[fab] JBJ considered harmfull

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006, Jesse Keating wrote:

> This doesn't prevent him from leaving abusive comments in our bug reports.  
> This is IMHO the bigger issue.  

My $0.02:

Abusive comments in these particular bug reports, in the scheme of things,
is a non-issue.  Or rather, a symptom of a larger issue.  Namely:

Who owns the upstream for RPM?  And why are we avoiding this question like 
the plague?

Here's the fact: for years and years and years, RPM was maintained by a 
Red Hat employee.  In fact, RPM was called "Red Hat Package Manager" until 
we decided to gift it to the world and change the name to the more 
traditionally self-referential "RPM Package Manager."

But that didn't change the fact that, for years and years, Red Hat was the 
upstream.  Not jbj -- Red Hat.

When we fired jbj, we didn't have the courage to draw a line in the sand 
and say "we're taking upstream ownership of RPM back."  Why not?  Because 
we thought it would be difficult politically?  Because we didn't want the 
responsibility anymore?  Because nobody in management actually cared 
enough to think about the ramifications?  I don't know.

Fast forward a year plus, and here we are.  We're in a position where we 
have, essentially, forked RPM -- and no one is willing to admit it.  No 
one is willing to take ownership of what we've done.

Perhaps jbj "owns" RPM, in its current incarnation, by default, because no 
one else is willing to touch it.  That's fine.  He can have it.  But that 
is not what *we* are using.

Here are the questions that we *must* answer.  If internal engineering at 
Red Hat is not willing to answer them, then the august body that is the 
Fedora Board must at least take a position.

1. Who is the upstream provider of RPM?  Is it rpm.org?  jbj?  Red Hat?  
Fedora?

2. If we are not the upstream of RPM -- and I'd argue we're not -- is it 
our intention to reunite with the RPM codebase at some point in the 
future, or not?

3. If we are not going to rejoin with upstream RPM -- and I'd argue we're
not -- then we have, in fact, forked RPM.  Therefore, what's the name of
the new project, who is the upstream (Red Hat? Fedora?) and how do we act
as an effective upstream for this project?

We will continue to deal with these unpleasant issues until we have the 
courage to resolve them.

Again, just my $0.02.

--g

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