[Dbix-class] IMPORTANT: A discussion of DBIC governance and future development

[Peter Rabbitson]

On 10/03/2016 10:37 PM, David Golden wrote:
>
> For those who don't know me, I'm DAGOLDEN on CPAN and I've joined this
> list in my capacity as a PAUSE <http://pause.perl.org> administrator.


This email is mainly addressed to the PAUSE admins, however I think the 
(hopefully) following discussion is best served remaining on this list.

There has been a massive amount of input. While I have not answered 
directly almost any of it, I assure you I have read and considered every 
single word that has been said.

Please keep in mind, that everything I say below is not destructive 
cynicism, but is done out of love and desperation and complete, 
uniquely-informed understanding of what is at stake.

Bringing this thread back towards the actionable, I am presenting a 
collection of statements and positions, without elaborating on the 
individual line items. David, given the decisions the PAUSE admins are 
faced with (see below) I encourage you to inquire for more info on 
individual points that seem unclear. I will answer such inquiries in 
individual subthreads.



=== On what is there / what was planned

* I just sent a new progress report [1], with what has been completed 
out of the initial plan outlined in December [2].

* The allegations of an undisclosed private branch many changes are 
entirely baseless, as indicated by the timestamps on the CI logs of the 
main repository [3], which can be correlated with my extensive progress 
reports [4]. There is *no other DBIC code* of mine which is in anything 
resembling a state of readiness, yet is withheld from the public.

* As it is not clear what the future of the namespace will be ( see 
below ), I am not sure if the remaining pieces are worth implementing in 
the first place. All of the work outlined in [2] was either done to fix 
borderline-intractable bugs, or to stabilize the current behaviors 
(often in a bugward-compatible manner). That is in stark contrast with 
some of the opinions expressed in this thread, and as such I would like 
to see more clarity on where this project is going, before proceeding 
further.

* The annotation of currently outstanding issues/branches mentioned in 
[2] has not yet begun. As long as there is a demand for them, I will 
provide at least the main highlights.

* Regardless of what happens (and whether there is reasonable demand to 
implementing anything extra), I intend to produce a general codebase 
walkthrough, hopefully ready by the start of November. While I don't 
want to hype it up, I intend for its level of detail to dwarf that of 
[5]. This has been in planning for quite some time and the tools needed 
to pull this off have been in development for a while as well.

* As part of the support structure for the (now void, see below) 
succession plan, I arranged a publicly logged IRC channel #askriba [6] 
with the intent of holding scheduled "office hours" as long as there is 
a demand for my institutional knowledge. This remains in place 
regardless of the outcome of anything below.



=== On what is and will happen

* I strongly disagree with the PAUSE admins interpretation of my 
ownership of this project, and I strongly believe a procedural 
overstepping has taken place. However, the triggered discussion 
indicates my leadership is not without controversy, and therefore as 
indicated earlier[7], I am forfeiting my right to select the next FIRSTCOME.

* I am in no way shape or form considering keeping the FIRSTCOME myself. 
All current events aside, it has been my decision to remove myself from 
the helm a very long time ago, in order to avoid dealing with the 
obvious conflict of interest ( more on this was articulated almost 2 
years ago in [8] )

* The plan of succession I formed in December 2015, and had not deviated 
from until this week, is presently null and void. It was an unusual 
arrangement, with critical pieces based on a combination of promises and 
assumptions. Recent events resulted in the invalidation of several such 
foundation points, and there is no possible way I myself could presently 
endorse it.

* Taking aside my strong misgivings on the effectiveness of 
FLOSS-leadership-groups as a whole, I have grave reservations about the 
specific (now) 4-member team outlined by Matt. The reservations are 
entirely technical and procedural in nature, and are completely detached 
from Matt's and mine 4+ years long interpersonal conflict. I will 
elaborate on these reservations if necessary, but see next point.

* As I have neither a functional nor a backup plan, I am requesting 
active arbitration from the PAUSE admins. That is - please collect 
whatever additional information is necessary, make a decision on the 
future leadership of this project, and take an administrative action to 
carry this decision out. As indicated in the first part of this email I 
pledge to make available all my knowledge and offer my full cooperation 
to steady the ship over the coming weeks but I do not think it would be 
right for me to try to be the captain that steers us out of this mess. 
My only request is to not be placed in a position where I have to make 
the FIRSTCOME transfer myself, essentially endorsing the currently 
proposed leadership group: my integrity as an engineer simply will not 
allow me to click the necessary buttons.

* As a final point on "going forward": I am concerned that the "software 
stability" argument has been grossly micharacterized: it was presented 
as a binary "does it lose data" argument, when for me the main question 
has always been "is it opinionated / does it insist on usurping the 
end-users time". To aid in understanding this here are some examples:
    - Frozen project: https://metacpan.org/changes/distribution/Class-DBI
    - Stable project: https://metacpan.org/changes/distribution/DBI
    - Highly unstable (volatile) project: 
https://metacpan.org/changes/distribution/Mojolicious


While I will be the first to say the situation is not ideal - this is 
what we have. I trust the PAUSE admins will make the best of it.


Regards
RIBASUSHI


[1] http://lists.scsys.co.uk/pipermail/dbix-class/2016-October/012264.html
[2] http://blogs.perl.org/users/peter_rabbitson/2015/12/riba2016-ends.html
[3] https://travis-ci.org/dbsrgits/dbix-class/builds
[4] 
http://dbix-class.35028.n2.nabble.com/Re-Traffic-pattern-changes-ahead-td7578918.html
[5] https://github.com/dbsrgits/dbix-class/commit/1cf609901
[6] https://chat.mibbit.com/?channel=%23askriba&server=irc.perl.org
[7] http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.modules/2016/10/msg96182.html
[8] 
https://gist.github.com/ribasushi/74ce356123ede727e90f#file-2015-02-20-md