Recent events ...

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

grey wrote:
> Ken, sorry to see you go. By all means, prioritizing self care is
> vital! I've experienced burn out with other libre/free open source
> endeavors in the past (I stepped away as a contributing editor to
> undeadly.org for over a decade when my marriage disintegrated and only
> returned in a volunteer capacity in more recent years). I hope that
> you are able to find some solace and ideally comfort and support off
> list and wish there were more I could do to help.

One comes and goes....

> Honestly, this has me wondering back to the January 27th mailing list
> post from Ryan about seriously considering "permanently banning" Gagan
> from the project and whether that might be a worthwhile subject to
> revisit? At the time I was kind of looking on in horror and not really
> taking an active role. If anything my post about funding to the
> mailing list the other day was in hopes to maybe redirect attention to
> endeavors that might be beneficial to MacPorts holistically even if
> funding and grants are rather orthogonal to the typical modus operandi
> of the volunteer nature of the project on the whole.

Sometimes "the measure is full".. maybe he can return, I would embrace 
him open arms. But things need to cool off. Gagan was the tripping 
point, but email and even worse bug tracker interaction can be a little 
bit churing. I know that from other projects were I contribute more 
directly.

> However, where I am from (California, incarnated as a human in the
> late 20th century) your slovenly use of the English language, failing
> to capitalize first words in sentences, or first person pronouns such
> as "i" [sic] would have earned you failing marks in elementary/grammar
> school.
>
> I do not mean that to be condescending, it's just a matter of fact.

I disagree on spelling generally - I am a terrible typist - but certain 
recurring deviations like "i" or transcribed slang (things like "cuz") 
are disturbing to me and naturally "degrade" the impression of the 
remote writer. Most often in online project collaboration, we don't know 
him or her if not by the text written, so it is rather disturbing.

[skip over past computing memories, of which some I share, including 
still having a 1200 baud battery-powered modem for an Apple Mac Portable 
somewhere]

> As a native American English speaker, here's me being charitably
> generous to you: we spell the word: "apologize" not "apologise" please
> consult a lexicon or dictionary and act accordingly. Apple is, like
> me, based in California. We don't abide by the "King's English" here,
> monarchies and their colonialism are not to be respected; and if you
> want to open that can of worms, be ready for a lot more nit picking.

Well, I hope American English is not imposed in mailing list discussing 
about Apple topics. For many, King's English (more used to call it 
British English?) is their native language or at least what was taught 
at school! However most things related to computing are read in American 
English, leading to a mix.
To me, it is quite confusing. Furthermore, as a non-native speaker and 
reader, I find sometimes British  or American spelling more natural, 
adding to the absurdity.

However... as much as it is fun to share language preferences, vintage 
computer history.... a bit off topic. The original issue is 
communication and collaboration in open source projects which sometimes 
takes the fun out of it, especially if it is a hobby.
As far as I know (but please correct me if I am wrong) MacPorts is a 
hobby for everybody, there are no corporate contributors.

Cheers,

Riccardo