The forked elephant in the room

[Paul Backus]

On Tuesday, 16 January 2024 at 10:06:47 UTC, Atila Neves wrote:
> If I can summarise my own opinions about contributions, it's 
> that they're absolutely welcome, but that every change has 
> trade-offs and each diff has to justify itself with positive 
> ROI. Of course it's going to be frustrating to work for free 
> and not have it pay off (it's happened to me multiple times), 
> but it also can't be the case that the default is to merge PRs 
> unless "there's a reason not to".
>
> My own perception is that we keep saying this, but maybe not? 
> Perhaps we need to update the contributor guide.

With due respect, I think focusing on acceptance vs rejection of 
PRs is completely missing the point here.

People like Adam Ruppe and Sebastian Wilzbach understand 
perfectly well that not every contribution is going to be 
accepted. They don't leave just because they can't get their way. 
They leave because they feel *personally* disrespected and 
insulted in their interactions with D's leadership.

When their contributions are ignored, and they have to wait weeks 
or even months to get so much as an acknowledgement (let alone a 
review) from leadership  [1], they feel personally disrespected 
and insulted.

When their good-faith technical arguments are dismissed by 
someone "pulling rank" without addressing the actual points [2], 
they feel personally disrespected and insulted.

When they put time and effort into following the proper process 
for their contributions, only to see leadership turn around and 
ignore that process when it suits them [3], they feel personally 
disrespected and insulted.

I understand that you and Walter do not *intend* to insult 
contributors or to treat them with disrespect, but you need to 
recognize that, in practice, that's what you've been doing, and 
good intentions do not absolve you of responsibility for it. And 
you need to stop doing it, because if you don't, it's going to 
kill D.

The simple fact is, D needs people like Adam Ruppe and Sebastian 
Wilzbach more than those people need D. D's leadership cannot 
afford to insult and disrespect its contributors until they run 
out of patience and leave for greener pastures. And D's 
leadership *especially* cannot afford to cement D in the minds of 
*potential* contributors as a language whose leadership is 
disrespectful, unprofessional, and frustrating to work with.

OpenD was on the front page of both Hacker News and Reddit's 
/r/programming this week. What effect do you think that's had on 
D's reputation? On its ability to attract new contributors?

This fork should have been a wakeup call, but already, looking at 
this thread, I can see that the wrong lessons are being learned. 
This is not about whether or not PRs get merged. It's about 
giving contributors the respect and acknowledgement they 
deserve--not just with your words, but with your actions, your 
effort, and your time.

D is a great language, and a great community. All of us here, I 
think, want to see it succeed. Please don't let us down.

[1] https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/15715
[2] https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/12828
[3] https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/12507