Hi Andreas!

Long post, but what the heck.

Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi Goran,
> 
> >>I'm actually looking forward to changing that relation when there is a 
> >>board that has an actual mandate by the community. Even if it's a rough 
> >>cut with the elections it will be indefinitely better than the current 
> >>or (even worse) the initial situation.
> > 
> > Good! And btw, what are *you* doing to help this forward? It is all
> > about talkers and doers - you do *tons* of stuff technically (and you
> > know I respect and admire that immensely) but AFAIK you haven't helped
> > us move an inch forward regarding our self organization - on the
> > *contrary*.
> 
> Well, I'm sure it's all my fault, somehow ;-) If that makes you feel any 
> better, be my guest (I actually mean it the way I say it).

I really don't think it is "all your fault" and I didn't imply that. I
just meant that there is a group of people here (the board and lots of
people in teams working too) that is trying as good as we can using our
own free time. Sitting on the side complaining isn't helping, simple as
that (no offense intended - stating a fact).

The whole point with the current board was that we needed to "get going"
- and the SqF bootstrap wasn't going anywhere. Now we are getting
dangerously close (IMHO) to a similar fate with the upcoming election.
If you really mean that you are positive towards the new upcoming board
and election, help out with it so that it turns out successful.

> And one of 
> the things I'm currently doing (or rather "trying" but I'm getting a 
> little better) is to attempt to not rise to a rethorical bait that's 
> thrown my way. Let's see if I can make it through this email safely...

I am taking a deep breath and will try to make this reply less emotional
too. :)

> > So sure, fee free to "look forward" to a new board - but even better:
> > *help* this community getting it. And if you think I am the only one
> > feeling this - read Marcus' post.
> 
> If I would know how to respond to it, or if I would feel that I could 
> actually help clarifying matters, I certainly would. I have started a 
> number of discussions with Marcus about these issues in the past (in 
> German, as you may guess as it's the native language for both of us and 
> somewhat limits the number of misunderstandings) but unfortunately, it 
> seems that these days Marcus can't even use my name without an 
> accusation right next to it. To bad, but I'm trying hard not to follow 
> him there. It is not going to get either of us anywhere, anyway.

Well, it has been lots of water under the bridge but I still feel quite
uneasy about what happened and I really can't get a grip on your
intentions/motives anymore. Yes, this is a vague statement - but it is
just how I feel and I don't want to dwelve deeper into the reasons in
public.

And to me personally it doesn't matter much soon anyway - since I will
not be sitting on the board anymore.

> > I just humbly wonder why you didn't bother to even *reply* to the survey
> > emails which AFAIK asked quite a few questions regarding these things.
> 
> Honestly? Really, there were a couple of things. First, I'm busy.

Too busy to reply and say so? For two weeks?

> Second, I didn't find the questions neither terribly relevant, nor 
> terribly interesting, nor terribly related to what we are doing. Most of 
> it seemed like reflections on the state of affairs ("what do you think 
> about the islanders", "what do you think about m17n", "would you like to 
> set up a team") and while this is all nice and well I felt that the only 
> relevant parts at that point where those that related to the future.

And what about:

"On 2006-02-15 the Coordinators are stepping down. At that time (or
earlier) the Squeak community needs to have a new regime in place.
	- Do you have any suggestions or specific ideas on how such a regime
should look and work?
	- Do you have any specific views on how it definitely should NOT
look/work?"

If that question (for example) wasn't about the future then... what?

> And 
> here, I didn't dare to speak my mind freely - simply because you 
> promised to publish the results and if I would say what the most likely 
> course of action is it would get me even more of a reputation of being 
> an evil guy who wants to prevent everyone from doing anything. So none 
> of this was really appealing to me.

I would like to note that the email said:

"If you wish to give "off the record" feedback you can do so by simply
separately emailing mysterious-island at discuss.squeakfoundation.org which
is the non public mailinglist of the Coordinators."
 
> And I actually almost wrote you a message saying just that, when I got 
> your "order to comply or else" and let me just say, that *really* pissed 
> me off. I simply deleted all of those messages to make sure I don't even 
> accidentally reply (because that would've been seriously out of whack 
> even for my measures). And I'm glad I did that. And you should be, too.
> 
> End of story.

Ok, for people to understand what this is about I here include both
reminders sent out AND the subsequent apology:
----first reminder-------------
Hi people!

This is a reminder about the Stakeholder survey sent out on the 9th
september. We really want your views in order to make the best of it
all. The deadline is 23rd september.

regards, Göran Krampe

PS. Dan? Craig said he will fill it out for you (WeatherStation), so you
can probably ignore this.
----end-------
----second reminder-------------
Hi people!

This is the last reminder about the Stakeholder survey sent out on the
9th september. We really want your views in order to make the best of it
all. The deadline is tomorrow, 23rd september.

If you choose to not answer the survey then we would appreciate if you
reply with the reason or that you reconsider being the contact person
for the Stakeholder community you represent.

You may very well have good reasons for not having responded, like being
very busy or perhaps these emails are stuck in your spam filter - but we
can't really know. :)

regards, Göran Krampe
-----end--------------

The part upsetting Avi and obviously you is the "reconsider" bit. I
admit that paragraph was clumsily written but there was also a sincere
intention behind it - if you (and I admit it was subconsciously aimed at
you Andreas) don't want to have this role then you can give it to
someone else.

It was not meant as a "threat" because I have never viewed the contact
persons as "chosen" by us but rather self chosen by the community (or
whatever).

I then sent out a third email with the apology - ok, including that too
without Avi's text:
-----apology--------------------
Avi is of course totally right - and I am sorry if I upset people. My
reminder was badly written, and it is my fault.
I agree that it sounded offensive (I honestly didn't mean to, but it
does sound bad). And no, we will not refuse to listen to what you say
nor will we appoint anyone else to be the contact person. We can't do
that anyway, IMHO it is the Stakeholder communities that choose who
takes that role, not us.

When I sent out the survey (which was crosschecked with the other
Coords) I wanted to set a deadline because we want to present the
results "all together" and we want to be able to discuss the results
publically in squeak-dev and hopefully plan ahead based on it. So it is
important that it includes feedback from all 12.

2 weeks sounded like fair time to me, but perhaps it is too short for
many of you. Feel free to reply and tell us when you will have time to
reply - because it is important to us to know the timeframe.

And this *is* an attempt of cooperation, not "management". In short - we
want your thoughts and the idea was to ask questions instead of just
saying "Got any feedback?" - which probably wouldn't lead to much. So
again, I am sorry if this turned bad - it was never the intention - I
just wanted to put in words how important we think this is - and I
failed miserably. ;)

And yes, of course you can send feedback at *any* time - though we
haven't gotten any AFAIK yet. :)

So... can you forgive me for the clumsiness and either:
	- Send in your survey answers
	- Reply with an approximation on when we can otherwise get it
	- Or reply in any other way for that matter. :)

Ok? We are fine? I hope so.

regards, Göran
----end-------------


Now there you go. I can't judge if my reminders were really *that*
upsetting, and IMHO the apology was pretty darn clear - but it doesn't
matter. Fact remains, we got ZERO replies from 5 out of 12 stakeholder
communities.

> > Regarding the question at hand - of course, I agree - a better decision
> > process *is* important - we all agree on that. The problem is *getting
> > it*. I mean, if the stakeholder contact persons don't even bother answer
> > our emails - then what chance do we have? A decision *process* involves
> > all parties - not just the board.
> 
> This almost reads as if that survey wasn't so voluntary after all.
> Every 
> now and then I'm still wondering a little about this btw, and it is 
> interesting to see how you react to the fact that people choose not to 
> participate in an unsolicitated and (from what I could tell) entirely 
> voluntary survey.

Sigh. Everything in this community is voluntary. And just answering
"sorry, no time now" or whatever would have been quite ok (like John
did).

But what is the whole point being a contact person if you don't want to
communicate with us? Let me quote from the email inviting you to be a
contact person:

"We want to find a single individual for each project willing to become
a
"contact person" for that project. There are no obligations in this role
- we just want to:

	- Be able to send out questions and info and request potential feedback
before going forward with certain plans that may affect you.

	- Be able to get alerts from you if you need to grab our attention for
some reason."

Now, sure - it says "there are no obligations" but it also clearly says
that we want to be able to send out questions etc. And no, there is
nothing forcing you to answer - but IMHO the least we could expect is
that you bother to reply.

And note that we didn't spam you or anything - it was the *only* thing
we have ever sent out!

> > It is also worth remembering that the *current* team model delegates how
> > each team works to the team leader. The minimalism in that is
> > intentional to make it as "easy" as possible to step up as a team
> > leader. If we add too much bureaucracy to the team model it will
> > probably have a negative effect.
> 
> I'm actually perfectly fine on the team-level but this is about 
> strategic directions. Remember I was specifically mentioning the "big 
> ticket items". I don't think it's worth having decisions about each and 
> every individual feature (that sure as hell would be way to 
> bureaucratic). But the question whether an entire new package should be 
> included in a "basic" image is something where I think a bit of a 
> process wouldn't hurt - in particular if there are (as usual) strong 
> proponents as well as strong opponents.

Yes, I agree - but I still am uncertain where this "belongs". Some
people might prefer a "strong" board taking these decisions themselves
simply by being the board (but using votes or whatever as input). Others
may argue that the board should primarily coordinate and that these
decisions belong in some team. I really don't know.

> Cheers,
>    - Andreas

cheers (really), Göran