Hi fesco,
Firstly thank you for this email as it actually provides some level of openness and transparency which wasn't provided in the email you personally sent me [1] on Friday. It would have been nice to actually be cc:ed on the email. I was notified by a message from a member of the community because I wasn't checking mailing list emails on Saturday.
I would first like to state that NONE of my changes are meant as malicious, they have never intended to be malicious, all I am trying to do is improve the project and fix actual problems users are experiencing. I believe the portrayal of me as some pantomime villain is unfair.
On Tuesday (2024-12-10), the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee
(FESCo) met in a private meeting to discuss whether Fedora contributor
Peter Robinson should retain his provenpackager privileges. Over the
last year, multiple private tickets have been opened with FESCo
regarding Peter’s packaging behavior. In particular, on numerous
occasions Peter has pushed uncommunicated updates to packages he has no
prior relationship with, interfering with those packages’ maintenance
efforts. On at least a few occasions, this has resulted in other
maintainers being forced to react to these changes with no coordination
or notice.
I am not aware of any of these, I am not privy to ANY of the tickets, I am aware of one which I will detail below.
I am aware of issues prior to 2024 when working with the rust packages but now outside of my own rust packages I try to avoid touching any rust packages due to the reaction of one member of the rust SIG. They requested that if I needed package versions updated for my packages to file a bug or block against the new rev auto bugs and that is the way I have been dealing with the rust packages not owned by me whenever I have needed to do so. The same can not be said of that rust sig member to my packages where they regularly stomp all over them [3] even though I requested they submit pull requests, which they don't [4] when they asked me to stop updating other rust packages. Others do PRs [5]. But from my memory the rust package were well and truly prior to 2024 when I was packaging fdo [6] and parsec [7].
The Fedora Proven Packager Policy[1] reads: “Provenpackagers lend a hand
when help is needed, always with a desire to improve the quality of
Fedora. Prior to making changes, provenpackagers should try to
communicate with owners of a package in bugzilla, dist-git pull
requests, IRC, matrix, or email. They should be careful not to change
other people’s packages needlessly and try to do the minimal changes
required to fix problems, as explained more in depth in ‘Who is Allowed
to Modify Which Packages’[2].”
Despite several warnings and conversations with FESCo representatives,
I can remember exactly one conversation with FESCo representatives, that was on the 18th of November where I had a video call with one member of FESCo where we discussed a change I made [2] to a package. I would welcome details of the other several warnings and conversations to jog my memory.
The one conversation I am aware of was around a change to the dav1d package [2] and I agreed with the conversation with the member of FESCo that I shouldn't have updated the .gitignore and I have updated my process to not do that in the future but it wasn't done with any malice. The reason I updated the package in question was not actually using my proven packager but using my architecture maintainers hat, there have been numerous complaints around video codecs on aarch64 especially on devices where there is not hardware acceleration upstream (such as the widely used Raspberry Pi, but numerous other devices too) and the update both fixed a number of issues people had reported to me directly and also improved acceleration significantly to the point it's actually usable for a lot of usecases where it wasn't previously.
Frankly over the last year, in particular since September 2023, I have had little time or motivation to do much in Fedora at all.
The problem with proven packager, and I have had it with my packages, see note above about a rust SIG member and from other people in this thread, is everyone wants things done done differently, has their own preferred way of doing things, emails, RHBZ, pull requests, etc, some are ignored, some sit for months without action, others have outlined this in the thread as well. If there was a way where people put a readme or something with details I believe it would remove a LOT of the friction.
Peter has continued to use his provenpackager privileges in an
unapproved manner, frequently causing additional work for other
maintainers. As a result of more than a month of debate in the latest
private FESCo ticket on his conduct, the Committee voted – seven in
favor, two against – to remove Peter from the provenpackager group in
Fedora. Peter will retain his status as a Fedora packager, but will not
be able to use provenpackager powers to bypass the rev9iew process on any
package for which he is not a co-maintainer.
In the entire month there was no engagement with me until Friday the 13th when I was told of a decision [1]. I had been provided a hint from the fesco member that something was a foot but they declined to provide further information or timeline.
The vote of a full 9 member of fesco above tells me that the package maintainer of the dav1d package (the only issue of the last year I am aware of) was involved in the discussion and voting. That to me doesn't feel like a particularly fair and unbiased process given the individual (who is also the rust SIG member I mention above that stomps all over my packages in a similar manner under the guise of the rust SIG) is a member of fesco and as a result could have had unfair influence in this process and the voting number tell me that he wasn't excused from the process to ensure fairness, or alternatively asked me to come and defend myself. This feels like a kangaroo court to me not the transparent process that fesco professes too,
FESCo would like to make this abundantly clear: this decision was not
made lightly, nor without consideration for Peter’s past contributions
to the Fedora Project. This decision is not irrevocable: Peter will be
permitted to re-apply in the future for provenpackager status, provided
he demonstrates a justified need for those privileges and remains in
good standing as a Fedora packager.
What does not seem to have happened though is any actual conversation with me instead is has been secret squirrel meetings behind my back without any possibly of me being able to defend myself or explain my actions. Nor do I have any, even read only, access to be able to view any of these supposed numerous tickets.
I feel that given the way the whole process has been conducted that it would not be possible to be fairly judged no matter what the need or requirements.
I look forward to fesco providing me the details of tickets and conversations, the reply [1] I did on Friday has been ignored.
Peter
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