Re: Leaving Zenwalk

[George Vlahavas <vlahavas@xxxxxxxxx>]

JP, you forgot something: I'm not banned from the mail list yet, so I can still read what you're writing. And everyone: careful with your quotes, others might be reading stuff that were intended for your eyes only.

To clear things up: I didn't want to leave, but JP forced me. He banned me from the forums for absolutely no reason at all. The conversation was like this (for everyone having access to the dev fifo section I guess it's still there in the shared-mime-info thread):

me: does this work for you?
JP: no
me: OK, I can see it works with nautilus, but not with thunar
JP: Impossible, thunar is much more freedesktop compliant than nautilus. You patch is not freedesktop compliant.
me: OK, feel free to fix it then.
JP: I won't tolerate this behaviour again!
me: What? Honestly, what reply were you expecting?
JP banned me from the forums for one hour at this point!!!!

Nice way to be treated, after all the hard work I had done for Zenwalk. Does anyone really see a reason for a ban in there? JP's ego apparently did.
I sent him a couple of personal emails, asking him to apologize, or I would leave the project. He last reply was just: "goodbye". I left, he banned me permanently from the forums. That's it.

But I can see now that JP is not alone in wanting me out of Zenwalk and that some people never liked me being here. Being called a "troll" because I had the audacity to voice my opinion (how dare I?) and not be a mindless drone, a slave to do as JP commands, is the last thing I would think I'd read here. I remember all the warm welcomes when I joined, from people that now say that they never wanted me to join the project. That just makes me even sadder. But it also makes me angry. Angry to myself, that I spent all this time, a good part of almost every evening during the past three years, working for Zenwalk. Only just to receive this as thanks for my contributions. I feel completely disappointed. JP says I have a tendency for drama. OK, put that in the list of my so obvious flaws too. Next to the one that says that I was having an evil plan to destroy Zenwalk all along.

Not everyone is that ungrateful though. I wouldn't say that I wouldn't devote all that energy to Zenwalk even if I knew this outcome from the beginning. I have made good friends here and that's a thing to keep. But the joy of working for Zenwalk is gone. This was not a "technical" project for me. It had a technical part, but that was not all it was. If it wasn't for my friends that I interacted with every day and the feeling of comradship that came out of it, working towards a common goal, it wouldn't be half as fun. That's why I won't be coming back, even if JP apologized (which he won't do anyway, as I'm sure he feels he has done nothing wrong). The fun is gone. I can't spend my free time on something that I won't be enjoying anymore.

Since yesterday, I have been receiving a multitude of personal emails coming from what seems almost everyone else, only just to wish me the best and to thank me for being here. I will take the time to reply to each one of them. It feels good to see that my work was appreciated.

This is my last email to the list. No matter what accusations JP might throw at me, I won't give him the honour of replying anymore.

To my friends (you know who you are):

See you around, have fun! :)

George

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 3:43 PM, <jp.guillemin@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

After some thinkings... I have to say :

I really think that it's a pity that someone so involved in the project leaves us.

For me, this project has always been a "technical" thing (I met some friends, it's great, but not the main goal). That's why, despite Georges's weekly trolls, I never asked him to leave : he was a very active contributor, and it's enough for me.

For this same reason : it would be ok if he want to join back the team : FOR ZENWALK (not for me). I would even try to forget what he wrote about me, and maybe he could forget what I wrote.

We can have different opinions, we can have different friends, but we have only one project.

JP


----- "Aymeric" <ejisneos@xxxxxxxxx> a écrit :

> I also think that the recent troll he made recently about ZPM was not
> a
> wise way to ask improvements for netpkg. But in the end, that's what
> happened, because the discussion ended with that question.
>
> The only thing that makes me doubt about Zenwalk is how much the team
> is
> considered. JP said that the work in extra wasn't unimportant, and I
> hope so, because the reason why I provided all those music packages
> is
> that I believe in such a powerful distro. And I think that's why many
> other extra packagers provided the packages they like.
>
> Despite his sometimes disturbing attitude, George was among the ones
> who
> really cared about what happened in extra and helped carefully the
> newcomers. He's not the only one, but extra lost one pillar of it's
> development.
>
> I'm saying all this because I'm considering taking some of his extra
> packages over, but I need to be sure I won't add them to my (already
> long) list for nothing (the fact that he maintained those
> dependancies
> was really comfortable).
>
>
> Michael Verret さんは書きました:
> > Let me just say this. After having a day to think about it I also
> > remember not wanting him to join either. it is not a matter of being
> a
> > mean-spirited a matter of being a mean-spirited person. Just think
> > about this scenario for a second...
> >
> > Suddenly you are the lead on a major software project. You have two
> > new people to pick from. Contributor A and contributor B. Both
> people
> > are hard workers but contributor B likes to say things that cause
> > tension within the team. Now as a leader who would you choose?
> >
> > Regardless of how hard George worked and how good a friend he was,
> he
> > was unable to think of what was best for the team. His words have
> now
> > caused doubt in many people. If he never was allowed to join this
> > could have been prevented.
> >
> > To anyone that has doubt about JP please know that JP truly is a
> great
> > leader. JP's only fault was allowing contributor "B" George to
> join.
> >
> > On 5/18/09, Aymeric <ejisneos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> jp.guillemin さんは書きました:

> >>
> >>> -> Please keep in mind that the difference between the Zenwalk
> >>> "GNU-Linux based desktop operating system" and other "Linux
> >>> distributions" is that Zenwalk doesn't aim to be a
> "distribution".
> >>>

> >> does that mean that Zenwalk was not meant to grow that big? So all
> this
> >> work in extra is not that important for Zenwalk (I mean you,
> because
> >> you're the project leader)?
> >>
> >> Like many others, I was really sad about gapan's departure.
> According to
> >> his list of packages, he had an important role in Zenwalk's
> progress,
> >> especially in extra. But such a radical departure means that all
> this
> >> work and the time he spent helping users and packagers was not
> that
> >> important for Zenwalk.
> >>
> >> It seems that the work in extra was done for nothing, in the end.
> It's
> >> sad that Zenwalk doesn't seem to be proud of the team work it
> created,
> >> if what finally counts is the ISO part.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >