Open Stack

Story time. (For the record, the -swift channel is logged and I don't know of any private Swift IRC channels. I fully support logging every OpenStack IRC channel.)

I can understand why people might be hesitant to have a publicly logged channel. About a year ago, one of the Swift core devs said something offhand out of frustration in our channel. His employer, a prominent OpenStack contributing company, did not like what was said, and he was confronted about his comment in person at the office.[1]

Now, that might have been a one-time thing. And I think it was horrible and terrible to think that our contributors cannot be open and must self-censor in case something is said that can be misinterpreted or negatively used against them or their project. I know I personally self-sensor what I say in OpenStack IRC channels. Text-based mediums lose a lot for communication, even more when it's historical logs, and I don't want to say something that is easily taken out of context or used against me or Swift.

My point is that while I support logging every OpenStack channel, please realize that it does come with a cost. Think back to the conversations that happen over drinks late at night at OpenStack Summits. I've had many of those with many of you. What's said there is private and wouldn't be said in a public IRC channel. And that's ok. People need a way to brainstorm ideas and express frustration, and a public place isn't generally where that happens.


--John



[1] I leave it at that for now, since it was a long time ago and the details aren't important for the point of this email. Actually I'm glad that it happened briefly before our channel was logged, so you can't go back and find it. I've not heard of any other incidents like this happening before or since.





> On Feb 18, 2015, at 3:16 AM, Chmouel Boudjnah <chmouel at enovance.com> wrote:
> 
> "Daniel P. Berrange" <berrange at redhat.com> writes:
> 
>> Personally I think all our IRC channels should be logged. There is really
>> no expectation of privacy when using IRC in an open collaborative project.
> 
> Agreed with Daniel. I am not sure how a publicly available forum/channel
> can be assumed that there is not going to be any records available
> publicly.
> 
> Chmouel
> 
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