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long-standing bugs and tar pits (was: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community?)

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At 2022-09-16T19:12:40+0530, Nilesh Patra wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2022 at 08:47:19AM -0400, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
> > That's easy to explain why your bugs are fixed quickly. You are a
> > DD, so your bugs are important. I am not a DD so my bugs are not as
> > important to the maintainers who have a greater responsibility to
> > respond to a DD's bug than to an unknown user's bug.
> 
> That's a completely wrong interpretation that you are drawing here.
> No, that's not really the reason here.  The reason is rather that
> people _do_ work on bug reports regardless of who reported them, but
> you somehow do not want to acknowledge the fact that package
> maintainers do work on bug reports.

As a person of gray Debian beard (but of sufficiently low profile to
have been forgotten about as a developer), I encourage diligent
volunteers to _not engage_ with people who, whether intentionally or
not, seem determined to increase the amount of friction in processes and
to make themselves into tar pits for anyone who attempts to engage with
them constructively.

That said, such people define "constructively" in an odd way, as can be
seen above; they assert that the only way they experience respect is to
be _obeyed_.  They claim that they are treated as second-class citizens
because they are not deferred to like monarchs--or dictators.  I advise
people to be watchful for this pattern because you can be sucked into an
energy-sapping dynamic that reduces your channel capacity as a volunteer
and dilutes your enjoyment of (what should be) a collaborative
environment.

I think we can take substantial value from basic game-theoretic models
of behavior: if a person defects more than they cooperate, don't play
with them.  We should ask ourselves, what does Chuck Zmudzinski
contribute to raising Debian's barn?[1]  The answer isn't necessarily
"nothing"; maybe it's "application of an angle grinder to the base of an
erect load-bearing post".

Bugs can take a long time to get fixed and sometimes you have to do it
yourself.  For your amusement and as a case in point I refer the reader
to one I had forgotten about for many years.

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=243238

Among other things, Debian is a software engineering organization.  We
can benefit ourselves and our community by becoming better software
engineers.  And indulging in "simple sabotage" of production less.[2]

I would emphasize that the list in that oft-cited resource is not an
enumeration of activities that must be avoided at all costs in all
circumstances.  I find it useful instead as a diagnostic tool in the DSM
sense; for example, if you find a person doing at least two of these 16
things at least once in every meeting (or some applicable time
interval), then they may be functioning as a drag on production--even if
they see themselves as heroically frustrating the rolling Panzers of the
wicked Axis power that is the Debian Project.  The obvious defects of
the most vilified regimes of the 20th century were that they had too
much anarchism, too much democracy, and left too much to individual
initiative.  Imagine the tragedies that could have been averted if
they'd had a BDFL like Chuck Zmudzinski.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/oss-manual-sabotage-productivity-2015-11

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Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Gerardo Ballabio <gerardo.ballabio@gmail.com> - 2022-09-15 18:10 +0200
  Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2022-09-16 02:40 +0200
  Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Nilesh Patra <nilesh@debian.org> - 2022-09-16 06:20 +0200
    Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-09-16 15:40 +0200
      Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2022-09-16 19:30 +0200
      How to Move an Issue Forward When there is no Energy Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> - 2022-09-16 21:20 +0200
    Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Tobias Frost <tobi@debian.org> - 2022-09-16 16:30 +0200
    Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Nilesh Patra <nilesh@debian.org> - 2022-09-16 16:30 +0200
      long-standing bugs and tar pits (was: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community?) "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> - 2022-09-16 18:30 +0200
        Re: long-standing bugs and tar pits Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2022-09-16 19:10 +0200
          Re: long-standing bugs and tar pits <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2022-09-18 09:20 +0200
          Re: long-standing bugs and tar pits Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2022-09-21 08:10 +0200
        Re: long-standing bugs and tar pits (was: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community?) Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2022-09-21 08:10 +0200
  Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2022-09-16 22:10 +0200
    Re: Are users of Debian software members of the Debian community? The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2022-09-16 22:50 +0200
    Re: How to make a positive impact by contributing Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org> - 2022-09-17 18:10 +0200

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