# The Trouble with FreeBSD (lwn.net article)



## aht0 (Feb 15, 2017)

Came across an article https://lwn.net/Articles/712308/

Your thoughts about it?


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## ASX (Feb 15, 2017)

> Rice said, he was there to speak about the past; by looking at how FreeBSD ran into trouble, *perhaps we can all learn something useful about how we run our projects*.





> Leadership is hard, Rice said. *If the project had had an established code of conduct at that time*, it might have been in a better position to deal with this rock-star developer problem.



Considering what happened in the past [ Dillon ] and what happened just few days ago with marino@ , that's all blah blah nonsense, having a code of conduct didn't helped at all.

(By the way, I'm associating only the outcome of the cases about Dillon and Marino, the removal of commit bits, and not their personal habits, also because I was not here at the time of Dillon case).


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## ShelLuser (Feb 15, 2017)

My thoughts...  A lot of people overreact. Sure it can be tedious and all, but the real question in my opinion is if things work or not. FreeBSD maybe slow with adapting some new standards but quite frankly that's exactly what I like, and I think the same applies to others. While other projects have seen plenty of time spend in changing their source repository / version control system FreeBSD has only seen one change in the past (CVS to Subversion). I don't get this fascination some people have with "the latest and greatest", I'd rather focus on "getting the job done", and I get the impression that this approach is also living with FreeBSD. If Subversion gets the job done, why bother with something else?

I know: because 'something else' = 'better'. But that will only last until the next hot thing comes around. So you'd risk ending up in an endless cycle involving plenty of time and effort which, in my opinion, is much better spend on the project itself.

As to code of conducts and such...  I always compare that to a gentlemen's agreement; which has one flaw: it needs two gentlemen. Code of conduct is nice and all, but if the underlying mindset is off then nothing is going to change that I think.

The author also talks about fixing problems, but I can't help wonder if some problems actually need fixing or are real problems at all.


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## roddierod (Feb 15, 2017)

I was a user at the time when Dillion was around and I still have no idea what exactly happened.  Dillion went from being on television (TechTV) promoting FreeBSD and it strengths to being kicked out the door.  Now it seems to be the same with Marino.  There is a thread on the freebsd-ports mailing listing asking for an explaination to the Marino case and the the official response (at least responses from persons with @FreeBSD.org addresses) is we aren't going to talk about it because that would be against the COC and the commit messages fully explains it.  For me personally that is not enough.  There are people defending John and it sounds to me like he has a strong personality and demands good work from people, some thing most people today don't like.  

I think all this COC/SJW crap is sad and going to ruin FreeBSD. FreeBSD will end up with a bunch of developers that get along and no one will push anyone because you might hurt someones feelings. If your feelings/beliefs/knowledge aren't challenged you don't grow or learn, that is my belief.

I've been a FreeBSD user since 1997, I have maintained ports and help debug drivers for release in the past and I am leaving because of politics which is sad to me.


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## marino (Feb 15, 2017)

Well, I told people days ago that the decision would not hold up to public scrutiny, so that any request for transparency and details would be defected.


			
				bdrewery said:
			
		

> Right, would you want an organization you volunteered for to drag your
> name through the mud for some reason?


Er, haven't the public expulsion and removing maintainership of 63 points accomplished just that?


			
				bdrewery said:
			
		

> I don't think it's our place (the
> project) to say more than we already have publicly.  Please drop this
> before it gets out of hand.  Discussing people personally/negatively in
> a public forum is not appropriate.



translation:  This is a deflection.  If we give you those details, it probably will blow back hard on us, so better to go with the "trust us, we have background information you aren't privy to and we're doing the right thing, who needs transparency?" routine.

This response is exactly what I expected.  I could provide context if told what the final straw(s) were but I think that's exactly what they're scared of.


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 15, 2017)

I don't recall if this was posted here already or I'm thinking of somewhere else but, if you pay attention, notice that this article is 75% stuff that has *nothing...NOTHING...to do with FreeBSD* and everything to do with personalities.

I haven't re-read the article but it's another BS article written by Linux people. If I feel like wasting my time, I'll find my previous response to it and re-post it here.


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## ASX (Feb 15, 2017)

drhowarddrfine said:


> if you pay attention, notice that this article is 75% stuff that has *nothing...NOTHING...to do with FreeBSD* and everything to do with personalities.


may be .. but I strongly disagree with you, it go as far as suggesting improvements:


> *With regard to leadership*, that could be fixable but it, too, *would require an attitude shift in the core team*. The team does not need to be an architectural leader, it needs to be a "scaffolding leader". It just needs to ensure that "the things the project needs to do a good job" are available. *The core team should focus on how FreeBSD is made, rather than what it should be. Its job should be reducing friction for developers*.



what the article doesn't address is about the "communication failure" also in charge to the "core team" which is increasingly evident considering the nature of the answers on the freebsd-ports mailing list.

Draw you own conclusions.


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## kafka0 (Feb 15, 2017)

ShelLuser said:


> If Subversion gets the job done, why bother with something else?
> 
> I know: because 'something else' = 'better'. But that will only last until the next hot thing comes around. So you'd risk ending up in an endless cycle involving plenty of time and effort which, in my opinion, is much better spend on the project itself.



Absolutely, to me, this is a fundamental cultural difference between Linux and BSD: the former has a tendency to adopt things at a very early stage, causing a lot of breaking changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse (the thing in question is proved problematic and is dropped as quickly as it was adopted), while the latter usually waits for things to mature and prove themselves enough before considering them for adoption. Also, only fix what needs fixing.



drhowarddrfine said:


> I don't recall if this was posted here already or I'm thinking of somewhere else but, if you pay attention, notice that this article is 75% stuff that has *nothing...NOTHING...to do with FreeBSD* and everything to do with personalities.
> 
> I haven't re-read the article but it's another BS article written by Linux people. If I feel like wasting my time, I'll find my previous response to it and re-post it here.



I agree, I found very little substance in the article and a lot of bias (I recall that things aren't much smoother on LKML and that a number of incidents have already happened that this very article would find intolerable).


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 15, 2017)

This is a lot of who is calling the kettle black. There is a lot more clashing and personalities and disruptions with Linux this past few years than in the history of FreeBSD.


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## gkontos (Feb 15, 2017)

The arguments that the author presents are not compelling at all. The article could be also considered as pure trolling.

Last year, we migrated our email collaboration platform from Linux to FreeBSD. It didn't take much to convince the rest of the team as soon as I showed them how easy it is to use the latest stable software, without having to use third party repos. Eventually, they saw that with FreeBSD we had better performance and a much more stable environment. Everybody are also very happy because they can keep the systems up to date without the need of frequent reboots. Let alone that some had terrible experience with systemd, the process is a win-win situation.

We are migrating our hosted services to our own clustered hardware this weekend. We have tested the new architecture using FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE for over 2 weeks. For some it was really impressive that I could just shutdown one server and have VRRP take care of everything without the client noticing even a glitch. Well, welcome to FreeBSD were we do not use the latest bleeding edge technology but instead we rely on simple things that just get the job done.


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## Tabs (Feb 15, 2017)

Yeah this article is just trolling - having come from Linux (after being forced off open solaris) it's so refreshing to move to something 'old' where people don't care for bling or change for changes sake. I think we'll see a steady increase in uptake of FreeBSD as others see Linux moving away from the UNIX principles and philosophies


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## kafka0 (Feb 15, 2017)

Tabs said:


> I think we'll see a steady increase in uptake of FreeBSD as others see Linux moving away from the UNIX principles and philosophies



I must say I never thought of it this way... There might well be an opportunity for the BSD here!


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## ANOKNUSA (Feb 15, 2017)

I actually watched the original talk last week and enjoyed most of it. (Benno seems to be a little nervous about public speaking, but that's not something I can hold against him.) I didn't bother clicking on the link to the article until I saw all the opinions here, then realized after reading it that it's just one guy putting his own opinions in someone else's mouth.


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## Datapanic (Feb 16, 2017)

...and opinions are like asteroids.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Feb 16, 2017)

gkontos said:


> The arguments that the author presents are not compelling at all. The article could be also considered as pure trolling.



That's how I read it.



Datapanic said:


> ...and opinions are like asteroids.



Everyone has got one?


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## lonestar (Feb 16, 2017)

marino@ said:


> Well, I told people days ago that the decision would not hold up to public scrutiny, so that any request for transparency and details would be defected.
> 
> Er, haven't the public expulsion and removing maintainership of 63 points accomplished just that?
> 
> ...



Just publish it. They deserve to be humiliated.

This sounds like the action of some passive-aggressive government bureaucrat (on their part, not yours). Sorry to hear you got caught up in it, but personally I'd fire all cylinders at them on my way out.


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## kafka0 (Feb 16, 2017)

ANOKNUSA said:


> I actually watched the original talk last week and enjoyed most of it. (Benno seems to be a little nervous about public speaking, but that's not something I can hold against him.) I didn't bother clicking on the link to the article until I saw all the opinions here, then realized after reading it that it's just one guy putting his own opinions in someone else's mouth.



Oh, are you saying the talk itself is worth watching, then? Did you get something new or interesting from it? Now I'm curious to know the original version...


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## marino (Feb 16, 2017)

lonestar said:


> Just publish it. They deserve to be humiliated.



The point is that I don't know what to address.  Until I'm provided the "evidence" that led them to decide that I am a serious and repeat Code of Conduct offender, I'll have to wait.  People are being told they have no right to private and internal communication, and apparently that includes me.  It's been almost a week now and I swear that as of this moment, I've been sent nothing more than the initial "you're gone" letter from Benno (which was essentially the same as the commit message removing my commit bit.)

I'm being called a liar by a guy with a freebsd icon here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BSD/comments/5u7ezi/prominent_freebsd_developer_john_marino_fired_no/

I assure you, what I've said is true.
I don't know what justification they are using.
People seem to suspect that if there was something clear and public, somebody (if not portmgr) would have pointed it out by now.
So play "Where's Waldo?" and see who can figure it out with what's available publicly.

(Of course I recall interactions with friction but nothing I deem worth of an expulsion, not even close.)


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## ASX (Feb 16, 2017)

ShelLuser said:


> As to code of conducts and such... I always compare that to a gentlemen's agreement


Good point:
a few at times the real issue start to emerge and I can read between the lines that some disagreements about ports managements in general exists/existed between @marino and and portsmgr@;
* https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/59705/page-2#post-343095
* https://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=434407+0+current/freebsd-ports

instead of clear up the disagreemeents someone (among core team and/or portsmgr team) decided to hide their decision behind some fictious code of conduct issue; ultimately a BIG management failure.

Who is not acting as a gentlemen in this story ?

core@ and portsmgr@ would be better to emerge from the mud they put themselves in, apologies and fix what they did wrongly.
.


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## ANOKNUSA (Feb 16, 2017)

kafka0 said:


> Oh, are you saying the talk itself is worth watching, then?



The talk is by a FreeBSD Core Team member who wants to talk about historical circumstances that have affected the project, and how they might affect future development. The LWN article is just some guy using the video as a jumping-off point to voice his own opinions. The content of the article is related to the content of the video, but the article's intro and conclusion seem to be more the author's opinion.


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## kafka0 (Feb 16, 2017)

ANOKNUSA said:


> The talk is by a FreeBSD Core Team member who wants to talk about historical circumstances that have affected the project, and how they might affect future development. The LWN article is just some guy using the video as a jumping-off point to voice his own opinions. The content of the article is related to the content of the video, but the article's intro and conclusion seem to be more the author's opinion.



OK. When I read the article, I was afraid it was only a depressed, apologetic talk that was featured mostly to pick on FreeBSD (to put it bluntly). I'll watch the video this week-end, then!


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 16, 2017)

marino@ said:


> I'm being called a liar by a guy with a freebsd icon here


Meh. Reddit. The padded cell of the internet.


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## ShelLuser (Feb 17, 2017)

ASX said:


> instead of clear up the disagreemeents someone (among core team and/or portsmgr team) decided to hide their decision behind some fictious code of conduct issue; ultimately a BIG management failure.
> 
> Who is not acting as a gentlemen in this story ?
> 
> ...


I don't think people who aren't directly involved with all that can draw such conclusions to be honest.

As to "hiding"; I think that was a right move to make. When it comes to applying a punishment to someone for whatever reason then that is something between the involved person and the people who came to that decision. There's no need to involve 3rd parties in my opinion, especially when those people don't have access to the same kind of information on which the team based their decision.

I think it can also help the punished person to move on. No risk for people who might endlessly keep referring back to that decision and holding it against the one who got punished. In the end most people will easily allow themselves to base their opinion on hearsay and one sided stories.

And yeah, to refer to myself: if you know the rules people expect you to play by and you willingly and knowingly decide to ignore those then there might come a time when a punishment is dealt. If you don't agree with some rules then there are other ways to protest against them than placing yourself on the wrong end of them.


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 17, 2017)

aht0 said:


> … thoughts about it?



First impression: the positioning of the photograph implies that the man with the beard and blue shirt is not a team player, is someone who's no longer with the project.

Second impressions:




From the article:



> … the real trouble with FreeBSD: it is made and led by volunteers. …



Really, that's not troublesome.



> … nobody whose job is purely to make FreeBSD more awesome …



I don't envisage that as a job for any one person.

I have other thoughts, but they'll probably not be shared here


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## marino (Feb 17, 2017)

ShelLuser said:


> I don't think people who aren't directly involved with all that can draw such conclusions to be honest.


I do.



> As to "hiding"; I think that was a right move to make. When it comes to applying a punishment to someone for whatever reason then that is something between the involved person and the people who came to that decision. There's no need to involve 3rd parties in my opinion, especially when those people don't have access to the same kind of information on which the team based their decision.



I'm a "2nd person" in this equation, the one directly affected by the decision.  Shouldn't at least *I* have access to the kind of information used as justification to expel me after after a tremendous amount of work and time donated to FreeBSD?  And shouldn't *I* be allowed to share that information as I see fit?



> I think it can also help the punished person to move on. No risk for people who might endlessly keep referring back to that decision and holding it against the one who got punished. In the end most people will easily allow themselves to base their opinion on hearsay and one sided stories.



Which is why people are rightfully saying "We don't trust you.  Give us a least a peek of what he did, otherwise we're gonna draw our own conclusions".

You say this "helps" me.  What helps me is the truth.
Every day where leadership is not forthcoming looks worse and worse.

If I broke the code of conduct in such a serious way, somebody would know, right?
It should not be hard to provide, especially when I am not asking for privacy.

They can publish the whole damn dossier.  I don't care, I'm not ashamed of my actions.
And with that --- refusal to provide can only be driven by embarrassment on their part.
I've said from minute #1 that A) nothing they had would withstand scrutiny and B) because of that, nothing would be provided.
So far I've been 100% accurate.

The only thing that's left is personal, probably driven by 1 or 2 people. As COC is highly subjective and vague intentionally, enough people were swayed by BS arguments that they finally wore down enough for a majority vote.  Now that significant backlash is occurring and they realize any "hard" evidence they have will cause further uproar, they're hiding behind protecting my privacy as a justification for not being transparent.

I mean, I must have done something TERRIBLE right?  Or many clear cut transgressions?  How hard is proof of bad behavior really?

ShelLuser, at some point you're going to be a lemming. Don't trust leadership so blindly, especially this leadership which has a history of people in authority making drastic decisions for questionable reasons.


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## gkontos (Feb 17, 2017)

marino said:


> . Don't trust leadership so blindly, especially this leadership which has a history of people in authority making drastic decisions for questionable reasons.


The job of a management team is not always easy. They often need to make hard decisions that will eventually make some people feel like they have been treated with injustice. However, the need for management is essential in order for a project/work/life to go on.

That said, it is very disturbing to see the following comment on a public SVN site:



> Their behaviour towards their fellow contributors has repeatedly fallen short
> of what the Project expects of its members. They were given multiple warnings
> that their interactions with other contributors needed to improve and
> unfortunately they did not.



This should have been taken care internally without the comment that:

Affect a developer who is not in any payroll.
Raise questions regarding the decision.
Affect the FreeBSD project.
Open Source communities should also behave with ethics.


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## drhowarddrfine (Feb 17, 2017)

The problem with this portion of this thread is that we don't know anything. A lot of the comments are one sided and, for all we know, John is a problem. Please don't take that the wrong way. We don't know that either. If John doesn't know why he was treated as he was, I disagree with how that was handled, but everything being written and said is only guesswork on our part.


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## marino (Feb 17, 2017)

"the comments are one-sided"
That's the point.

core+portmgr isn't saying anything.
They've said it's done to protect me.  

You can choose to believe this is the true reason for silence that even though I've stated that I don't mind if the information is released.
Maybe you think they have actually disclosed this to me and I'm lying about that.  (but then they would say publicly they informed me and I'm a liar, right?)
However, they haven't claimed anything like that.

The point is: the more they say, the worse it is for them.  Obviously they've decided to ignore all the demands for transparency and hope it all goes away.  It seems that it will work.  That's how they roll and have always rolled.  It basically works.  That's how it was so easy to predict.

But yes, it's *possible* I'm partially or completely lying.  I'm not known as a liar.  Anyone is free to believe what they want.
What I've promised to do is address the evidence by given it context when presented.  It appears I won't be given that opportunity.


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## ShelLuser (Feb 17, 2017)

marino said:


> "the comments are one-sided"
> That's the point.
> 
> core+portmgr isn't saying anything.
> They've said it's done to protect me.


So what is it? First they're not saying anything, then they're saying it's done to protect you?

You seem to miss the point some of us are trying to make: you're just as biased in all this. I don't have a reason to think you're lying (and I'm most certainly not insinuating that), but it _is_ something I can't know for sure nor rule out. For the simple reason that you obviously feel wronged and you seem to fully put the blame on others.

And it's that last part which irks me, especially considering the given official statement that there had been multiple warnings. Something which you also hinted at yourself in another post (in another thread).

Problem is that I've been involved in many cases like this, but on a hobby / game level and in 95% of all the cases where the person who found themselves on the receiving end of a punishment the person feels wronged, claims the whole thing is a travesty, mentions unfair treatment and when you then look into the matter you suddenly notice that they _have_ been cheating, that they _had_ gained certain in-game things which can't be accounted for, etc, etc.

Of course you don't agree with this, but that doesn't automatically mean you're right.

With that same reasoning I also can't be sure that the team was right. However, as I mentioned in another post, solely based on what I read and the - in my opinion - shown attitude I still can't say it came as a total surprise to me. And then you get into the regions "_where there's smoke there's fire_".



marino said:


> The point is: the more they say, the worse it is for them.  Obviously they've decided to ignore all the demands for transparency and hope it all goes away.  It seems that it will work.  That's how they roll and have always rolled.  It basically works.  That's how it was so easy to predict.


_Correction:_ it's how most professional staff and "admin teams" which have to deal out punishment "roll". Because this isn't a popularity contest. And getting outsiders involved will only result in just that: a popularity and/or pissing contest. And that will help no one.

How many people not involved right now claim that you're right and the team is wrong solely based on the fact that they know you and not this "authority team"? I think there are plenty, including those who probably won't even realize as much. "Good guy vs. bad team". Yet the problem is...  There were rules, laid out, and those were crossed. That's the bottom line.

And although I'm not fully familiar with the exact "aftermath proceedings" myself I'm pretty sure that there are better ways to protest or encounter this than trying to rally an angry mob. Because that has never helped anyone out, maybe only a few individuals to work out their own personal agendas.

In the end I also think one should not forget that this whole endeavor is one huge voluntary effort. Which _includes_ the staff team. You may not like what they did, but sometimes making such decisions is just part of the whole thing.


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## ShelLuser (Feb 17, 2017)

Sorry for a double post, but this didn't seem right to be included in my previous one.



marino said:


> ShelLuser, at some point you're going to be a lemming. Don't trust leadership so blindly, especially this leadership which has a history of people in authority making drastic decisions for questionable reasons.


Don't worry, I'm the total opposite of that and _many_ people on other communities and in other fora can attest to that. I have my reasons to say what I did, and the main reason are the enormous parallels I see with this whole issue. This isn't the first time I encountered something like this you know.

For example: the whole thing evolves around you. You want to counter this, you want this, you say they're wrong. So far I haven't come across any posts where you involve others. What about those other maintainers you apparently crossed? I don't hear a word about that. I haven't read anything about you trying to reach out to them and try to fix whatever is broken. You may think there's no reason for that but the current situation seems to disagree. What better way to prove the team wrong than to involve those who you apparently crossed and get them on your side as well?

Yet that tidbit is something I don't see happening. I cannot rule out the option that I missed something (it doesn't interest me all _that_ much, no offense intended) but for as far as I know that never happened. Sure, you have some people who like you and obviously side and/or sympathize with you, but that's hardly the same thing.

Bottom line: obviously you oppose this whole thing. I can most definitely understand and respect that part.

But I'm also convinced that there are better ways to fix and/or address this than to try and turn it into a popularity contest.

Which is basically all I'm saying. If that makes me a lemming in your opinion then so be it.


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## marino (Feb 18, 2017)

ShelLuser said:


> So what is it? First they're not saying anything, then they're saying it's done to protect you?


They never said anything except 2 minutes before they removed my commit bit.  They sent me a slightly longer version of what was in the commit message removing me.
Since then, many people have basically demanded to know what happened and portmgr flatly said they wouldn't provide it, citing concerns for my privacy.



> You seem to miss the point some of us are trying to make: you're just as biased in all this. I don't have a reason to think you're lying (and I'm most certainly not insinuating that), but it _is_ something I can't know for sure nor rule out. For the simple reason that you obviously feel wronged and you seem to fully put the blame on others.


I'm not missing it.  I got it was said there's only one side.
As I said, that's not my fault and I've asked for there to be 2 sides.



> And it's that last part which irks me, especially considering the given official statement that there had been multiple warnings. Something which you also hinted at yourself in another post (in another thread).


There was a big warning close to a year ago.
I've got the entire transcript.  Someday I may post this a single read (a la Theo).  We're not there yet.
With that incident there were 2-3 public items that were easily used against me.  There was several non-public issues the core team refused to consider (because full story was not important to them).  To point is, if somebody said, "Why was Marino reprimanded?", the team could justify it with those public writings.
Now, there is NOTHING public.
If there was, somebody would have reveal it, right?  if not the core team?
And you have to take my word for it that there was nothing private either.
The COC is mainly about public image projection.
If COC is being cited, there should be obvious public misbehavior, no?



> Problem is that I've been involved in many cases like this, but on a hobby / game level and in 95% of all the cases where the person who found themselves on the receiving end of a punishment the person feels wronged, claims the whole thing is a travesty, mentions unfair treatment and when you then look into the matter you suddenly notice that they _have_ been cheating, that they _had_ gained certain in-game things which can't be accounted for, etc, etc.


Sure.  Besides the unverifiable statistic (95% of all statistics are made up on the spot).
I never claimed innocence.
I claimed, "What the hell are they talking about?".
When it's revealed, I'll respond to the accusation / evidence provided.



> Of course you don't agree with this, but that doesn't automatically mean you're right.


Which applies even more to you, since you have less information than I have.



> With that same reasoning I also can't be sure that the team was right. However, as I mentioned in another post, solely based on what I read and the - in my opinion - shown attitude I still can't say it came as a total surprise to me. And then you get into the regions "_where there's smoke there's fire_".


Stop guessing.
Until there is information, you have no idea what you're talking about.



> _Correction:_ it's how most professional staff and "admin teams" which have to deal out punishment "roll". Because this isn't a popularity contest. And getting outsiders involved will only result in just that: a popularity and/or pissing contest. And that will help no one.


FreeBSD has a special reputation.



> How many people not involved right now claim that you're right and the team is wrong solely based on the fact that they know you and not this "authority team"? I think there are plenty, including those who probably won't even realize as much. "Good guy vs. bad team". Yet the problem is...  There were rules, laid out, and those were crossed. That's the bottom line.


See above.  Neither of us have information.  This is about getting the information or more accurately, how this information is intentionally getting buried.



> And although I'm not fully familiar with the exact "aftermath proceedings" myself I'm pretty sure that there are better ways to protest or encounter this than trying to rally an angry mob. Because that has never helped anyone out, maybe only a few individuals to work out their own personal agendas.


Now you are REALLY off-base because frankly I wasn't going to make any kind of waves.  I was just going to leave.  The mob was inevitable.  I had nothing to do with it.  This forum is the only place I'm providing information.



> In the end I also think one should not forget that this whole endeavor is one huge voluntary effort. Which _includes_ the staff team. You may not like what they did, but sometimes making such decisions is just part of the whole thing.


Your turn to be honest: You weren't pro-Marino before this happened and there's a bit of confirmation bias happening with you now?



> for example: the whole thing evolves around you. You want to counter this, you want this, you say they're wrong. So far I haven't come across any posts where you involve others. What about those other maintainers you apparently crossed? I don't hear a word about that. I haven't read anything about you trying to reach out to them and try to fix whatever is broken. You may think there's no reason for that but the current situation seems to disagree. What better way to prove the team wrong than to involve those who you apparently crossed and get them on your side as well?


This is asinine.  I didn't cross other maintainers, that's the point.  I will gladly apologize and admit I'm wrong if evidence shows differently.



> But I'm also convinced that there are better ways to fix and/or address this than to try and turn it into a popularity contest.


What do you mean by fix?  There is zero chance that A) somebody admits they were wrong regarding me and B) I get offered a commit bit back.  Then there is C) where is this embarrassing, so why would I want to come back?  I'm just trying to clear my name.



> Which is basically all I'm saying. If that makes me a lemming in your opinion then so be it.


So be it.


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## horseflesh (Feb 18, 2017)

I have no more idea what is going on than anyone else, but I too would like to be assured that the core team has made a wise decision. 

Marino -- thanks for all of your work, I appreciate it. I am curious, if they dropped the issue and invited you back, would you even be interested? I hope at least you'll continue to participate here.


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## marino (Feb 18, 2017)

horseflesh said:


> Marino -- thanks for all of your work, I appreciate it. I am curious, if they dropped the issue and invited you back, would you even be interested? I hope at least you'll continue to participate here.



I guess it depends on the sincerity and how much culpability they assume.
It's kind of a fantasy-land question since I can't see that possibly occurring.  It would be a first.


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## Datapanic (Feb 18, 2017)

This is the reason I can't suggest FreeBSD be used in a production environment at work.  Too.  Much.  Drama.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Feb 18, 2017)

Datapanic said:


> This is the reason I can't suggest FreeBSD be used in a production environment at work. Too. Much. Drama.



I see a lot of Linux drama on the net. I see a lot of Mac drama among computer users. I have seen even more drama from Microsoft legal battles over the years. I'm not sure that FreeBSD background drama is even noticeable in the overall landscape.


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## Datapanic (Feb 18, 2017)

OJ said:


> I see a lot of Linux drama on the net. I see a lot of Mac drama among computer users. I have seen even more drama from Microsoft legal battles over the years. I'm not sure that FreeBSD background drama is even noticeable in the overall landscape.



Mac and Microsoft are single channel solutions and folks have been fighting and complaining about those OS's for decades.  Linux has a lot of flavors, but it's mostly RHEL in the production $$$ world.  I don't care about their drama.  No sense bringing it up here anyways.  This FreeBSD drama is my concern.   FreeBSD is #1 for the BSD flavor and it has come a long way.  This drama is serious because it shows that the powers that be in FreeBSD can arbitrarily drop and cut off contributions of 3rd party apps at their whim.   That slices into stability and reliability say for instance, I am using some port and there is a security alert that comes out that affects that port but there is no maintainer for that port and therefore, the vulnerability goes ungaurded and affects all the other ports that port has it's hands in.  This is understandable for the ports where the person that created it just disappeared, but when the powers that be remove the developer for whatever the F the reason is, and the reason seems a little weak from my perspective, then I have no alternative to secure a system except to abandon it for some other platform.  That's no good!  

Lastly, I'm a grouch and I've dealt with opensource before it was even called that.  I've been on the same boat.  What happens in the long run is that the powers that be will jump ship, only when nobody else is looking.


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## gofer_touch (Feb 18, 2017)

Datapanic said:


> Mac and Microsoft are single channel solutions and folks have been fighting and complaining about those OS's for decades.  Linux has a lot of flavors, but it's mostly RHEL in the production $$$ world.  I don't care about their drama.  No sense bringing it up here anyways.  This FreeBSD drama is my concern.   FreeBSD is #1 for the BSD flavor and it has come a long way.  This drama is serious because it shows that the powers that be in FreeBSD can arbitrarily drop and cut off contributions of 3rd party apps at their whim.   That slices into stability and reliability say for instance, I am using some port and there is a security alert that comes out that affects that port but there is no maintainer for that port and therefore, the vulnerability goes ungaurded and affects all the other ports that port has it's hands in.  This is understandable for the ports where the person that created it just disappeared, but when the powers that be remove the developer for whatever the F the reason is, and the reason seems a little weak from my perspective, then I have no alternative to secure a system except to abandon it for some other platform.  That's no good!
> 
> Lastly, I'm a grouch and I've dealt with opensource before it was even called that.  I've been on the same boat.  What happens in the long run is that the powers that be will jump ship, only when nobody else is looking.



What would you propose using as an alternative?


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 28, 2017)

I have not yet watched the video (will do, within the next few days).



aht0 said:


> Your thoughts about it?



The mention of _the famous Matthew Dillon_. No doubt his name was familiar to plenty of people in the audience, but the subsequent article didn't help me to know more about him. Today I learnt of his association with Dragonfly, in an obscure way: via a bot at https://gitter.im/BSDs/Lobby?at=58b0a85ef1a33b6275469863

Another *obscure discovery of who's who* came from late reading of a 2016 post about Mac Mini expectations. Prior to that I had seen the initials _jkh_ in a few places, but I never knew of the relationships of Jordan Hubbard with FreeBSD, Apple and TrueOS iXsystems.

jkh, if you're reading: I'm the one who made the "Sound of an elephant" enhancement request. Yeah, one of the ERs that was probably filtered out by the Seed Team so that Engineering could focus on features of Mac OS X that were more likely to please the masses. So long ago that I can't remember the criterion for the sound of an elephant, but if we're all honest: isn't the Apple system beep sometimes just a _little_ dull?


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## ShelLuser (Feb 28, 2017)

Datapanic said:


> This drama is serious because it shows that the powers that be in FreeBSD can arbitrarily drop and cut off contributions of 3rd party apps at their whim. That slices into stability and reliability say for instance, I am using some port and there is a security alert that comes out that affects that port but there is no maintainer for that port and therefore, the vulnerability goes ungaurded and affects all the other ports that port has it's hands in.


Interesting and good point. _However..._ I would be more inclined to agree with you if those powers that be would hold a grudge. And it seems they don't, otherwise I don't think they would allow this specific project to be picked up on a relatively short notice:


```
peter@macron:/usr/ports/ports-mgmt/synth# make maintainer
ericturgeon.bsd@gmail.com
```
Another very important point, in my opinion, is that the ports collection is all but a layer which merely points to the official software distribution. It's not as if the removal of a maintainer will automatically render a port useless. And if worse comes to worst you can always do a lot of manual intervention; the files in the port will provide all you need to know to obtain the original source code.

And well..  Lets also not forget that in the end this whole project is one huge voluntary effort. So if you feel strong about it then you could always try to pick up the pieces yourself and thus contribute a bit to the project as well.

Yes, this doesn't sound like the ideal business solution and I can most definitely agree with that. But it still works. When using open source projects I think one should never lose track of what its all about in the end.

This reminds me a little bit about a rant on the Exim mailing list last year when the maintainer was going to push out an update which addressed a local exploit and had it planned for the 25th of December. That triggered a few protests because.. would they really release it during a Holiday? Didn't they realize what day the 25th was? That was obviously hardly feasible for business use.

Yet when I read comments like that I can only sigh and shake my head. Some people really seem to have forgotten what open source and voluntary projects are all about. Or they totally ignore it of course because they don't know any better.

But I think this FreeBSD situation is not much different. Yes, it can be inconvenient. But it's not the end of the world either.


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## AngryChris (Mar 1, 2017)

Datapanic said:


> This is the reason I can't suggest FreeBSD be used in a production environment at work.  Too.  Much.  Drama.


This view is missing some perspective.  This is office politics.  You see it only because FreeBSD is an open source project developed in public.  The same drama occurs behind closed doors at Microsoft and Apple.  You just don't see it because those platforms are not developed publicly.


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## Datapanic (Mar 2, 2017)

I think I am spot on.  I've been around for a while.  Pre BSD 2.0 kind of around for a while...  There was Xenix, but I try to forget that period of my life.  I have 2nd connections on LinkedIn with Vint.  I've seen a CIO come in and say "replace everything not Solaris with Solaris".  Terrible idea, but that's the order, so okay, do it.  That was 20 years ago.  This is not me (i.e. what you said "You") seeing it "only because FreeBSD is an open source project developed in public".  This is me knowing what happens when reputation goes afoul towards whatever it is required to float the boat.  I get the same "executive decisions" now.  What Microsoft or Apple or Oracle or IBM or whatever whoever else business choose to hid behind closed doors is what they decide not to disclosed to their customers; it's not the same thing as what the *.BSD community chooses, but what happens is that those CIO's hear and read and know about the reputation of "whatever" and make their business decisions on that info.  Simple as that.  I'll never stop trying to promote just getting one server in the workplace running *.BSD, but those in control are not making it easy.  They make it so hard that it's easier to blow $300/year for a RHEL license per server insead!


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## client (Mar 2, 2017)

https://lwn.net/Articles/715081/

Isn't this relevant?

FreeBSD may be developed in public but the "business end" is quite obscure. Next time make it that there is a public (readonly) history list (of events) (including the warnings a maintainer/dev receives) per freeBSD commiter.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 2, 2017)

Datapanic said:


> I don't care about their drama. No sense bringing it up here anyways. This FreeBSD drama is my concern.


And yet FreeBSD has far less drama than anywhere else. I haven't gone through this thread but I can't help but wonder if the "drama" you speak of is brought on by the *one* recent event with one person.

Sure, there's stuff going on behind the scenes all the time but that's true everywhere in all organizations. It is the reason I won't look at Linux at all but whatever drama you think there is doesn't affect me so I don't care. That's headlines for reddit to whine about, not here.



Datapanic said:


> when reputation goes afoul towards whatever it is required to float the boat.



FreeBSD has a great reputation. Netflix serves all their video with it. That's 40% of all internet traffic. WhatsApp and Playstation use it. So who's to say FreeBSD has a bad reputation? Cause someone got kicked out of the organization? Meh.

I've got more important things to worry about. Are my servers still online? Yep. Yay! I'm happy!


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## topcat (Mar 4, 2017)

Background: my workstation at work is the only FreeBSD install in the entire company. We are primarily a windows shop, with some Linux servers. It just feels _solid, _and gets out of my way. I love the old school UNIX look and feel. It's _fast, _with meager resource usage.

Anecdote: I was presenting at a client meeting, and one of them noticed that the shell said FreeBSD when I logged on to my system to show something. She remarked: "Wow! You guys use FreeBSD!". Doesn't sound like a bad reputation to me .


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## sidetone (Mar 4, 2017)

What a STUPID article!

Perhaps there should be a poll on how stupid people think that it is. Ok, I was trolling the deserving article and "author" with my second statement.

It is nothing but begging the question on some emotional baggage, for whatever insipid reason, that the author thinks is important.

To blame the whole community because a user or two go into a political site, by the way, that I may disagree with. FreeBSD is about an operating system, not about the beliefs of a few users, or what they do that is not agreed by everyone.

The author faultily undermines FreeBSD, and I've seen how FreeBSD's efficient design found flaws in GNU or Linuxism userland programs, which helped improved them. If FreeBSD is "monolithic", it is less so than most Linux distributions. I've pointed out in the past, that installing GCC added 16 hours of compile time, and a plethora of unneeded and unrelated programs, which did nothing but slow down programs that depended on it, when Clang (which was already in base) compiled it in about 5 minutes. Of course, the developers had to make the code portable and work on it for all features to work: credit to them. But that is a monument of how FreeBSD can find inefficiencies in other programs' code, and that the author doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Remove sendmail out of the base system distribution as Oko suggests, and the author has nothing of relevance left to whine about.


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