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Re: Announcing Perl 7

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From:
Sawyer X
Date:
July 4, 2020 09:54
Subject:
Re: Announcing Perl 7
Message ID:
b06e875e-155f-55c9-2000-3b11884b07b4@gmail.com

On 7/4/20 7:37 AM, Karen Etheridge wrote:
> Sawyer said:
>
> > This decision was done with the core of effective contributors to the
> > language who attend the summit and with numerous stakeholders. I do
> > consider this having been done *with* p5p - not just "consulting,"
> > rather than by myself. It just wasn't done with the "p5p mailing list"
> > which includes many who are not developers of the language or
> > stakeholders in it.
>
> > ...
>
> > I will reach out to the group to get their explicit permission to 
> publicly
> > share who is in this group. I will note this group includes people who
> > are frequent contributors (such as Dave Mitchell, Tony Cook, Karl
> > Williamson, Jim Keenan, Todd Rinaldo, etc.), people from toolchain
> > (Karen Etheridge, Leon Timmermans - who fits the previous group as
> > well), and representatives of other vendors (primarily Debian).
>
> To clarify:
> I was not invited to the p5h meet last year; I was not involved in any 
> Zoom
> sessions with you, nor included in any email discussions. I saw the google
> document you circulated, but did not know the names of the other 
> participants;
> I left a few comments in the document, including one very specifically 
> about
> the schedule, which garnered zero responses.  I was certainly not 
> aware of any
> specific action that was intended to be taken on a particular date, 
> and the
> specifics of the announcement at CiC came as a surprise to me. Nothing 
> I said
> should have been interpreted as broad support for a plan that I was 
> aware of
> only in the phrasing of "A Plan for Perl" (note: NOT the same as "THE 
> Plan for
> Perl").


I apologize that the names on the document were not public. I thought 
they were - this was an oversight, not an intentional situation. Since 
the original threads were open in the "to" and I requested feedback and 
to generate conversations - as well as conducted numerous one-on-one 
communications (whether by mail, IRC, or video/conference) - I had 
wrongly assumed the names on the document were open. I don't recall 
anyone reaching out to me and saying otherwise. If they did, this was 
also an oversight, I assure you.


> I wonder how many other people in the list you consider "the decision 
> having
> been done with" have had their positionsmisunderstood or misrepresented by
> you.


This is always possible and I wouldn't be surprised. However, I do want 
to clarify that we don't work with a consensus. Some decisions are made 
without everyone's consent and some decisions that I approve, I am also 
unhappy with. We try to work together and eventually come to a decision, 
even if not everyone agrees. We simply cannot make *everyone* happy 
because some of us have conflicting interests.


There is no perfect solution, which I feel some people seem to be 
demanding. Sorry, I do wish it were done better. It wasn't perfect, I 
know, but we definitely have put a *lot* of effort and discussed this 
for a fairly long time. While we could have fixed a few things along the 
way, I can't see how it could have been considerably better, only slightly.


> It's a shame, because if we had all been able to communicate more
> clearly and sooner, we might not be in such a situation now.


It's a shame, but I think it's wishful thinking to assume it could have 
been considerably better if only $x were to happen. There's a bias here 
where we assume that we see is all there is. "Clearly you could have 
responded to that comment" or "Clearly we have just spoken to that 
person - nothing would have been simpler and it could all have been 
done," without knowing what was done and how much effort there was. It 
doesn't help assuage the frustration some people have, but it is true 
nonetheless. Again, I'm sorry it wasn't better.


Not that we're on the list, we can try to make this better together.

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