorry for my english.
RHEL 6 will not provide Mono either, I tried asking.
This is very sad news. I was following your Foresight comparison with interest; in fact, I am just about to try it on my netbook’s spare partition. Too bad the Mono issue is going to stop Fedora from receiving your input in other fields.
A fellow Mono maintainer,
—
Michel
Foresight is still quite young, and sadly understaffed. It has great potential and the packaging is topnotch. Conary isn’t perfect, it’s so what slow and their packagekit doesn’t seem to work all to well for me. Their default install has all manners of things installed that in my opinion shouldn’t be there. There are crippling bugs to average use, but somehow it seems a bit charming rather than hopelessly annoying. A bit like how it felt when I first started using Linux over a decade ago. Rough around the edges but underneath all that building dust you know awaits a monument for the ages.
I am mainly using it as an example because they truly understand the value of good defaults though which I find important.
Please take good care of Banshee for me, it is near to my heart.
> davidnielsen said :
> RHEL 6 will not provide Mono either, I tried asking.
A pointer please.
You can click the first link in the post. Additional information on RHELs non shipping of Mono.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-December/msg02691.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-December/msg02686.html
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-December/msg02713.html
http://bpepple.fedorapeople.org/fesco/FESCo-2009-03-06.html
From which we can quote:
f13: abadger1999: given that mono isn’t allowed in RHEL it is a very real concern.
(there are other Mono goodies in this log but I will leave you to read those)
You are also free to do your own research and ask Red Hat.
> You are also free to do your own research and ask Red Hat.
Yes.
Thanks for your reply.
David,
As a long-time but small part contributor to Fedora, I was distressed to read the exchange of emails. I felt Jesse’s reply, which you referenced above was unfortunately terse but we are all human and even when I read it at the time it struck me as not what I have come to expect from him. We all have our bad days – I know I have mine.
I’m essentially asking if you would re-consider your decision to leave. You are discarding an awful lot in doing so and you leave Fedora weakened as a result I believe. Every idea must have its detractors to stay grounded and our individual positions are what guide us and define us.
I believe Mono is an excellent technology that I’m not entirely sure Microsoft is willing to allow to become a true cross-platform product and I am not entirely convinced that it is not the Trojan horse some believe it is. I’d be keen to see you continue your own fight within the project instead of from outside. Experience tells us the grass is rarely greener and I hope you will give this some thought.
Regards
Chris
The answer is no, I am done fighting, why should I fight to contribute my time, why? I am simply tired of investing myself and instead of contributions being taken on their technical merit they devolve into attacks on my person. It is clear to me that any such effort as I have made is utterly pointless, and unwelcomed. I can’t help but to be strongly disgusted by a community that always displays a public face of friendship being able to devolve into painting me as dishonest and deluded. Why in the world would I continue to further the cause of such people, people I have proudly defended in public for years, people I have considered myself lucky to work with and learn from, people I have grown to consider friends.
I am tired of giving my time, effort and pouring my entusiasm into something I love and have it whither away between my fingers. I am simply tired and fed up, I do this work in my sparetime. I have never taken anything for it despite being offered, I always felt that just being part of building something I believed in was enough.
I no longer believe.
David, I was sorry to see this post, and I do hope you will reconsider.
I’m not sure what capacity Matthew contributes to fedora, but he doesn’t speak for the project as a whole, or at least me in particular.
I have nothing against mono, and Banshee and Tomboy are fine apps in My experence.
I am on FESCo and did vote against Banshee as default, not because it’s mono, but because thats the wrong level to make sure decisions. I use midori as my web browser here and like it a lot. Does that mean I should ask FESCo to make it the default browser? No. I should convince those decision makers involved in the spin I am trying to make it default in.
(Perhaps in the F12 cycle someone will make a mono spin? Focusing on the cool apps, etc?).
Anyhow, I’m sorry some in our community ranted at you and mono, and wish you luck in whatever you decide to do.
As it has already been made clear that Mono isn’t welcome in Fedora, and will always be a second class citizen, the best I can do is to leave instead of wasting my time. Why should it be on a secondary spin, the main consumer is the desktop spin. If the technology and the apps are good they should be there or at least be able to be considered on equal footing. Suggesting such a thing just underlines the fact that this work is pointless and that the technology will always take up this buttomrung place in Fedora, no matter what I or anyone else does.
I don’t want to pour my heart and soul into something and continue to feel like I am just polishing something to a shine to have to be left hidden away in the closet as a matter of policy. Why do that when I can go somewhere else, somewhere where maybe I will not get nasty emails for the dreadful sin of giving my time free of charge to something I love and where it is not made clear that the work will never be welcomed.
In the time members of Fedora has tried to convince me that I should just continue fighting, I have recieved very nice mails from other communities welcoming me to join up. Now what would you do, continue a pointless fight for your right to give your time away which also comes with degrading personal insults instead of constructive technical debate, in a futile quest to improve something you love knowing policy dictates that it will never be a first class citizen regardless of your effort or a friendly welcome?
Lies have been spread about me, my motives and my honesty. The work I do is clearly not welcome. I can only conclude that Fedora is not for me. I pick a friendly welcome, wouldn’t you as well in all honesty?
First off, publicly posting private mail is, at best, rude. Especially when you’re going to defame someone without even telling them you’ve done so. (I found this post via http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.devel/107325; I read it only out of curiosity and was shocked to find that you’d chosen me to bear the brunt of your assault.)
I also object to your insinuation that I engaged in name-calling or accusing you of dishonesty. I did neither… however in light of your own actions, I ask you to consider how you would characterize publicly attacking someone without giving them a chance to defend themselves or even a little heads-up that you are doing so. Especially when this sort of behavior is the very thing about which you are complaining.
On the other hand, I admit I was trying to sum up my own feelings why *other* people might be doing this. Perhaps I simply did a very good job of summarizing :-).
You are right about one thing, and I apologize for overlooking it earlier; attacking someone *solely* because they support Mono is not justified.
I’d like to end with a quote of RMS: “Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won’t leave you alone.”
If you are willing to write it to me in private then you should be able to stand by your words in public as well. You elected to imply that I am deluded and dishonest, I don’t see how that makes me the rude one in this interaction. I never implied that you were a Fedora developer (as I didn’t know at the time, I only knew you are active on the mailing list), only that this was one of the many mails I had gotten in the same vein, all of which I considered unacceptable behavior.
I didn’t force you to write said email to me also I reproduced your words exactly as they were to be found in my inbox. I open my blog to any reply you might have and I will not censor whatever you may elect to write here. I am not depriving you of a chance of to justify your choice of words. That is about as fair as can be, no out of context quoting, I never questioned your mental capacity. Your words, in full, as an example of the kind of stuff I have been sent as well as your words in full for any follow up.
Oh, and…
> I’m not sure what capacity Matthew contributes to fedora
I don’t, really (for legal reasons unfortunately), which is why I find it interesting that David should single me out. I can only assume/hope that, as stated above, it’s because I happened to eloquently describe the sentiment he (feels that he*) received from other sources.
(* by which I only mean that the sentiment someone is desiring to express, and the sentiment perceived by the receiving party, are not always the same)
Hey David, as someone who doesn’t really use many mono apps (firefox + a terminal emulator are my main applications) I’ll still put my 2 cents in and say the work you do *has* been very welcome to me. I want Fedora to improve in all areas and I think that work put into making our mono apps better, even when they’re not in the main spin, is a good thing for making that happen.
Mono is something that a lot of programmers don’t want to touch because of the Microsoft stigma. It’s something that I personally don’t want to invest time in learning to code in C#. But unlike others, that makes me appreciate the fact that you’re out there improving things all the more. You’re investing your time and energy making a piece of Fedora better so that the rest of us don’t have to. You definitely deserve thanks for that rather than abuse.
I think we probably differ about whether the technical reasons justify not making banhee the default media player in the desktop spin but on treating some languages as second-class citizens I’m with you in preferring a more up-front, this is either okay or it isn’t. this kind of in-between state is bad as there’s no clear boundaries of acceptable or not and no clear enunciation of what the problems are that have to be addressed.
…and on the front of your value to Fedora, I am very sorry to see you go but if you’ve taken a look at your goals and they really don’t match with Fedora’s and there’s another distro where they do you’re doing the right thing. I’m sure you’ll carry a lot of your future work upstream where it will benefit everyone. Thank you for all that you’ve done for Fedora. I’m sorry I didn’t say that when you started taking charge of fixing problems with our mono stack. And if the grass isn’t greener over the hill, maybe you can bring some valuable experiences back to Fedora someday.
Thank you, this is exactly what I wanted. You might not like Banshee or Mono but I am able to have a rationale debate with you on the subject. I made the proposal to have something to come to that debate with, I don’t believe it is good manners to come unprepared to such a discussion and clearly outlining some main points before starting I find important. It gives a reference and a few areas in which to frame the discussion which all helps to keep people focused. In that vein, one of the reasons I would have liked to be at such a meeting (and thus clearly make my contact information available) was that I asked upstreams two lead maintainers to be present and help answer any questions, something they kindly agreed to. This I feel would have made a much nicer base for making a future decision as well as putting highlights on the pros and cons. This might also have helped upstream a great deal, it would give them a list of things that concerned Fedora about Banshee which they consider for future releases, all hopefully serving both Banshee and Fedora.
Regardless it all has very little to do with the proposal itself and quite a lot to do with the response I got, officially and unofficially, I got mail from people who never contacted me before who slung insults at me. Reading the IRC log from the meeting and the responses on my request for comments. When I have directly asked if I was wasting my time as frustrations built up that was found to be basically the case. It is not a single incident, this is long times frustration, failure to be heard and feeling that I was being prevented from competing on a level playing field with other applications that built up to a point where the cost of being a Fedora contributor outweight the benefits. I never got anything but the satisfaction of helping to build Fedora out of this, that just wasn’t enough to make up for the perceived cost anymore. I think that is true for most contributors, when it ceases to be fun or you feel like one to many roadblocks is being put in your way without good reason, your desire to contribute decreases. Sometimes that might be easy to forget for those who have Fedora as their job in one aspect or another.
I hope one day Fedora does work out a clear policy for Mono, even if that is to ban it totally. That would at least tell people who do the work that it is not welcome in Fedora. I, for one, would happily have accepted if Mono was put on the forbidden list with good justification. Then parting with Fedora on friendly terms would have been much easier as I can value honesty. I also feel it would be serving Fedora users better, I know many who use Mono products on Fedora and they expect a certain level of commitment to support, if the maintainers feel that Mono isn’t welcome they are less apt to serving those users and as such it reflects poorly on Fedora.
I make no qualms about my love for Mono, I think it is important software, so much so that I have gone else where to have it even as much as I have enjoyed other aspects of Fedora, I think others by and large are the same. If Fedora has no wish to support Mono, then they will go to another platform and be happy there.
I don’t make the mistake of thinking I am some big important cog that makes Fedora go around, it was fine without me before I became a contributor and it will be fine once the dust settles and I am gone, hopefully with lessons learned.
I will stand by my words. I didn’t accuse you of anything in my original mail, I’ve tried (and am trying) to be constructive, but you’ve repeatedly accused me of name-calling and attempted to do so in secret. I gave you the benefit of the doubt as to your motives, and you repaid that with reasons to question them. You say you value honesty, but your actions say otherwise. Stand by your own words by confronting your critics instead of gossiping behind their backs.
I hope that you’re simply overreacting (something I freely admit I’m prone to myself) as a result of others that have been out of line. If that’s the case, please find a more appropriate target to confront, and do so directly. Right now you’re just giving your critics ammunition.
Matthew,
You pretty much partitioned Mono enthusiasts as either a) Microsoft lackeys, b) Microsoft dupes, or c) people indifferent to the spirit of free software. And claims that (a) is the majority.
A lot of us (including quite prominent developers such as nirik and abadger) consider that rather rude, even those who do not personally have a stake in good Mono support. I myself will recuse from commenting on whether Mono is a trojan horse or not, as a few of my packages are Mono-related.
David, hopefully your hiatus won’t be permanent, and hope you find a Linux home soon. Can’t we persuade you to keep Fedora as your secondary Linux distribution? You’re rather too modest regarding your level of contribution — right now you’re literally one of the main cog in fedora-mono (you still administer the list, even!)
All the best,
— Michel
I can’t really in good conscience use a distro I know treats the software I love as second class by policy. Till that changes I am not touching Fedora.
I also don’t think I am the one man Mono cog in Fedora, during the time I considered setting up the SIG properly I got regular mails from new people who wanted to help out but didn’t really see a way to do so. I might be the catalyst right now but all those people have the fiery passion and now also a list of items to attack. I hope they will pick up that work, and hopefully at such a time policy won’t make that work feel pointless.
>> You pretty much partitioned Mono enthusiasts as either a) Microsoft lackeys, b) Microsoft dupes, or c) people indifferent to the spirit of free software. <> And claim that (a) is the majority. <<
Majority in voice, *possibly*, but I don’t know that I would even go that far. In numbers… I don’t think I said that, and I wouldn’t. Heck, the majority of *people in general* clearly fall mostly into categories (b) and (c). (This is clearly evident by the number of Windows users, if nothing else.)
That’s annoying, I guess I can’t use ‘<‘ :-(.
–begin stuff that got eaten
I understand these classifications as:
People in (a) understand what Microsoft does and desire the perpetuation of that system. People in (b) don’t understand, and people in (c) understand but don’t care.
And that said… yes, I would have to say that’s a fairly accurate description of my feelings about Mono. I don’t believe people that genuinely care about Freedom can promote patented Microsoft technology; that would, at best, put such people into (c).
–end stuff that got eaten
For the record, I spent most of my life in (b) and/or (c). It’s not my intent to berate people still in those categories, but to help them realize where they are and get out. (Or in the case of (c), to try to persuade them to care :-).)
David: Hmm. Re-reading my original mail, I see where I *did* try to pigeon-hole you. Ouch. You are right, I am wrong, and I apologize. Please understand that this was not my intent.
Yes I question the honesty of people in (a); this should go without saying. What I have been trying to explain is that I meant to give you the benefit of the doubt; to put you in (c), if you will. (And in my defense, I still didn’t actually say I question *your* honesty, I said that there are reasons – which IMO are legitimate and sound – to question the honesty of *some people* that push mono. But I see now how I did an extremely poor job of making that clear. That said, I still think you should notify someone if you’re going to vilify them in public.)
And, yes, from my perspective, any support of mono is an example of less than 100% commitment to Free Software (but I should also note that RMS is the only person I would put in the “100% committed” category 🙂 ).
mwoehlke, saying “I don’t think YOU eat kittens, only people with your name and your clothes” is pretty disingenuous – if you think it makes your attack any less of, well, an attack, you’re mistaken.
And really, that’s the point.
Why should David continue to waste his time trying to make Fedora a more attractive platform to users, developers, switchers, etc, if he’s going to be attacked for it? If his work is blocked at every turn? Masochism?
If Fedora doesn’t want any kind of Mono, then that should be policy, and it should be written down and adhered to – at which point, talented people know to avoid Fedora as hostile to them. The situation David describes – where Mono is allowed in more or less for the sole purpose of being treated as a punching bag, is insane – treat it evenly, or don’t let it in at all, don’t make a special class of inferior citizens especially for it (and for its packagers).
Not everyone I interact with in Ubuntu’s development circles is pro-Mono – but they absolutely don’t allow their personal feelings and prejudices cloud their behaviour. Even if they don’t see eye to eye on the means, they agree on the goal – to make Ubuntu the most kick-ass platform for everyone in the world, so see anything to make Ubuntu better as a positive step.
Should Fedora intentionally pick specific inferior apps to avoid Mono? Should Fedora specifically make their Mono stack suck, to prevent people from developing with it? Should Fedora specifically turn people away who want to switch from Windows to Linux, but have .NET infrastructure already?
Is it worth pointing out at this point that the FSF-sponsored distro gNewSense, which they push in marketing material, has Mono by default?
Again, it’s up to the people behind Fedora to make a decision on whether they’re officially banning Mono or not. They could make it a selling point, to people who want to use politics rather than superiority to push their favourite apps to people. But expecting contributors to donate their time freely to an intentionally crippled section of the project is completely unfair.
Personally, I wish David luck with his endeavours (it sounds like he’s looking at the Foresight community rather than pkg-mono@debian), and that he keeps the number 1 rule of Free Software contribution in mind – do it because you enjoy it.
David, first good luck with your new home.
Its sad the experience you got while maintaining packages for Fedora. But many mono users will understand, and like you post earlier, it will end in a Mono vs Fedora choice, much like the KDE vs Fedora one. While there is KDE packages in Fedora, the stability and support compared to other distributions is very lacking.
I personally don’t recommend Fedora for neither Mono nor KDE, and that’s long before your packaging problems. I’m a happy SUSE user 🙂
Sooner or later the big minds at Fedora will notice their mistakes. Linux is about freedom of choice, something they are not giving us (at least easily).
I haven’t tried KDE on Fedora as I have absolutely no interest in that (this is The GNOME Commentary for a reason) but I trust the KDE SIG to do good work and provide KDE users with as fine an experience as possible.
As for my future plans, I have as mentioned in another posting been poisoned by some medication but in between.. depositing my food in innovative ways I have been trying various distros to see where I can live. This will result in a number of postings in the coming week on what I find important points of focus for Linux and my discoveries in suckage on non-Fedora platforms.
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