Re: Point or Order, Ruben Verborgh

On Sun, 12 Apr 2020 at 23:16, Ruben Verborgh <ruben.verborgh@ugent.be>
wrote:

> Dear Melvin,
> CC: all,
>
> There’s two separate aspects here:
> one of them is the factual nature of the matter,
> the other is what the preferred way of handling is.
>
> In any case, I insist that this has cost too much effort
> from too many people, compared to what we’re really talking about.
>
>
> Regarding the factual nature, I have certainly made one mistake:
>
> > "You deliberately altered parts of spec text
>
> I have no crystal ball, so I cannot know whether the alteration was
> deliberate.
> Hence, I retracted that word:
> https://github.com/solid/solid-spec/pull/220#issuecomment-612409892
> Apologies for assuming deliberateness, while there are other options.
>

Ruben, thank you for retracting your comment, and for the apology

You are a valued member of the project.  We want you to continue to be so
and to be even better.  Things are often said in the heat of the moment.
What's important is that we can get back on track and work together towards
common goals.

>
>
> As far as the truthfulness of the rest of the statement is concerned,
> I kindly point to the issue at hand; I don’t deem it appropriate
> to hijack this thread to make this a yes/no discussion.
> That wouldn’t help anyone.
> People can verify for themselves whether or not
> you have copied the complete text or left out crucial words,
> and whether your technical arguments hold with or without them.
>
>
> As far as the preferred way of handling is concerned,
> below is the problem I was trying to prevent.
>
> This is an occurrence in a series of multiple cases
> where you had raised a point that
> a) is phrased in a way that is technically inaccurate,
> or contains insufficient detail to assess technical accuracy
> (often despite attempts from myself and others to ask clarifications)
> AND/OR
> b) does not bring any evidence of relevance
> to any other member of the Solid community.
>
> In other words, if we spend time on those issues, we are:
> a) not solving a real problem
> AND/OR
> b) not addressing a problem that affects multiple people.
>
> Given that time is limited, and that we want to make Solid work for all,
> it is my best professional judgement that we do not spend time on them.
> Hence why I pointed out the technical inaccuracy, and halted discussion.
>
> As for this concrete issue:
> a) at least 5 Solid experts have looked at it in detail,
> and have not found any issues with backward compatibility.
> Two experts have ruled your concerns as addressed.
> b) Multiple people have spend their time on this
> (I will leave it up to reader to make a calculation of the tremendous
> cost),
> Yet here is no evidence that it benefited anyone in the community.
>
>
> Therefore, may I—upon advice from others of the community—
> suggest that, if you honestly believe that 5 experts have overlooked
> something,
> come up with an easy-to-follow example of how a client or server breaks.
> Please post that as a separate issue, or preferably PR,
> and we will take it from there; as simple as that.
>
> If not, then I suggest we do not spend any more time on this.
>
> Let us, please, move on and spend time on issues that matter.
> You’ve made really great apps in the first Solid years;
> I’ve seen the screenshots. Can’t wait to try them one day.
>

Happy to move on.  I will say that my comments were made in good faith.

The concern was simply this.  Imagine a new server is built compliant with
this text.  I agree 'compliant' is a very wide ranging category.

But you could have the situation where the realtime web socket is closed.
And the author of the app was not expecting it.  So say a chat app may
break.

I will admit I only looked at it for a few minutes, and that's what the
text "server should close the socket" spoke to me.  I could have been
missing some wider context.  But my message was more pitched as "food for
thougth" than definitive.

Dont want to dwell on it, but that might explain to you the reasoning
behind it

Thanks again.  It's actually my birthday in about 5 minutes.  And I will
enjoy it all the more thanks to your thoughtful message.

Best
M


>
> All the best,
>
> Ruben