Submitted by Get out your popcorn, boys and girls, this is geek soap opera at its finest. “Jeff Waugh is a psychotic failure, obstructive and destructive. He is poisonous people.” GNOME’s Murray Cumming blogging on Jeff Waugh, all in relation to the board elections. Cumming first detailed what he deemed good candidates, he then went on to lambast the only bad candidate (according to Cumming): Waugh. “His behavior is far beyond the acceptable and displays contempt for the people in GNOME who actually do work. We’ve tolerated it too long, lost several high-level contributors because of it, slowed down the work of other contributors, and made their work unpleasant. That cost is too high, and we receive almost nothing in return. Jeff Waugh’s only aim is self-publicity and any responsibilities in GNOME are just a way to achieve that. As long as his abysmal destructive misuse of those responsibilities is tolerated then he will happily continue clinging to symbolic authority regardless of the effects on GNOME. He seems driven by paranoia that people seek his downfall, but he is not driven by any need to do the job. Inevitably, people soon do want him to get out of the way.” The story continues on Planet GNOME, with people supporting Cumming, but also a lot of people demanding a retraction. Don’t kill the messenger. Update: Waugh’s response. “There’s a layer of truth to some of what Murray has said, but his shockingly exaggerated, hateful message is not intended to resolve or heal. Murray does not accept or credit my commitment or contributions to the project, and he has sought to denigrate, disenfranchise and discredit me consistently over the years… Though this is obviously the loudest and most hurtful attempt.”
This kind of high level bickering will only hinder gnome. It will cause division.
Openly say who you support and why, but attacking (personally) other members will cause tension and the loss of people who could help the project.
If this was taken from UK politics Cumming would be forced to resign. Such personal attacks should not be tolerated let alone supported
edit: typo
Edited 2007-11-26 22:01
Democracy is inherently divisive, and saying you don’t want somebody to hold a certain position is just as valid as saying you support someone – two sides of the same coin. I rather have this blatantly honest opinion than the writhing snakes you see on tv all day, who use their intelligence to say deadly things in a totally inoffensive way with a smile on their face.
Edited 2007-11-26 22:26
It’s not a personal attack when the issues discussed relate directly and exclusively to his actions within the Gnome organization, regardless of whether people think the criticism is overly harsh.
Clearly the poster has very strong and passionate feelings, and regardless of the etiquette or lack thereof, he seems to have done a remarkable job of keeping the rant and criticism on topic.
Politics is not, has not, and never will be a clean business. But there is a clear line between attacking someone’s credibility and competency as to how they performed their job versus attacking their credibility and competency through unrelated or personal issues in some sort of a smear campaign intended to draw attention away from the core issues. That’s when things get really ugly.
As an only slightly interested bystander completely unfamiliar with either the issues or the personalities involved, I don’t see that the line was crossed.
That’s when things get really ugly.
To be honest, I don’t see how things can actually get much uglier given that Cumming’s post started off with calling Waugh a “psychotic failure”. I’m shocked.
It’s just a blog, and in the free software community we air our dirty laundry in public for good reason. It’s better if people say what they really think instead of self-imposing some contrived rules for diplomatic discourse. The court of public opinion will distinguish the lunatic fringes from the mainstream consensus.
It’s a shame that the politics of free software has sullied the reputations of a not-so-big handful of community members. But there are personality traits that tend to culminate in this sort of public retribution, and they’re not necessarily unique to free software projects. People with “sharp elbows” rise and fall quickly in any organization, even when their agenda has undeniable merit.
The word “poisonous” reminds me of a presentation at Google by the leaders of the Subversion project on dealing with poisonous personalities in free software projects. These people aren’t necessarily “evil”, and they could certain have the best of intentions. But as good as their work may be, if they cause problems for other contributors, the project suffers.
I’m unfamiliar with this situation, and I’m in no position to comment on Jeff’s conduct in particular. That is for those who have worked and dealt with him to discuss. All I’m saying is that there are such things as “poisonous” contributors, and they can often be amongst the most active and well-intentioned members of the community. But they make working on the project less enjoyable and cause people to quit.
Not everybody is a Linus or even a Theo that has the capacity to lay the smack-down when necessary without jeopardizing the effectiveness of their leadership or the health of the community. When some people assert their authority, they do so in a way that causes others to push back and ultimately unite against them. Then they ought to step aside and let the project find its own way. Sometimes the best thing you can do for somebody or something you love is to let go.
Whether or not it has really come to this for Jeff Waugh and the GNOME project is for those parties to decide.
Edited 2007-11-27 00:52
Waugh response: http://perkypants.org/blog/2007/11/27/a-response-to-the-cacophony/
Nothing to see here…move along…
If more than one developers agree about Jeff W. tactics, well there must be something wrong with the guy.
I just hope all can agree on something for the better.
Actually I don’t reply much on OSAlert.com lately and I am not even friend of Murray but I can confirm entirely what he wrote. It’s exactly how I and many other people from GNOME get known about Jeff. Please safe me from further responding here. At this point I trust Murray more than Jeff in anything.
I realize that kids these days are becoming proficient programmers at ever younger ages, however, after reading the diatribe posted by Murray Cumming, it’s apparent he’s still in middle school! Some of these people clearly need to grow up and act more professional.
Perhaps you were modded down for insulting middle school kids?
Seriously, Murray could have written something less abusive and more factual. Examples and explanations are generally more effective at convincing people while harsh words are more effective at inciting people.
Reading what Murray wrote almost makes me want to vote the other way!
I personally don’t know the two involved and am not currently a contributor to GNOME but I find the whole thing very sad, it is one thing to disagree with someones point of view but entirely another to deal with it accordingly. Evidently launching a personal attack is not the way to do this. Like others have said this will only hurt GNOME and Linux in general.
Since I barely know who he is his blatant self promotion must be failing.
Good job coming off as the real psychotic failure there, Cumming.
Don’t kill the messenger? Well, if you don’t want to get killed perhaps you shouldn’t voluntarily treat petty, stupid infighting as news.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Waugh
“At OSCON in 2005, Waugh won “Best Evangelist” in the Google-O’Reilly Open Source Awards for his evangelism of Ubuntu and GNOME.”
whoever is responsible, i think a great deal of frustration is about to erupt in the gnome ‘community’.
when gnome2.0 was released years ago, it looks/acts/feels almost exactly the same as it does today. so, when projects like kde release video’s of their new stuff, the gnome folk’s are going to be thinking ‘why can’t we do stuff like that?’
the problem is, gnome’s “leaders” are so sure in their own vision of the desktop, that they’re unwilling to divert from that vision in any way.
the droves of users that submit mockup’s, suggestions, ideas, and even patches soon realise that they’re wasting their time, and move on to more deserving projects.
take for example the gnome mockup’s on gnome-look.org.
there are a number of submissions that have a huge amount of ratings and “i wish gnome looked like this” comments – but there’s no hope whatsoever of it ever doing so.
the menubar along to the top of the screen, ala os x – 9 out of 10 users want this functionality (me included!) but there’s no chance. it doesn’t fit in with gnome’s vision (perhaps saving on screen real estate, or making the desktop flexible isn’t part of this divine vision?)
i gave up on gnome a long time ago. the gtk widget set is a complete joke. click your gnome panel clock applet to see a mess of borders, frames and other ui inconsistencies. this ui messiness is abundant throughout gnome. it just looks SO dated, and hasn’t evolved in anyway since 2.0 (the only significant visible difference there being xft) – gtk belongs in the 90’s, and any project relying on it is doomed to having their ui be a laughing stock.
it’s not just the look and feel of gnome that has turned into a complete joke, it’s the overall management of the project.
5 or 6 years ago, bonobo was all the rage. “hey look at me, i can open a word doc inside my $COMPLETELY_UNRELATED_APPLICATION_TYPE_GOES_HERE”. the time and effort wasted on this was astronomical. today? bonobo is depreciated! thanks, you could have rewritten gtk in that time, and made it nice,flexible and modern.
i used to really like gnome. i’d take part in discussions, irc, mailing lists etc. i’d submit mockup’s and the odd rejected patch, but it’s time for the project to call it a day. kde4 is coming, they’ve proven that they’re agile, willing to listen to user feedback (indeed, some key phrases to listen out for in their demo video’s are ‘what people wanted…’ or ‘what our users needed was…’), and have a modern vision for their desktop – gnome doesn’t.
wind it up, or start over. you’re wasting your time with the current mess. either way, i’m off to the kde camp…
Couldn’t have put it better myself. IMO Gnome has a lot to answer for – for the lack of Linux uptake, just take a look at all the complaints on Ubuntu’s forums, conservatively 75% of them relate to Gnome. Then look at the wish lists for every new Ubuntu release and 80% of the requests relate to Gnome in one fashion or another.
The project needs new blood and new direction if it wants any chance at surviving the next few years as KDE 4 moves forward. And No, that stupid Online desktop bullshit isn’t gunna cut it I’m afraid, that’s my honest opinion anyway.
To the average user, Gnome IS Ubuntu. That’s all they see – it’s everywhere. Hence, it should not be surprising that complaints and feature requests center around Gnome.
[EDIT – improve spacing for readability]
Edited 2007-11-27 15:09
To the average user, Gnome IS Ubuntu. That’s all they see – it’s everywhere. Hence, it should not be surprising that complaints and feature requests center around Gnome.
Yes, but have a look at what those complaints and feature requests are. They tend to cover an awful lot of old ground, but they keep coming back.
You also have to keep in mind the audience that Ubuntu grabs. A lot of the feature requests and complaints are about gnome not being more like windows. Gnome isn’t windows and isn’t really trying to be. It has stricter HIG guidelines than any DE I know, and they are pretty adamant about adhering to it.
This whole thing about how Ubuntu should use KDE4 because (insert whatever lame excuse here) is stupid. Ubuntu rise to popularity has a lot to do with gnome and for Ubuntu to abandon that would be foolish. By all means Kubuntu should have KDE4.
I do wish that gnome were more forward thinking and future friendly but a lot of that has to be blamed on the underlying technologies that gnome has used that are now either obsolete or extremely in need of deprecation. KDE4 will ensure that the gnome devs get that nice big kick in the ass to make sure they can keep up.
You also have to keep in mind the audience that Ubuntu grabs.
What audience? I have a horrid feeling I’m going to be told about this mythical ‘basic user’ again. I also don’t see this basic user on their forums that much and I don’t see them filing bug reports ;-).
A lot of the feature requests and complaints are about gnome not being more like windows.
A lot of the feature requests are actually about Gnome not having the functionality of Windows, let alone the powerful, usable Unix desktop, that was once the preserve of expensive workstations, that a lot of people think they might be getting when they give it a go.
This whole thing about how Ubuntu should use KDE4 because (insert whatever lame excuse here) is stupid.
1. Development framework.
2. Development tools.
3. Sustainable libraries that service the needs of the desktop and the user – applications – rather than applications having to do their own thing. Google for libegg.
4. Applications that use the same desktop framework with a consistent programming API. Think something like the Mono framework. Namespaces and classes you program the same way.
5. Ability to install off-the-shelf applications easily.
6. To a certain extent you can’t ignore Windows application compatibility, but look to build an ISV friendly distribution that will make developers create versions of their software specifically for your OS. Give them documentation. Tell them how to do things. You don’t need to bribe them, and they won’t bite! It’s easier to do with a freely distributed system and the internet.
7. Eye candy that is built from the underlying toolkit outwards through the window manager to ensure reliability and quality. Compiz can never have that no matter how hard it tries.
8. APIs and libraries at the desktop level that will finally give us control, feedback and communication with the underlying parts of our OS that all applications can use, that make us actually feel part of an OS. Libraries like Phonon and especially Solid. It’s small beginnings though.
Forget that I’m talking about Gnome or KDE for a second. The above is what I’d lay down if I was thinking about coming up with a distribution that would do things differently(tm) with absolutely any desktop.
No hype required, and no marketing, buzzword laden press releases about how we’re going to capture x% of the market by y because none of that matters. You do the right things and they will come.
Ubuntu rise to popularity has a lot to do with gnome and for Ubuntu to abandon that would be foolish.
Ubuntu’s apparent rise has a lot to do with hype. Sadly, although it’s just about passable as an alternative desktop on many levels, it isn’t the different, vibrant desktop with depth that is needed to help it gain the critical mass that will make it viable in the long-run.
The sad truth is, when you ask someone who enthusiastically recommends Ubuntu what it actually does differently to any other distribution, they can’t give you one specific damn thing. The justification then starts to descend into comments about ‘ordinary users’, ‘simplicity’ and a lot of wishy washy stuff that should be familiar to anyone around here.
Ubuntu does nothing other distributions can’t do.
It is a basic debian install streamlined for home desktops that actually has both polish, and an incredable amount of support (the massive horde that started at mandrake, moved to gentoo, now live on the ubuntu forums). PCLOS gives it a run for its money, but other then that it is the best in class.
Other then that, I pretty much agree with you. I can’t believe that in todays day and age, the core API for a desktop manager can still be C. C++ is really kind of dated, and is not even taught anymore in many education streams, C is long gone. By using such an old language, combined with horrible api documentation and sub par development tools, how in the world does anyone expect the “fresh blood” coming out of school to hack on it on their free time? Apple is using Obj-C, MS is using .net, KDE is on C++, why is gnome still on C?
Combine the lack of new faces with Havoc and company pulling out of general gnome development, and Miguel and company working mostly on mono based apps that will not get accepted into gnome, and what do you have left? I really hope gnome regains some vision and direction, cause while it was a great project back in the day, it is well on in the process of dying a slow, painful death.
There’s heaps of new and extremely productive new blood in GNOME, but many of those new contributors are pretty quiet compared to the rockstars of our past. Miguel and Havoc were awesome hackers and great (albeit different) leaders.
Yes, there’s a bit of a leadership vacuum in GNOME right now, but there are good structures in place to ensure that we’re delivering sweet new stuff every six months (we’ve had some great releases over the last few years), and there is a HUGE amount of amazing fundamental infrastructure work being done by GNOME hackers, and much of it is feeding innovation in the entire FLOSS desktop space.
We’re a bit quiet about our achievements so far, and some of them are certainly below the obvious-wow line, but GNOME is very far from dead or dying.
When you can read that :
Well, they are doomed to stay in the 80’s.
C++ is still taught in the UK at the degree level in Computer Science and Electronics, or at least it should be.
As an Electronics student, I covered C in my first year. Java in the second, and C++ in my third. Back in college however it was a choice between VB or Delphi, perhaps the problem is the lack of teaching of good languages early enough to spark interest?
I would say GNOME’s use of C is conceptually comparable to Apple’s Obj-C. GNOME has it’s own object model, GObject, implemented using macros. Yes, it’s messy and it’s ugly but GNOME developers seem to cope with it. There are also a ton of API bindings for other languages. Murray Cumming himself maintains GtkMM/GlibMM/GnomeMM, the C++ bindings.
I do agree with you in some ways. What I *can* say from personal experience is that, although the G_*_MM API’s can be a total bitch to work with, I’ve long wished GNOME would slowly adopt them as the official main API set and reimplement the standard C API’s on top for backward compatibility.
Not true, Ubuntu has a LOT of patches out of tree to fix problems that should be fixed upstream. My good friend Phil Dibowitz (google him… USB UNUSUAL_DEV kernel maintainer) just nacked[1] some patches from Ben Collins (ubuntu kernel dev) because they were more generic than they should be.
How about Ubuntu’s patches to gnome-power-manager[2]? That specific problem has been resolved.
Ubuntu sat on out of tree (mainline) kernel patches that really pissed off a “certain” kernel developer.
FACT: Ubuntu has issues working with upstream. They are working on making it better though. This is a good start [4]
[1] http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/5/24/6
[2] http://hughsient.livejournal.com/46484.html
[3] http://hughsient.livejournal.com/5889.html?thread=50689#t50689
[4] http://patches.ubuntu.com
Couldn’t have put it better myself. IMO Gnome has a lot to answer for – for the lack of Linux uptake, just take a look at all the complaints on Ubuntu’s forums, conservatively 75% of them relate to Gnome. Then look at the wish lists for every new Ubuntu release and 80% of the requests relate to Gnome in one fashion or another.
First of all I would love to know where you pulled those numbers from, thin air or your ass? Second, it’s no wonder that most Ubuntu users have complaints against GNOME after all it is THE user interface in Ubuntu. Even if it is really a backend problem, a library problem, or even a kernel issue it’s going to manifest itself in the GUI for most Ubuntu users. No offense to their users but there is probably a larger proportion of newbs using Ubuntu than any other distro. That’s what usually happens when you’re the most popular distro.
The project needs new blood and new direction if it wants any chance at surviving the next few years as KDE 4 moves forward. And No, that stupid Online desktop bullshit isn’t gunna cut it I’m afraid, that’s my honest opinion anyway.
I’m a little biased here because I use GNOME everyday but I guess that illustrates my next point. GNOME is very usable today, for everyday use. What exactly is wrong with it? As far as the desktop paradigm goes it pretty much does what all the others do. It has its quirks but so does KDE, Windows, and OSX. I don’t think any of them are really that much more capable than the others, just different. I prefer the GNOME way of doing things and no whiz-bang desktop interface is going to sway me. At this point it’s going to take a UI paradigm shift for me to switch desktops, something like lowfat.
Didn’t realize this turned into a Gnome bashing post. Clearly the two bashers are using Linux or BSD because they talk about KDE. Our F/OSS community is one of freedom. Ignorant rants like desktop bashing only serve to perpetuate internal division in the F/OSS community. My point is, use whatever desktop environment or window manager you want to because YOU CAN, and keep your rants to yourself.
At first I thought this was one of those public fights that you see people do from time-to-time in public (then realised it wasn’t April 1st), just as a laugh, kind of Jackass-like. Personally, I don’t really like boards, committees and people getting elected in social organisations such as these, where reputation and contribution should count. Too much personal crap gets in the way of productive stuff, because really, there’s nothing wrong with people getting stuff off their chest.
One of Linus’ phrases adequately sums up how I feel: “Gnome just doesn’t interest me very much.”
Edited 2007-11-27 12:46
One of Linus’ phrases adequately sums up how I feel: “Gnome just doesn’t interest me very much.”
Yet, we always see you trolling in GNOME topics, actually, we see you more in GNOME than in KDE topics. I can’t image what will you do if some way you felt interested.
Yet, we always see you trolling in GNOME topics, actually, we see you more in GNOME than in KDE topics. I can’t image what will you do if some way you felt interested.
Do I really? Feel free to have a look through the comment history. I very rarely comment on Gnome related articles themselves. That should tell a story in itself ;-). About the only one where I have really commented is on OOXML, and that’s because it’s about OOXML really. It’s not about Gnome specifically.
I’m not entirely sure what it is that you do sweetheart.
Yes, you do!
Google gives 3450 results for “+segedunum +gnome +site:www.osnews.com”. That’s an awful lot of comments for something which “doesn’t interest you very much”.
There are an additional 177 hits for the same search at dot.kde.org. So segedunum spends a lot of time discussing GNOME at the dot as well.
If you think that +segedunum +gnome +site:www.osnews.com is going to tell you how many times he has commented on Gnome then you need to stop and think.
I have made about 200 comments on the site in total. Using your technique Google returns 557 results. Yet very few of my comments have anything to do with Gnome.
Yes, you do!
When there is a new release of Gnome, or something else Gnome related posted, you will not hear me coming in and saying ‘Gnome suckz’. However, I do hear plenty of words like clutter, simplicity and ‘ordinary users’ flying around.
Yes, I have had a bit of a go at Novell, Mono and Gnome at times because I have some issues with some of the things they’ve done and how they’ve gone about doing them – and I’ve explained them. I also don’t take kindly to people telling me that they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and that they’re taking over the world when they’re not.
However, Novell != Mono != Gnome as Jeff Waugh has explained somewhere.
But, you know what? As much as I have some problems with it, I’d have the Mono framework as a part of Gnome tomorrow, because it’s the only thing that will get developers developing and get the desktop moving.
Google gives 3450 results for “+segedunum +gnome +site:www.osnews.com”. That’s an awful lot of comments for something which “doesn’t interest you very much”.
I’m not going to verify it (and let’s say for the sake of argument that it’s true – you don’t Google very well), but you know what sweetheart? I suggest you have a look at some of the search results, look at the actual topic subjects and then look at who, or rather what, posted first. The truth might enlighten you ;-).
I’m merely one person who is simply not pleased (not chuffed at all actually) about the bollocks that has been talked about free desktops and desktop Linux consistently for several years now as I’ve tried to go about using it. “Oh, this desktop is the default, we’re going to capture 10% of the desktop market by 2010, we’re going to create a WinFS replacement, we’re creating a mobile platform, people want to develop software for nothing” etc. etc. and so on and so forth. You know what? It’s 2007 (end of) and I don’t see any of those things happening.
All of that stuff has come from one general direction, which neatly dovetails with this article, because you can see where that general direction is – and no, it’s certainly not from one person ;-).
Edited 2007-11-27 22:51
KDE just doesn’t interest me very much.
’nuff said. or fluxbox. though i do seem to open more QT apps than GTK ones ….
I will give Gnome props for being the best UI for people who have no clue what they’re doing. Or for more powerful users who don’t mind a “dollhouse” UI but still get their work done thanks to terminal windows. A click GUI-poweruser though is going to love KDE, however.
Gnome is a great choice for enterprise deployments like callcenters, or for developers who will have lots of terminals open, making Gnome for them like a slightly prettier, massively heavier fluxbox with a few more desktop capabilities. It’s also a good choice for grandma.
As for Gnome users that don’t fall into those groups: I tend to see that more often than with KDE they will try to do something, realize they can’t, and then say, “Well I don’t really need to do that anyways.” LOL. Gnome turns these users into gnomes.
Edited 2007-11-27 16:18
If the projects I worked on had such bitterness between members, it would be a disaster.
To bring it out in the open like this is nothing short of immature.
Really pathetic.
Glad I use XFCE
that’s right folks, if you have an opinion which you’d like to express in a public forum – DONT! It simply isn’t acceptable.
pfft.