RE: tempers running high...

[Suhaib Siddiqi <ssiddiqi at inspirepharm dot com>]

> I can see that tempers are running high here and I'm not certain what
> to do about it.
> 
> It seems ironic that a lot of the heat is being generated 
> because people
> REALLY want to help but there is disagreement on how to help.
> 
> For the record, I don't really care much about the copyright issue.  I
> wish I did have a strong opinion about this but I don't.  I'm happy
> to apply the Red Hat stamp to documentation, if it helps.
> 
> I thought that it was probably important to have a uniform copyright
> on all of the documentation and I thought that if we put a Red Hat
> on it, people might think twice about abusing the words that you all
> have labored over.
> 
> If I am understanding Suhaib's concerns, I think it is basically the
> above plus I believe that he is concerned that despite the fact that
> Harold wrote his text from scratch, there is still some issue of
> ownership since Harold had already read the previous FAQ.  That
> means that he could be "tainted".

True.

> 
> Again, I don't think that this is a big deal.  No one is going to
> make any money from this (I think).  I would just suggest a copyright
> like the ones that show up on the Cygwin sources:
> 
> /* sigproc.cc: inter/intra signal and sub process handler
> 
>    Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Red Hat, Inc.
> 
>    Written by Christopher Faylor <cgf@cygnus.com>
> 
> This file is part of Cygwin.
> 
> This software is a copyrighted work licensed under the terms of the
> Cygwin license.  Please consult the file "CYGWIN_LICENSE" for
> details. */

I have no problems with that.

> I think that Robert has been willing to compromise as long as he
> understands the issues.  That has been my experience with him,
> at least.
> 
> I just want to clarify the way things are working currently.
> 
> It is obvious that Suhaib is the project head and has final veto over
> everything.

I do not like dictating my terms.  Web site was handed over to Rob a year
ago
and I prefer he make decisions.  After Rob offered his help to
maintane web site I do not bother to check in or out htdocs from CVS.
Rob should make decisions on it.

> 
> Rob is the documentation maintainer (right?) and has final say on
> the content of documentation except when overruled by Suhaib.

I would not over rule Robs decisions, unless something like FAQ 
problems we are facing come up.  We cannot post a so-called draft of FAQ
and maintan current FAQ.  I agree docbook and stylsheet is a better idea
for FAQ, which Harold introduced, therefore contents of the current FAQ
needs
to be transferred to his draft, completed and posted.  It seems to me
he has objections to incorporating the contents of current FAQ to his draft
therefore his FAQ will never be complete and I would not allow an incomplete
FAQ on our project because it will cause more headache then benefits.
Incorporating
current FAQ contents into his FAQ draft requires him to accommodate that his
authorship
and coprytinght notice does not look like everything is being claimed,
therefore I suggested
change to Copyright (c) 2000 Draft Only Harold Hunt, which he had not agree
and I cannot let others work go into someone else name or someone who
contributed later,
though excellent work, puts his name at the top with revision history which
supress
others contributions.  It is unfair to others who have contributed to this
project over
past 2 years.

Suhaib

> 
> Harold is the brilliant programmer who is responsible for a 
> lot (most?)
> of the recent X server improvements.  He has been quite 
> prolific both on
> the code and documentation front.
> 
> Me?  I'm Uncle Chris.  I'm available for consultation and you can all
> pull my finger for a good laugh, if you want.
> 
> There are a lot of other contributors here (I'm actually 
> jealous) but I
> think the three main ones are Suhaib, Robert, and Harold or at least
> these three are the main ones who show up on the mailing list.
> 
> I would strongly urge that these three guys "sit down" privately and
> come up with a game plan for how they want submission flow to operate.
> Maybe they have more names they want to add to the list.  If 
> necessary,
> I'm even willing to set up a real time chat, if that will help.
> 
> So, I hope what we're seeing here is the sign of a group 
> suffering growing
> pains.  I'm really proud of the progress that has been made 
> here (as all
> good uncles are proud of their nieces and nephews) and I hope 
> that we're
> seeing growth rather than the sign of splintering.
> 
> So, what do you all think?  Should I set up a chat?  Not 
> needed?  Too late?
> Go away?  Etc?
> 
> cgf
>