For quite some time, the
guidelines for contributing to PostgreSQL included the clause "follow
the hackers mailing list for six months before tackling projects" -- the
purpose of which was to give time to not only become familiar with the
code itself, but to become familiar with the developers and their
personalities. I must admit to having broken this guideline,
which caused some grief for me and others early on in my involvement
with PostgreSQL (as it's all archived, you can see me put my foot in my
mouth on tape delay... 😊) In hindsight I wish I had followed
that rule to the letter. At a minimum, one needs to follow the
community for a full release cycle to get familiar, unless there are
overriding reasons, and unless the person in question has a very thick
skin (which I do).
I do agree with Joel that sometimes what could have easily been
resolved with a vote becomes personal. I have seen, however,
where the vote itself became personal (from my news.admin days of
running a Usenet site). And I have seen people react very
strongly to being voted down.
But I have also seen things be very civil, particularly in the
PostgreSQL community (which is the community I know best). There
is of course some vitriol sometimes; but it is infrequent (at least
until the next discussion on 'why not GPL?' or 'Upgrading PostgreSQL
hosed my database!')....
But having a simple 'this was the vote of the core team' be the end of
it does have a certain finality that an informal approach cannot match.
And this is a definite balancing act -- one I believe the
PostgreSQL, Tcl, and AOLserver Core Teams are doing well at for their
respective communities. Along these lines, to prevent it from
becoming personal, I would like to see an adaptation of the Survey
module be employed to take these votes, with the results being
anonymous. Yes, anonymous.
Joel, Peter, and especially Don; thank you for bringing this to the
community in this way. This discussion is quite fascinating, in
that it elucidates what has been the operating mode for some time.
