[gentoo-project] Resignation

[Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org>]

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Effective today, December 16th, 2017 at 0800 UTC, I am resigning from my
position as Gentoo Developer and Foundation Trustee. I joined Gentoo to
gain experience and give back to the libre software community. In some
ways, maybe I succeeded a little. I learned from this experience that
I don't need to be a member of a distribution to contribute or advance
my skills, and people will often act against their stated goals if it
improves their appearance. It taught me how *not* to organize a libre
software project. The few great experiences I had here at Gentoo sadly
do not outweigh the negative experiences, and I'm no longer interested
in beating my head against that brick wall.

Here's a list of the "nothing" I've done in my Gentoo involvement:

As proxy maintainer, I took on these packages to sort of "prove my
worth":

net-p2p/i2p
net-p2p/imule
x11-wm/fluxbox

I knew nothing about Java -- and it probably showed -- but I was willing
to learn what was necessary to get the ebuilds in better shape. This
never changed throughout the 2.5 years I was a developer.

pchrist, heroxbd, jlec, and zlogene mentored me and got me up to speed.
I am grateful for their level of care and attention, and the effort they
put in alongside me. My recruitment process was protracted due to real
life, but we eventually pulled through.

After I became a developer, maffblaster welcomed me to the wiki, and
we even had a conversation over Mumble later on. I later took on more
packages, enthusiastic to give back to a distro that I liked:

app-cdr/bashburn
dev-util/astyle
media-sound/apulse
media-video/smtube
net-misc/toxic
sys-apps/udevil
www-servers/lighttpd
x11-misc/alock
x11-misc/ktsuss
x11-misc/spacefm

I dipped my hands into any bug I thought I could reasonably solve,
and sought advice when I didn't know the correct way to do something.
Sometimes this worked; sometimes I'd realize I didn't have the skill
necessary, and left it to the more experienced people.

Sometimes, mgorny would show up and tell me that my solution sucked or
was "braindead", or that such-and-such solution was "common sense",
with no explanation as to *why* it was "common sense". (this was on
IRC, though [1] outlines where jcallen had to clarify what I hope
mgorny intended to communicate) He didn't ever tell me what the correct
solution was to any given problem that I might've messed up. To this
end, his criticism served to do nothing but demotivate me. At a later
point, when monsieurp and I were dealing with file collisions, he
threatened to have us go through the developer quizzes again. [2] None
of his criticism was helpful or encouraging. The key to good criticism
is to be *constructive*, acknowledging the mistakes *AND* the successes.
Without both, one's communication is morally destructive.

[1]: https://bugs.gentoo.org/547524
[2]: https://bugs.gentoo.org/603526#c6

(careful, the comments might be deleted in response to this e-mail to
save face)

Later, I was nominated as Trustee by klondike. At first, I didn't think
I could do the job. Maybe I should've listened to that feeling. But I
felt it would be rude if I didn't accept a nomination. Nothing ventured,
nothing gained, right? I didn't expect to be voted for. I had a feeling
I would be laughed at and would walk away having spent the time on a
manifesto for nothing. Reality is often stranger than fiction, and I
found myself in a Trustee role. Given that he was only one rank below me
in the election, I feel that klondike may have been a better fit for the
role. I regret accepting the nomination.

robbat2 mentored me on Treasurer duties, when he had the spare time. I
felt bad that he was spread so thin between his other Gentoo duties,
mentoring me, and being a parent. Nevertheless, I pushed forward, trying
to fill the role as best I knew how to. Most of the time, I was afraid
to touch anything because I understood that money was involved. I didn't
want to make a mistake and cost us money. Because of that, I only ever
logged into one account (Paypal), and only to gather the metadata we
needed to update some records.

mgorny again showed up; this time accusing me of being a "do-nothing
politician". Thankfully, I kept an activity log of everything I did for
the Foundation, and `git log --committer=zlg@gentoo.org` will show you
everything I did in the tree. Yes, I made mistakes. Some of them rookie
ones. But given that I wasn't being paid for my work, and time spent
on Gentoo meant time I couldn't spend on other things (like personal
projects), I needed to make a value decision: was I willing to continue
donating labor to an organization that didn't notice my work unless
I screwed up? If I was truly as ineffectual as those who claimed it
(rich0), what was the point of continuing? The cricitism I received
during my time as a developer was demotivating and didn't acknowledge
any of the *correct* things I did; how exactly was I going to improve?

These questions led me to my answer: leave the organization. There is no
point in continuing to try when I will only be berated for screwing up.
My failures will be paraded to all while my victories go un-noticed and
unappreciated. This is a losing proposition, leading nowhere. As such, I
am terminating my involvement with Gentoo Linux and its Foundation.

I'd like to thank everyone who helped me become a developer and trustee,
and the two positive code reviews I received during my time as a
developer, by Soap and floppym. They helped me understand not only
*where* I messed up, but what the solution should've looked like and
*why* their solutions were better. I don't think either of them really
like me, but credit given where it's due.

A developer will not progress or become more skilled unless they
understand those key things (why, how, where). Drive-by insults and
egotism will drive people away. Gentoo won't improve in this regard
unless it cares enough to value what people contribute and acknowledge
when people give constructive reviews. It takes effort from both "sides"
of a mentorship in order to get any appreciable progress.

When I reached out to members of the Gentoo community, I learned that
there were a considerable number of users (of all skill levels) who,
for whatever reason, did not want to go through the process of becoming
a developer. This told me that there was an imbalance in the value
proposition; that is, the effort spent to become a developer *appears*
to be more work than what you get by making it through the process. I
think this is the core of Gentoo's struggles. Gentoo will continue to
suffer from manpower problems [3] until it figures out how to improve
that value proposition. If higher quality recruits are desired, then
a structured curriculum -- with smaller, focused tests along the way
-- may be the best way to bring a recruit from "wet behind the ears"
to "ready to commit on the toolchain". This process is important to
Gentoo's longevity, and unless its leadership takes this social problem
seriously, they will find themselves with more work and fewer people.

[3]: Before any glib old-timer pipes up, recall that the Council (your
leadership) just recently considered a mailing list split and discussed
package maintenance (i.e. manpower) problems in the same meeting; I hope
the irony is not lost on others.

I expect to be laughed or jeered at by mgorny and other senior
developers, but now it's Gentoo's problem, not mine. I've done what I
thought I could do, and can walk away knowing that I tried. Nobody can
reasonably ask for more than that.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

(on the plus side, you can now type 'zl' and Tab in IRC to get zlogene
instead of me :P)

My Foundation activity follows.

FOUNDATION ACTIVITY TRACKER
FOR zlg@gentoo.org

2017-10-08
    Worked with robbat2 to catch up the MoneyMarket account to match the missing
    statements from 2013-12 to 2015-12.

2017-10-22
    Edited the Foundation:Activity Tracker page with the new due date of the 
    Treasurer's Annual Report with NM: 2018-11-15

2017-11-19
    robbat2 re-encrypted the banking passwords file, granting access to online
    accounts for me to begin converting Paypal transaction data and catch up on
    other financial activity.

    Paypal transaction information from 20170701-20171031 was imported and 
    converted using `make all` in /paypal_raw/; commit pending

    Corrected Ruby call in paypal_raw/Makefile to ruby22

    Added a note in paypal_raw/README about requiring dev-ruby/tzinfo    

    The meeting was postponed until Nov 26th, due to Meeting Chair's last-minute
    obligations and a shortage of trustees.
        * E-mail announcement was sent to -nfp@l.g.o
        * Wiki page for meeting updated
        * #gentoo-trustees /topic updated

    Convened with robbat2 on correcting the rubycsv code to include Subject: and 
    Note: fields for matching accounts. He later fixed this on his own.

2017-11-26
    bug 605336; updated metadata for FOSDEM 2017 LiveDVD production reimbursement

    bug 591704; updated metadata for Perl Foundation donation in our loss of
    avenj

    wrote script to update foundation member OpenPGP key IDs to fingerprints, 
    per ulm's request: 
    https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-nfp/message/f06a3b742e06ddfcb541a822e0210e05
    sent to trustees@g.o for review
    used one-liner from robbat2 to fetch fingerprints from LDAP to x-ref

    bug 638036; created bug for shadowz.in request for logo/trademark licensing
        discussion pending

2017-11-27 to 2017-12-04
    worked on two more scripts to migrate and upgrade foundation list to include
    full fingerprints (and multiple keys)
        only script remaining is wikitable creator; a user indicated it would
        be trivial to write, using awk.

EOF
-- 
Daniel Campbell
OpenPGP Fingerprint: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
Found on hkp://keys.gnupg.net and other keyservers

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