Hi Ingo, Ingo Weinhold wrote:
You are seriously considering those mails examples of hostility towards you?
Yes. I don't know how else I am supposed to take them.
Axel, contrary to what you say, being part of the admin team did not work for me; it's dynamics hindered my productivity and motivation. Hopefully it is just me. But it seems that others have also tried and failed in the past, so it may well be fair to say that something in Haiku makes it difficult for non-devs to make it to the higher ranks and be productive, and that unless something is done, that is most likely not going to change.There are no higher ranks within the admin group, it works purely democratic. And I won't start any online discussion on why it hindered your motivation or productivity :-)Yeah, I know the decision-making is designed to be democratic, and I also admit that I don't necessarily advocate democracy, at least not blindly. I am a practical person, and I would rather use the best tool available for any job at hand over advocating the idealism of democracy. For the devs who are the absolute and perhaps irreversible majority of the admin group, a democratic model may seem like a fair, ideal or acceptable mechanism they can work with. But for the only marketeer who always had all the odds against him, democracy just meant being less efficient and having to bear an excessive burden.Odds against you? Ouch! The developers on the admin list are uncapable of reason?Inaccessible for good arguments? The "odds against you" thing is just as wrong is it can possibly be. Being the only one with marketing experience on the admin list your marketing related views had by far the greatest impact -- the decision on the distribution question reflects that clearly. You have been told so more than once, and I've no idea what caused the persisting "everyone is against me" perception.
You are putting words in my mouth. Nowhere did I say that the admins were incapable of reason or that they were against me as in being my enemies. I never considered any admin my enemy either.
I was just trying to say that making the impact that would make it rewarding for me to be an admin carried a higher burden than I was willing to bear.
Hopefully this is easier to understand and less prone to be taken as a personal offense. :)
The only thing I'm opposed to is your way of discussing things. In discussions on the admin list I often saw your arguments be presented as the undeniable truth of things, while those of others were just plain wrong. Compromise worked exactly in one direction, and, if not possible, the discussion would repeat itself forever. This made it a nerve grating experience to discuss with you. And while I was certainly not happy about a great marketeer leaving the admin group, for sake of sparing myself those discussions I (and the same holds for others) was glad you left after all.
I admit that I may have come across as being uncompromising. In the process of the discussions I passionately defended my positions because as the "marketing guy" I did not like the potential prospect being accountable for possible bad choices made by the group. In that particular context, I also admit that democracy is not my game, particularly given the unbalanced representation that the admin group has. My passion may have led to heated discussions and it looks like I may have hurt the feelings of some (all?) of the admins. So I hereby offer my sincere apologies to all of them.
I also know that you and others must be happy that they do not have to deal with my abrasive communication style. That's why I told you guys that I did not want to be a nuisance to the group. I actually perceived that towards the end, and as it turns out, I was not wrong.
Apparently my effort to be as participative as possible by responding to most emails does not pay, and has only made me the black sheep of the list. :) The irony is that I even received private emails telling me how wrong I was, when the person who wrote those emails even admitted that he had not read all the messages where I presented my arguments. Yes, some things are just not meant to be. :)
It's sad to see those discussions start on this list now. Some good points have been brought up in this thread, but most of it is a repetition of how you think the admin group and Haiku Inc. should be structured. If you like it or not, the admin group is a democratic forum where the decisions affecting the project are made, Haiku Inc. the corporate body used for keeping the project's money and other assets, and I don't see that change anytime soon. I haven't heard any convincing arguments for it, anyway. All of this has nothing to do with openness, the topic of the thread. Neither the openness of publishing more of what happens in the admin group, nor the openness of trying to engage the community (as excellently proven by your GSoC 2006 vs. 2007 example).
Actually, I don't think I ever proposed changing the structure of the admin group of Haiku Inc. while I was an admin. My suggestion with regards to the structure of Haiku Inc. and the admin group in this thread was actually made in response to your comment, which I quote:
Ingo Weinhold wrote:
The unfortunate situation is that all people on the admin list are developers, who aren't particularly intrigued by non-development tasks and/or don't have much time. For certain things noone feels responsible.
I sincerely don't know why my suggestion about re-purposing the admin group to development and putting Haiku Inc. in charge of the other areas irritates you so much.
What I did say in this thread, and I stand by it, was that the admin group had some obscure areas and that (as Axel and Hugo put it) it would be good for the sake of transparency that those areas be clarified.
Look, I don't like to be a nuisance to anyone, so I will make it really easy: if any of the Haiku admins does not want to hear from me on the list anymore, just say so, and I will be gone in no time.
Cheers, Koki
