Author: Michael Folkson 2023-05-11 12:34:57
Published on: 2023-05-11T12:34:57+00:00
In a recent email thread on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list, Michael Folkson expressed concerns about the decision-making process surrounding the addition of new maintainers to the Bitcoin Core project. He noted that some individuals who were more familiar with Vasil Dimov's work than Andrew Chow had expressed discomfort with his being made P2P maintainer. Additionally, Vasil did not provide as in-depth reviews as Ryanofsky, leading some contributors and maintainers to be uncomfortable with his responses about how he would merge things.Folkson also pointed out that there was a lack of communication from the maintainers regarding the decision-making process for adding a new maintainer, which he felt should be more open and inclusive. While previous maintainer additions have been made by existing maintainers without much public discussion, the process has become more open over time with more public participation in the PRs and IRC meetings when nominations are brought up.The maintainers responded by noting that the decision to seek out and add a maintainer has always been made by existing maintainers, as they are best equipped to know when there is a need for additional help. They added that while they could have done a better job of communicating their decision to NACK Vasil's nomination, they stand by it and had discussed it with him during CoreDev.The discussion also touched on the importance of maintainers having a thorough review process before merging any changes, as well as the need for more collaboration and open communication within the Bitcoin Core project. Despite some disagreements, the conversation ultimately ended on a positive note with the hope that this momentum for collaboration and communication would continue.Recently, there has been a group-wide effort to move towards public discussion again following a discussion at CoreDev. This was prompted by complaints that behavior such as dragging project meta discussions onto the mailing list and Twitter has led to abuse towards maintainers and contributors. It has made people feel like they're being sealioned, causing them to stop posting publicly and taking discussions to more private settings. Many cited this behavior as a primary reason for stopping public discussions.
Updated on: 2023-06-16T17:38:16.701601+00:00