[Debian-ha-maintainers] Becoming a Debian Maintainer - and behavior of DDs

[Christoph Berg]

[tl;dr: Richard is disappointed that I didn't advocate him for DM,
while I did advocate other team members shortly after.]

Hi Richard,

Re: Richard B Winters 2016-06-22 <204e2c0e01254a766699d615036d2a51 at mail.mmogp.com>
> During that time I worked with Christoph Berg, he advised not to play with repository structure too
> much - and asked that I didn't do more than I had to to get the stack working again.

I didn't recommend any particular repository structure. What I did
recommend was not to bikeshed about that, stop discussing the layout,
and start the real work.

> Ferenc disregards all my work and makes his own repository on github (instead of contributing to
> the team repository) so that he can structure branches how he wants and move to DEP-14 (I was never
> opposed to that, but its exactly what Christoph asked me not to do when I suggested it based off of
> conversations I had with Ferenc) - and after Christoph states that he doesn't care for
> bike-shedding and had been working with me already on some of the packages along with Adrian; he
> reneged with regard to Ferenc's new repository (which was now missing all of my changelog entries
> which cataloged my contributions to the package, the very thing I didn't do - but which Ferenc
> complained about himself).

It was suboptimal that Feri's changes were often staged elsewhere, but
this was communicated, and I think now everything relevant is on
git.debian.org.

> Yes, after Debconf Christoph's whole demeanor towards me changed; He blatantly started uploading
> each and every one of Ferenc's packages, 'mindfully' attempting to accept the ruby packages I
> worked on - I'm guessing to try to make me feel better and shut me up. And all he had to offer was

Sorry if uploading your packages was wrong. Would it have been better
to not do anything?

At that point, corosync and pacemaker were the next packages in the
stack that needed to be done. "Your" pcs and crmsh packages were due
after that. That was the reason for the ordering.

> a 'Sorry if your changelog entries got removed'. Sure I was still in the uploaders field or
> whatever, but the changes I made to code were no longer noted.

I don't fancy changelog bikeshedding. All your changes made it into
the next package, though possibly after re-re-rebasing them through
whatnot git operations, the changelogs were a mess. I'd care more
about getting the problems fixed.

> I had also asked Christoph to advocate me as a maintainer 6-8 months prior to now, which was
> already almost a year after I had started working with the Debian-HA packages. He told me he'd
> consider it after the stack was done. He advocated for Ferenc very shortly after Debconf, far
> before the stack is complete (it still isnt complete even) - only a month or two later. Now, months
> after that, Christoph is advocating Ferenc as a DD.

Richard I'm sorry to have to say that: You were not ready to be
advocated for DM, while Ferenc was. I like mumbled something like
"later" when you asked me about it. I should have been more explicit
about this.

> If you cannot tell, this is a play of favoritism, and isn't right. Christoph was setting him up
> with history (by only uploading his work and ignoring mine and others) so he could exaggerate his
> contributions and quickly help him to promote to DD. In his advocacy for Ferenc, Christoph makes it
> appear as if Ferenc did all that work himself - though he most certainly did not. Countless months
> did Adrian and I work on those softwares in the stack, and I feel that I at least am being slapped
> in the face. Adrian - however - was advocated by Christoph very near the same time as Ferenc.

I've never said anywhere that Ferenc did all work there. I did say
though that he did excellent work. That's a fine difference.

> I continued to discuss this with Myon and he goes as far as to type 'stop yelling', 'I'm more than
> happy to have you on the team but...' Almost as if he's threatening to remove me from Alioth and
> kick me off the team if I pursue this. Meanwhile, the only all-caps words in IRC were from
> Christoph (Myon). I'll post our conversation from today [1], but please note that I do get he doesnt
> _have_ to advocate me - not as a DM or DD. But playing favorites and lying is not really - in my
> mind - the thing a DD (or any Debian Contributor) should be doing.

The all caps part was when you insisted that you were removed from the
Uploaders fields and wouldn't listen to me trying to tell you that
this was just wrong. You have been in the Uploaders fields of all
relevant packages all the time.

Christoph
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