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Steve Lee confronted me in person, one can be sure I patiently and calmly listened to his viewpoint, but at the end I did see things differently.
Can you expand on this difference of viewpoints and especially summarize Steve's viewpoint in a way that he would agree with? This point seems to be interesting.
Further one piece that would be useful for summary - could you give some summary stats on your contribution to rust-lightning? E.g. number of PRs from you in those years compared to total number of PRs in those years? Just to get some sense on the size of contribution.
- I get that this is very far from perfect metric
- I get that this is not really meaningful piece of information in this dispute, but I think it would help remove half of the questions/concerns.
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Can you expand on this difference of viewpoints and especially summarize Steve's viewpoint in a way that he would agree with? This point seems to be interesting.
Answer more substantially in my other new comment.
Further one piece that would be useful for summary - could you give some summary stats on your contribution to rust-lightning?
From 2018 to 2023, when I voluntarily started to put myself out of the LDK as protestation of the LDK (commit 84ee92cb71) , here the top excerpt of
git shortlog -s -n 3331 Matt Corallo
398 Jeffrey Czyz
343 Valentine Wallace
277 Antoine Riard
133 Wilmer Paulino
96 Elias Rohrer
86 valentinewallace
This doesn’t represent all the testing and review time spent on others folks PRs, neither that my commits were also in the delicate parts of the codebase (i.e the on-chain backend).
Professionally, I’m always putting more the emphasis on “is the code correct and is the shit going to fly in production ?” than meeting the tick for the corporate trimestrial deadlines. Been in bitcoin since a while, and I’ve also seen few security nightmares also happening in the smart contract shitcoin world...
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The Source of Misalignment
This is a far simpler topic to explain. In my view the source or question of misalignment can be explained in the following fashion: "how do we solve dispute among human beings in the middle of bitcoin open-source ?". Open source is as much about code and technical problems than it is about humans.
Of course, at that stage, one could point out, that I'm free to go and fork on Lightning,
but this doesn't solve the problem as when we work on a technical standard the idea is to have a group of human taking technical decisions to have inter-compatibility among different softwares versions. Inter-compatibility sounds a simple technical story, in practice it can be back to a social problem when there is a bug in software bit versioning or basic negotiating mechanism (-- and yes I've always found that style of bugs in Lightning and more than once).
Further, it doesn't solve the wider problem when one has to handle severe security vulnerabilities affecting not only Lightning, but also the wider bitcoin ecosystem of off-chain protocols (there are intersections in the security models). When I'm finding a serious vulnerability on Lighthning, including c-lightning, I'm the one who has to trust Rusty Russell to not abuse with this sensitive information during the period of embargo. After all, it has not always been all peaceful between Blockstream and Lightning Labs in the past (the flamewar on AMP in 2022).
So how do we solve dispute in the middle of open-source ? I don't pretend to have all the answers, but doing "coup" with code of conduct, ignoring basic fairness and due process, not acknowledging one's own bias in matter of one should act impartialy, abusing administrative permission on communication channel, self-appointing friends or subordinate in a coc committee, using dilatory tactic like refusing to engage in good faith on the subject on common channel, I'm really doubtful this is the way.
Be certain, I've never questioned that the developers are somehow the most legitimate to administer their own conflicts. What I've always questioned is the lack of tangible due process and formal impartiality of the ones administering the conflict resolution. Rushing by “surprise" to the administrative permission one is vetted on a communication channel to ban first one’s "opponent" is not a viable solution.
Those tactics work, when the ones in charge of the administrative permission are also the most technically skilled and talented, but I don't think that Matt Corallo or Rusty Russell can make the straight claim there are more technically talented than I am or have more know-how about Lightning than I have.
So I'll re-ask the question again, "how do we solve dispute among human beings in the middle of bitcoin open-source ?".
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My General View on Open-Source Communications
This is true that this post questioning Rusty Russsell open-source ethics and real independence is more akin to a Reddit flamewar, than a real post engaging the dialogue on sound abstract principles and factual arguments. This is also true that the communication style could be more diplomatic, one's communication style can be always more diplomatic and slow-paced.
On the general communication as a discipline to study I'm 100% agree with you, and for information, that's a field I have of course study in the past. Though one learning is
to have real communication happening there is a pre-requisite to have a neutral public
forum, where each side in the disputatio can express ideas, arguments, viewpoints and experiences.
That's the problem with open-source, there is no such neutral public forum, and when
you're attempting to use the forum or communication channel, which is the most similar to that, i.e Github, very often, the ones who have the administrative permission on it will leverage said permission to cut short the discussion and enforce their viewpoint.
On the wider point, and comparing my style of communication with Jeremy's one. Very deliberately I have always kept my communication style dried and sober. I'm not like Matt Corallo and Rusty Russell, who are constantly spending their time on podcast or Twitter doing a dance of trust to remind their "100% certified open-source devs” and as such that there are necessarily "pure".
On my side, I'm not on Twitter, I'm doing very rarely podcasts and I've never tried
to sell a "purity" narrative, but I hope, not always, treaded any other human beings
with high standard of ethics and dignity and never used communication technology or
the separation due to the screen as a prextet to act differently that I would do in
the meatspace. Never say something to someone online, if you're not ready to hold the same discourse eyes in the eyes in person. Simple mantra.
So as an open-source developer, I do think a sobriety in expression driven by a
constant search for objective truth should be one's personal ethic of communication.
(— apologies for the formatting of the text messages).
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Thank you for detailed response and thank you for keeping it civil! Very much appreciated and this well summarized perspective.
I know that this tricky, but would you be able to summarize the situation from Matt's and Steve's perspective? Putting yourself into their shoes - what were the main events that they would highlight? What are their top complaints (correct or incorrect)?
(again thank you for taking the time)
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Thanks for the courteous answer too.
I'll start by bringing more information on the table, as it might highlight
and explain why there has been a swarm of codes of conduct suddenly popping
up between 2022 to 2024 across Bitcoin Core and Lightning.
This is information which is clearly known to the insiders and veterans of
the bitcoin open source stage, though for an outsider and the wider public
I don't think it's really known. End of 2021, John Newbery, a prominent and
prolific contributor to Bitcoin Core at the time and the co-founder of Brink,
was "put in vacation" (i.e fired from its organization Brink) for let's say
inter-personal issues.
This is clearly the kind of issues in life which is not black and white,
I'll pretend that I don't know what exactly did happen, as after all I'm
not directly concerned, though I had the versions from the antagonist
parties. John Newbery has a big personality for sure, but if I'm asked
my humble viewpoint, I would say some people, who were not formally trained
to handle that kind of situation, did panic to take a quick decision rather
than slow down and ask concretely and factually what did happen.
Anyway, with that element in mind, early 2022, Spiral, leaded by Steve Lee
and who has been previously a financial backer of Brink at the autumn of
2020, started to insert "morality provision" in all their open-source grants.
Moving forward, we're in October 2022, during the TabConf in Atlanta, where
I'm present in person for the edition of CoreDev happening ahead of the conference.
In the aftermath of CoreDev, during the conference, Steve Lee asked me to have
a conversation in private, and we go to have it in the Olympic Park, hidden
in the back of a flower bed, as he was fearing to be seen or heard by other
people from the conference.
Steve Lee told me he has heard "gossips" on my account related to open-source
matters, and he confront me on that. I've known Steve since late 2018, before
he joined Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) so coming from him I'm okay to listen
to his viewpoint. However, Steve has only a partial and distorded view of the
facts at the source of the "gossips", and as I know perfectly what I'm doing
and I'm behaving, even in delicate situations, I do ask him concretely what
is ethically wrong. Of course, ethics is not like "moral" an absolute, and
it's more a matter of degree. Though anyone who knows me a bit in the industry,
knows I have rather a very strong sense of ethics - primum non nocere.
Contrary to Steve, I've not done my whole career in the technology field,
and even if he's like older than me by few decaces, I do have a wider diversity
of professional experience and a more multi-dimensional training. Steve keeps
going forward talking about his professional experience at Google. He says
litterally to me phrases like "you know when I was at Google, I was dating
a lot of women", "you should be careful in the middle of open-source, some
people are in a lot of boards" and "when I was at Google, there was a code
of professional conduct".
I'm still patienly and calmly listening. I do understand he's expecting
me to bow to his viewpoint, but my only answer to him is "concretely what's
the problem ?". He stays silent. The conversation is ending on a "thumb your
nose" and he mumbles about a "token of good faith". We end up the conversation
there.
No discussion on clear principles. No discussion on concrete ethics, all
"wiggling your ass" style of conversation from Steve as he gives me the
impression that himself he wasn't clear in his own consciousness about
the principles that he should abide by.
I'm keeping some business elements for some stuff that was ongoing at Block
Inc at the time out of the scope, though in the great lines, I think it's
factually correct of what did happen. Apart this disagreement, I must say
we had generally very correct professional interactions from 2018 to 2022.
So to resume the Steve Lee's perspective, I think we disagreed on "how
do we solve divergence of viewpoints on social or cultural matters ?".
But from my perspective, he wasn't free to speak his mind as he was
under constraint from Block Inc's corporate rules at all time.
For the Matt's perspective, I do think it's more stupidly stupid. Matt
was perfectly aware about what did happen with the John Newbery's thing
end of 2021. I do think he has been asked by Block Inc's HR department
to put in place a code of conduct in place in rust-lightning / LDK end
of 2022. He did so in the most non-transparent and non consensus-based
fashion, at the "CoC committee" was opaquely pre-appointed, all staffed
by people in direct or indirect financial subordination towards Block Inc.
Where we disagree with Matt, it's clearly that I have no wish to "comply"
to a stupid code of conduct only dictated by Block Inc corporate interests,
and not more respectful of the other rust-lightning / LDK contributors.
The question is never about guaranting an "inclusive and diverse" community
of contributors, whatever this can mean but it's always compliance. I do
estimate myself also insulted by the attitude of Matt, as when you know
the personal and professional life of Matt, it's a complete joke Matt pretending
to make lessons on ethics…
This sounds a bunch of inter-personal issues, though at the same time, I’m very mindful, at the end of the day, it’s the same group of people which is dealing with sensitive issues that might impact in cascade the financial safety and privacy of thousands of users all over the world. I do put the interest of the average end user and bitcoin holder, before the interest of any corporation.
Anyway, that's my viewpoint I could add far more, though I have to go !
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The Context of the Dispute