[impdev] Why I can no longer contribute to Imprudence.

Aleric Inglewood aleric.inglewood at gmail.com
Thu Jan 20 09:02:20 PST 2011


It seemed to good at first: many of the developers that I already
knew and respected in an IRC channel of the second-most popular
TPV. No longer "working" for Linden Lab... and (hopefully) a more
relaxed sphere (aka: "commit at will").

I started off with lots of  enthusiasm and added many improvements
to the build system (for linux, which is my platform), then ported over
every patch that I did in the past for SnowGlobe (quite a lot), and
especially had to put a lot of time into bringing Imprudence up to speed
with regard to using plugins and webkit, so that it would get at the
same level as SnowGlobe 1.5.

All of that is just "getting ready", synchronizing imprudence with
Snowglobe. A lot of duplicated work that I already had done in the
past, and certainly didn't contribute anything to "viewers" in general,
only to Imprudence, that was pretty lagged behind in these respects.

In December of last year, I was finally working on something new:
I refactored the plugsin (split the base classes in two: a basic version
and the more specialized "media" types), and implemented a plugin
for the filepicker, so that now it is possible to upload files and save
snapshots without freezing the whole viewer and timing out your
network connection!

After having worked for Imprudence full time like that (I do this as
a volunteer, but it's a day time job: I work 8+ hours per day, 7 days
per week on SL viewers; without getting paid thus), I sudden got
a very very cold shower...

As it turned out, a fact that had been kept hidden from me from
some reason, there exists an "inner circle" in Imprudence.
They call it "the team". If you don't know if you are on this "team"
then you are not. It's a special team of select people who make
all the decisions, and it's invite only. If you're not in this "team"
you have no say.

Obviously that is not acceptable for me. I'm a professional coder
and I put a LOT of time into this project; I fill my days with. It's
completely unthinkable that I'd be considered as some "third rank"
contributor who should shut up when the big people talk...
However, exactly that is how Jacek sees it.

After she called for an urgent meeting of "team members" to make
important decisions, in December, I confronted her with the question:
Why on Thursday? I can't on Thursdays, that's a known fact.
I had to DRAG it out - but after a while, me being almost annoyingly
persistent, I got her to admit that "I wasn't on the team" and I was
informed about it's existence - and finally it became clear that
no matter my experience and the time I put into Imprudence, I actually
had no more say in Imprudence than the say I have in the Linden Lab
server protocol decisions.

Now that alone wouldn't have been enough for my decision
that I had to drop Imprudence (I'd say 'leave', but I apparently
was never a part of it in the first place). What was, was that
what is supposed to be our leader spoke for the whole team
with the following words:

"Dec 03 02:54:06 <jjacek> At the moment, there are two main obstacles
that keep you from being a team member. The first is that it is difficult
and stressful to work with, talk with, and generally deal with you.
I know that you know that Armin is not fond of you, but he's not the
only one. I don't think there are any team members who would be
pleased to have you on the team."

For your information, this "team", at that momentm existed of the
following people:

"Dec 03 02:39:09 <jjacek> The team at the moment is me, McCabe,
Armin, Elektra, Codie, Revolution, and Boroondas."

I'm currently working very closely together with Boroondas
(on snowstorm, and even another project) with no problems
whatsoever. I never saw or talked with Revolution, I think
I saw Codie a few times during meetings in-world, and my
cooperation with Elektra was fine. We never had any argument
or problem. McCabe and me got along. Didn't have any personal
problems, but also not a relationship that resembles friendship.
Just purely efficient and professional. So, that leaves Armin
who indeed has frustrated me so much while I tried to cooperate
with him that I felt the urge to shout and shake him (and apparently
he complained first to jacek, who then told me, after which
Armin and me talked it out. It is (and was) clear to me that
Armin and me aren't the best of team (ake, we can't work
together) but I have nothing against him as a person, and
didn't feel he disliked me (anymore) after we talked out our
misunderstandings.

So there it is: There are no team members that would be pleased
to have me on the team, because it's difficult and stressful to
work with me... according to jjacek.

I haven't really talked about this... Shortly after Jacek got a
burnout, and McCabe too I understood - so she decided to
put Imprudence on a hold. I took my time to weigh my options
and came to the conclusion that it would be very unthankful
way to spend all my free time working for a project with a
"leader" that deals with her team in this way. If she wants
to make all the decisions for an Open Source(!) project, then
that will have to happen without my support.

Funny thing is, neither McCabe nor Jjacek contacted me in
the past 7 weeks. It must have been clear by now that I
decided to silently leave, and apparently they are happy
about that. Never mind that I was first abused and sucked
dry and then insulted and left in the cold. They are happy
that I left and never felt the urge to talk about this with me.
Great social skills.

The only sign that things now are permanent is the silent
change back to meeting on just Thursdays. That triggered
this post.

I wish everyone good luck, if they decide to continue put
time into kakoa/Imprudence. But realize this: you will never
have any real say here, even if jacek is now going to tell
you that I REALLY am an asshole that nobody can work
together with and that this very mail is the proof of that.
And then smiles at you and puts an arm around you tells
you that of course you are welcome in the team and things
will change... Ask yourself what will happen in the future
when an important decision has to be made and your
opinion is different from jaceks...
Add to that that imprudence only has a small fraction of
all users (LL and Phoenix have about half each; the
rest is neglectable), then does it really make sense to put
time into this.

I understood that not only they have a burn out, but
things are just in general not going so well anyway with
this project. Scaring off your most productive and
talented coders won't help much in that regard.
I recognize doomed projects usually pretty soon (I was
late with this one). Imprudence/kokua has no interesting
future.

I'm sorry I wasted several months of my life doing things
that I already had done before, and that now turn out
to be have been a complete waste :(

Regards,
Aleric


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