[maemo-community] maemo.org infra safety - HiFo action URGENTLY needed.

[From: joerg Reisenweber]

On Fri 07 March 2014 22:31:32 Craig Woodward wrote:
> Joerg,
> 
> I find great humor that not two month ago you were claiming that Nokia had
> no say in what happened to the servers.  When I stated that Nokia could
> pull back on the servers if talks were not finished, you accused me of
> using fear tactics and spreading lies. (IRC logs and forum posts are
> easily searchable for proof.) Yet now you claim HiFo does not own the
> servers, but that Nokia/Nemein does?
> 
> You change your story to suit your current argument, reality be damned.
> 
> While I appreciate all that you've done, your actions of late have been
> irrational and potentially dangerous to the community.  You demand everyone
> follow rules, which is great until you start making up your own rules and
> then breaking them yourself.  You have become more focused on your own
> control of things than on what's best for the community.  You have
> convinced yourself that your view of things is reality, even when it can
> be shown clearly that your belief if wrong.
> 
> You have been the main reason for most of the aggravation caused over the
> past year or so.  First you claimed it was Rob, and to some degree it
> was.  But one could work with Rob IF one handled him the right way, until
> someone did something childish or pissed him off.  Once Rob left, you
> claimed it was Me, and started butting heads with me.  Now that I'm gone,
> you claim it's Chemist.  Do you see the pattern?  How long will it take
> for you to look in a mirror?  Ever? I see now why you are the last man
> standing in all of your past projects.  King of old hats...
> 
> We've lost more administrators and volunteers because of your harsh nature
> and immature antics than because of anything HiFo related.  This latest
> rant, "ironically" threatening to stop being an admin is not the first
> threat you've made.  I recall one just a month ago where you threatened to
> "ironically" format/shutdown the servers. 

You don't see a pattern by yourself, spamming lies claiming they were facts?
you say you can easily quote logs?
show the log where I said I'd format servers, asshole!

your whole funny tale is for babies


> I recall a month before that
> you threatening Board members with legal action for asking clear yes/no
> questions in private.  I suggest to the Board on my leaving that were I
> them, I would boot you on the spot.  I repeated that when you threatened
> to format the servers.  Most groups wouldn't put up with that type of
> behavior, even from an older community member.
> 
> Play the victim card all you want.  Maybe a noob or two in the forum will
> take up your banner and route for you still, until you turn on them as you
> have on most who have dealt with you.  How many friends do you have?  I'm
> betting most of them are recent, and the older friends are all strangely
> enemies these days.
> 
> To be clear:
> Your antics, and the possible legal repercussions to Board members because
> of them, was one of two key factors in my leaving the Board when I did.  I
> didn't want YOUR next childish tantrum, stupid act, or inability to
> understand basic business practices, to wind up costing me money and time
> in a court or jail.
> 
> To be bluntly clear:
> + HiFo is in contact with, and working on legal issues with Nokia, not you,
> not TechStaff.
> + Nokia has provided hardware to HiFo, which has *delegated* administration
> to TechStaff.
> + HiFo (and currently still Nokia) has the right to rescind or change those
> delegations at any time, for any reason.
> 
> | Hifo would only do so for the sake of the community (ie. someone
> | threatening
> 
> improper behavior and acting irrationally).
> + Until the final resolution of negotiations, Nokia *CAN LEGALLY* pull back
> the servers and all rights to their contents.
> + After resolution, the signing legal body (be that HiFo-US or the e.V.)
> will be the legal owner, not you, not TechStaff.
> 
> At no point does TechStaff, or you alone, or Council, have *legal* standing
> on ANY of the above mentioned.  Techstaff is not a legal group, having no
> legal entity that can sign for or stand accountable for anything.  The
> only liability you face is for your own intentional actions, and those
> would still first land on the Board who may then turn to you, if your acts
> were intentional and malicious.  If you *could* be held legally liable, as
> you claim, *you* would be the one signing contracts with Nokia, not HiFo. 
> What contract did you sign with Nemien?  None?  I thought so.
> 
> HiFo came into being to have a legal entity that could take ownership of
> property on behalf of the community, be that severs, software rights,
> trademark usage licenses, etc.  It was done so that no *one person* would
> be the sole owner/operator/fail-point, which is what you are (wrongly)
> claiming you are now, as self-proclaimed "King of Techstaff".  Were you to
> be hit by a bus tomorrow, the servers would still continue to run, as
> would the community, as it should be.  Nobody is irreplaceable: Not you,
> not me, not anyone on Council, Board, or in the community.  That you seem
> to think otherwise is your own failure to understand the nature of what's
> going on here.
> 
> Right now I hold a lot of pity for those on Board & Council that have to
> deal with your lies, manipulation and deception.  My advice to anyone
> listening would be to drop kick you away as far/fast as possible before
> you do any real damage, or follow up on threats you've already made.
> 
> -Woody(14619)
> Past Techstaff, Council, Board member, and co-founder of HiFo, for those
> who may not know.
> 
> > On March 6, 2014 at 8:19 PM joerg Reisenweber <joerg at openmoko.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu 06 March 2014 03:42:09 Andrew Flegg wrote:
> > > On 28 February 2014 06:57, joerg Reisenweber <joerg at openmoko.org> wrote:
> > > > OK, you say HiFo is doing system administration on maemo servers now,
> > > > either you or some proxy? Fine, I'm pondering to step down from that
> > > > position then,
> > 
> > Maybe you missed the irony tags? Or did you purposely edit them out by
> > picking this quote without giving context?
> > For the record: I'm NOT fine with HiFo doing system administration. See
> > below for reasons, why.
> > And obviously 2/3 of council and all of core techstaff isn't as well.
> > Core techstaff (see below) actually isn't happy with how HiFo acted and
> > still does act, and mood is to rather stop volunteering in maemo than to
> > participate in what HiFo seems pushing to establish here. You already
> > managed to alienate a few maintainers and supporters who actually drew
> > that consequence and resigned.
> > 
> > > Joerg, on behalf of the Hildon Foundation Board, I'd like to thank you
> > > for your efforts in the continued operation of maemo.org since Nokia
> > > stepped back. Without your work, we wouldn't be here today; nor have a
> > > tech staff who has been able to pick up where Nemein left off.
> > > 
> > > There has, unfortunately, been an air of aggravation between the
> > > Foundation and you for the past few months, something for which I
> > > don't want to ascribe any blame. The Board recognises that the
> > > relationship has degraded,
> > 
> > well, any good relations between me and HiFo never been a part of my job
> > description for the position as maemo administration manager. Regardless
> > of the lack of any 'official' mandatory relations between maemo admin
> > manager and HiFo, see below.
> > 
> > > and thinks the immediate and ongoing
> > > assistance you've provided with regards to maemo.org system
> > > administration has run its course,
> > 
> > You're free to think that. It's however neither relevant nor correct. See
> > below.
> > 
> > > as the tech staff team is now well
> > > established.
> > 
> > That's a severe misconception.
> > 1) there is no "well established techstaff team", basically techstaff
> > team consists of three people: Xes, Falk, and me. Then we have a (much
> > too small) number of subsystem maintainers, like chemist (tmo) and
> > Ivaylo (builder complex) and Christian (repos), who are considered wider
> > techstaff. It seems this lack of understanding about such facts showing
> > in HiFo's move and statement here tells a lot about why HiFo shouldn't
> > interfere with techstaff duties and infra maintenance (which it
> > nevertheless does *second* time here and now, during a few weeks)
> > 2) any such techstaff team basically doesn't have *any* business with
> > HiFo - thus *my* relation to HiFo as member and organizational lead of
> > techstaff team is absolutely irrelevant.
> > 3) my role as maemo administration manager/coordinator is not only to
> > lead techstaff and to find and introduce new maintainers and sysops and
> > coordinate their activities, I'm also the one point of responsibility
> > for "keeping the keys", read: deciding and overseeing who gets access to
> > maemo infra on which level, and thus securing integrity of maemo.org and
> > defending it from any threat. This task isn't one that eventually is
> > accomplished.
> > 
> > From a maemo community organizational perspective HiFo (or rather council
> > and you) once were responsible to find somebody for all those tasks,
> > Ivan "shanghaied" me and I got installed to take care of that. The
> > agreement been that only council and HiFo unanimously can accept any new
> > position of core techstaff (excl the subsystem maintainers which maemo
> > admin coordinator can appoint without their prior approval, basically
> > because HiFo has proven own inability to handle any such task, despite
> > me initially insisting in them taking responsibility instead of me), and
> > both HiFo and council on their own can reject appointments at the time
> > they are forwarded to those entities for approval, and after that they
> > can suspend any techstaff member any time, based on clear rationale and
> > reason for belief made publicly accepted that a real threat is coming
> > from such techstaff member.  When I shall step down from my position as
> > maemo admin manager, then regarding "how maemo works" there must be a
> > successor agreed upon by both HiFo and particularly council, otherwise I
> > CANNOT step down. (see below why not even that might suffice, regarding
> > unclear
> > state of handover from Nemein to maemo community).
> > Even while I'm tempted to retire, considering the uncooperative and
> > actually incorrect and culpable behavior of HiFo, particularly Chemist,
> > alienating and bewildering all techstaff and rest of council by ignoring
> > our rules for maintenance, our concerns, and doing an unassigned sneaky
> > stealth job tampering with techstaff responsibility domain without
> > discussing that publicly
> > or at least in official techstaff admin channels beforehand, so that at
> > very least techstaff could relax and delegate their duty of e.g.
> > securing uninterrupted backup (though again, this responsibility can't
> > get easily delegated). Rather HiFo comes to techstaff at large with a
> > "don't worry" catchphrase and abuses their position and the liberal
> > maintenance management to do "secret" negotiations with parts of
> > techstaff, here talking Falk into something he didn't even consider that
> > it might not already have been discussed in a normal way with rest of
> > techstaff and council (according to what
> > Falk reported to me). In the end it been up to me to do the right thing
> > to heal this mess and ask Falk to send a info mail to all techstaff and
> > publicly report about that skunk work done by Chemist, in last
> > Thuesday's council meeting, so council and community are finally
> > officially informed. While HiFo (as
> > usual) left techstaff, council, and thus community without any notice
> > about what's going on, denying all best common practice of teamwork and
> > peer review and blatantly ignoring the agreements between them and
> > council and techstaff, the maintenance rules, and the democratic
> > structures in maemo community at large.
> > There's been a clear agreement between HiFo and council that HiFo does
> > NOT deal with any technical and/or organizational aspects of infra
> > maintenance. Seems current HiFo and particularly Chemist doesn't care or
> > is willing to violate such agreement, thus putting the carefully
> > balanced maemo organizational structure at peril.
> > 
> > The communication failure and trespassing of responsibility domains is
> > clearly on HiFo side in this case, and I conceive this request of yours
> > regarding my dismissal inappropriate and in line with this communication
> > failure of HiFo, smelling like targeted towards a shift away from long
> > established and community-approved democratic structures and towards an
> > almighty HiFo that thinks it has the power to control everything on own
> > discretion and not being obliged to search for support/feedback/approval
> > from community in their decisions, something that community been
> > concerned about regarding HiFo from very beginning of discussions about
> > HiFo foundation.
> > This together with recent efforts to abolish HiFo and replace it by an
> > e.V. that's not even been elected by community and outright denies any
> > authority of well established maemo council actually rises severe
> > concerns on my side and I can't and must not support this.
> > 
> > > Please can you work with the tech staff to complete any handover, and
> > > disable your access.
> > 
> > (I *am* part of techstaff, see above)
> > 
> > "*Complete* handover"? To *whom*? I didn't even know any handover started
> > yet. I don't even know of any *planned* handover. Neither do I see
> > anybody fit for the task (yes, a sad situation I tried to relieve but
> > couldn't find anybody willing to dedicate the needed amount of learning
> > and working hours and availability/visibility by community [and yes,
> > acceptance in community] to it) "Disable your access"? So you want to
> > dismiss me not only from role as maemo admin coordinator, but also from
> > role as one of the techstaff sysops (and implicitly maintainers)? That's
> > great¡<-irony tag!>  Please deliver rationale for that step. (Not
> > implying I'd acknowledge any power in HiFo to do so, without public
> > discussion)
> > 
> > And for the record: de jure, maemo.org still is handled by Nemein who
> > granted root access to Falk and me, to help in administration (soft
> > assets). Also the server hardware been transferred to IPHH by Nemein and
> > with support of Nokia (who paid for the shipping) but afaik the server
> > isn't property of HiFo yet since it never been handed over officially to
> > HiFo, it either is owned by Nemein
> > still, or by Nokia, or maybe even by Falk who received it at IPHH.
> > I'm just saying this to make clear that my role as admin coordinator got
> > suggested by former HiFo member Ivan and _got_accepted_ by Nemein. With
> > accepting this duty I also accepted legal responsibility for the soft and
> > hard assets, and thus I can't simply hand over this role to whomever and
> > shrug it away, my liability for maemo safety would stay.
> > 
> > > We hope you'll find other ways to continue to contribute to the
> > > community, for which you've done so much, and - on a personal note - I
> > > hope we can work together in future.
> > 
> > Well, I dunno if you find ways to work together with techstaff in the
> > future, I
> > don't even know what's been your problem in doing so during  the recent
> > past. Anyway please note that no "working together" between techstaff
> > and HiFo is supposed to be part of how maemo works. HiFo is responsible
> > for money and contracts (to put it simple), techstaff is responsible for
> > securing and maintenance of the infra, and council is responsible for
> > decisions about all that. Any HiFo cooperation is with council. Any
> > techstaff cooperation is with council.
> > 
> > > Many thanks again,
> > 
> > You'll excuse my refusal to thank you for that.
> > 
> > > Andrew
> > 
> > /jOERG
> > --
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> > supplementary links:)
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> > http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
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-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail     
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against proprietary attachments
(alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some 
supplementary links:)
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml          
http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml    
http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German)
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