A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco [LWN.net]

The Rust community has experienced some turbulence in response to the cancellation of a keynote talk at the upcoming RustConf event. The Rust project leadership has now put out a blog post apologizing for and explaining its role in the event, describing its "decision-making and communication processes" as the primary cause of the failure.

Organizationally, within leadership chat we will enforce a strict consensus rule for all decision making, so that there is no longer ambiguity of whether something is an individual opinion or a group decision. We are going to launch the new governance council as soon as possible. We’ll assist the remaining teams to select their representatives in a timely manner, so that the new governance council can start and the current leadership chat can disband.

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A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 7:33 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (21 responses)

It's good that they made an unambiguous apology and not the usual "sorry if your feelings were hurt" nonsense, and subordinated the explanations to the apology.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 8:29 UTC (Tue) by pdewacht (subscriber, #47633) [Link] (20 responses)

I'm not particularly impressed that whoever wrote that isn't willing to sign their name to it.

"leadership chat" is a link, but the linked-to page doesn't describe who/what "leadership chat" is.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 9:46 UTC (Tue) by je.r (subscriber, #113267) [Link]

it's linked now to an earlier announcement and the membership list.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 10:22 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (18 responses)

> I'm not particularly impressed that whoever wrote that isn't willing to sign their name to it.

And why should they? "Naming and Shaming" is a VERY BAD leadership style. Usually done by people who wish to deflect blame from their own screw-ups. And it sounds like the major players in this fiasco have fallen voluntarily on their swords anyway, so what more do you want?

People mess up. It's part of being human. The trouble with "pour encourager les autres" is it leads to a culture of blaming and arse-covering. And if people get caught in a "boil the frog" situation, then it's not fair to blame them - doing so just makes it MORE likely, not less, to happen again.

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 13:31 UTC (Tue) by jafd (subscriber, #129642) [Link] (17 responses)

Wrong. If it’s the leader who’s in the wrong, they should go forth and name themselves and own the screwup. Naming and shaming is not wrong if you responsibly name and shame yourself.

Here’s a template: “We, the leadership chat (or whatever that entity is) screwed this up. I, John Doe, (name others who did the same) have sidestepped our voting and consensus process to demote the talk from keynote because I personally didn’t like its subject. The leadership team, comprised of X, Y, Z, are going to come up with a process/policy to ensure that such things won’t repeat again. I (and others who did this, if applicable) have betrayed the community’s trust with behaviour unbecoming of a community-driven project’s leader and am stepping down from my position effective today.”

Name and shame you’re talking about is when a boss is searching for a scapegoat down below, or entices their reports to come up with a scapegoat. It’s a toxic kind of competition that turns teamwork into a rat race.

Otherwise it’s just smearing blame across the whole organisation, making it untrustworthy as a whole.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 13:39 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (9 responses)

The leader may not be in the wrong. There may have been excessive decentralization and the leader may have been unaware.

In that case it would be overkill for the leader to take responsibility, wrong to name someone else, and weird (and, IMO, wrong) to say "while certain other unnamed people did this, I as leader take responsibility" or words to that effect.

Better to leave it all nameless and let the overall organization take the blame.

(I'm trying to not feed the troll by assuming it's not a troll.)

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 13:51 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> The leader may not be in the wrong. There may have been excessive decentralization and the leader may have been unaware.

And that is EXACTLY the impression I was left with ...

The other point to make is, there seem to be a lot of people who shout "It's my RIGHT to know". No it isn't. It's your RESPONSIBILITY to look after others - and if they've had the decency to fall on their swords you let them lick their wounds in peace.

That "right to know" attitude is incredibly toxic - it leads to people getting extremely aggressively aggrieved "why didn't you tell us yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, ..." - if it's about something that only happened this morning there was nothing to tell! But usually, they're so wrapped up in their "rights" they're completely oblivious to the facts.

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 14:30 UTC (Tue) by jafd (subscriber, #129642) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm arguing in good faith here, it's not Reddit or Twitter.

By leaving it all nameless and letting it roll, you create an organisation not unlike Terry Pratchett's Auditors of Reality. They are bureaucratic, they rule by committee, they don't dare have names, any decision is made by at least three of them, and thus any blame for their actions is dispersed into thin atoms. At the same time, dysfunctional as they are, they of course won't all step away. There's no consequences for their actions!

If you want the whole organisation to take blame, there still should be consequences it has as a whole. And those consequences should sting. Have a conference without the keynote. Pay the wronged party a cancellation fee. Something else.

Or they will never learn.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 14:33 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

Bonus points for Pratchett reference.

I would say a public unqualified apology is consequence enough though. The very word "consequence" in the context of punishment sounds too, er, American to me (unlike Pratchett). In the rest of the world, justice isn't necessarily so punitive.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 14:47 UTC (Tue) by jafd (subscriber, #129642) [Link]

Yes, I mean "consequences" in the sense that it should hurt some. The burned hand teaches best, another reference for you ;-)

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 22:01 UTC (Tue) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

Please check the blog post. They say:

The fact is that several individuals exercised poor judgment and poor communication. Recognizing their outsized role in the situation, those individuals have opted to step back from top-level governance roles, including leadership chat and the upcoming leadership council.

That sounds like the guilty parties have identified themselves and will have meaningful consequences, though those consequences won't be public naming and shaming. Nonetheless, being excluded from leadership in the future seems like a meaningful and appropriate consequence for this kind of screw up.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 22:07 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

It sounds nefarious, but this is how many executives work. Behind closed doors they vote on a common position, and once there is a majority that becomes the collective position and the individual votes are not recorded. That's basically the definition of collective responsibility.

Sure, there need to be consequences. Generally a minister is the person responsible, although in a democracy it often happens that "the people voted for this" and therefore nobody is responsible. Elections are the ultimate responsibility diffuser.

They state there are consequences, namely the whole temporary governance structure is to be replaced with a better one.

(I see comments about the position of "leader", from the original post I don't get the impression there is anyone with that title. Again, in many executives there is no leader, only a first-amongst-equal who is the spokesperson.)

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 14:43 UTC (Tue) by jafd (subscriber, #129642) [Link] (1 responses)

> There may have been excessive decentralization and the leader may have been unaware.

"Good king but some bad nobility" is a huge antipattern in and of itself and in the wild, it usually only exists as an excuse. You can see it in action any totalitarian country with a dear leader — the narrative goes that the dear leader is always good, it's invariably some individuals down the ladder that are bad apples. The leadership, IMO, should act swiftly if there is even a whiff of this antipattern.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 7:05 UTC (Thu) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]

>any totalitarian country [...] the dear leader is always good, it's invariably some individuals down the ladder that are bad apples

Only until enough shares of power distributed throughout the participating individuals think otherwise, then leaders can fall out of favor and get substituted (youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs).

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 17:09 UTC (Tue) by geofft (subscriber, #59789) [Link]

> The leader may not be in the wrong. There may have been excessive decentralization and the leader may have been unaware.

This is a leadership problem too.

I agree that it would be unhelpful for, say, the mayor of a large city to say "I take personal responsibility for this one building not getting approved because of corruption in this one district's building review committee" (and especially unhelpful to say "... and so I will fall on my sword and resign"), if that mayor was unaware of the corruption.

But now the mayor is aware not just of the corruption but of the possibility that corruption can happen unchecked, which is a mayor-level concern. It would be absolutely reasonable for the mayor to say "I take personal responsibility for the fact that there was corruption in this one committee and I will put the weight of my own office in systematically making sure all of these district-level decision-making processes are fair and well-governed." This probably doesn't involve the mayor personally being the oversight at all these meetings - but it probably involves the mayor personally making sure that some form of oversight happens.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 5:18 UTC (Wed) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (6 responses)

> Name and shame you’re talking about is when a boss is searching for a scapegoat down below, or entices their reports to come up with a scapegoat. It’s a toxic kind of competition that turns teamwork into a rat race.

No, naming and shaming is toxic in any situation where you want people to make and commit to decisions.

Naming and shaming people, regardless of whether it's going uphill or down, will inevitably result in a culture of fear where nobody wants to be responsible for anything. You can't blame people for saying nothing, and it's often difficult in practice to blame people for saying "no" to everything, so those are the behaviors you incentivise. It's simple risk minimization. The people who don't practice it will eventually screw something up and either fall on their swords or get kicked out, and so in the long run, you'll be left with a "project" that never does anything.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 8:48 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

If you want a culture of improvement, it must be possible for people to learn and grow. Which means it must be possible for people to learn from their mistakes. Which means it must be possible for people to admit to mistakes and still be able to grow.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 10:32 UTC (Thu) by jafd (subscriber, #129642) [Link]

I think I’ve mentioned that naming and shaming only works if the guilty party names and shames themselves. You are not allowed to point fingers at other people, it’s a search for a convenient scapegoat.

Having enough guts to come forth and admit to one’s own wrongdoing is how others can see the person can grow. It’s also a chance for them to explain why they thought their wrongdoing could have been worth it in their own words. Who knows, maybe they had a point — on a different level. Someone else will be able to think on that and make it right.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 19:33 UTC (Thu) by Vipketsh (guest, #134480) [Link] (3 responses)

> result in a culture of fear where nobody wants to be responsible for anything

Not being involved with this project and just taking the far-away view this whole debacle, for me, reeks of the same fear that you and most in this thread seem to fear so dearly.

Here's the thing: as soon as someone takes a public role that person has involved themselves in the disgusting world of politics. This is a world where, at times, you are made to take responsibility for outcomes you did not want, for outcomes that occurred because of other's actions and for results that have exactly nothing to do with you. This is a world of backstabbing, straight out lies and manipulation. Therefore, IMO, those who could be named here signed up for such a possible eventuality, even if they didn't know it at the time. Terrible, I know, but that's a risk inherent to being in any high-level public role.

Maybe I'm just too old, but for me, a respectable person, when found in such a situation, writes an honest and factual account of the whole story and has the guts to include explicit reference to all the main players but completely devoid of any whiny self-punishment crap that reads "please don't hurt me". Then they would give a chance for the community (for some definition thereof) to decide their fate for better or worse. Better yet, all the people involved would write a joint and complete account of what happened. The way it is right now it's pretty much impossible to really get a handle on what happened because every author went to great pains to not leave any identifiable information about anyone else in their account and thus it's impossible to connect all the dots.

With all these opinions of how important it is to hide the identity of those involved I must ponder, is the rust community such a vile place that if anyone knows of any sliver of wrong doing they immediately pull out the verbal version of a 155mm howitzer with an autoloader and go bananas at everyone and anyone ? Do the leaders have such distrust for their own community that a full and factual account of a high-profile case would not be evaluated fairly ?

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 20:51 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> is the rust community such a vile place that if anyone knows of any sliver of wrong doing they immediately pull out the verbal version of a 155mm howitzer with an autoloader and go bananas at everyone and anyone ?

The Rust community partially overlaps with the Twitter community, and Twitter 100% is toxic enough to do exactly as you say. Twitter's community also has an annoying habit of inserting itself into drama that has nothing to do with it, and offering uninformed and inflammatory opinions. If Twitter didn't exist, then we probably would not have this problem.

Fortunately, the Chief Twit (as he has occasionally called himself) seems to be doing everything in his power to destroy Twitter, so this problem may go away in the future.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 11:45 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> With all these opinions of how important it is to hide the identity of those involved I must ponder, is the rust community such a vile place [...]

I don't know how the ISO does things (eg for the C & C++ standardization committees) but for the various IEEE specifications, everyone who participated in some way is named in the final published spec. Not just the "officers" of the formal committees involved, but individual contributing members.

Additionally, decisions have a formal process and individual votes are recorded -- but you can't just say "no"; you have to give a proper technical justification, and all of these are reported too. Granted these aren't open to the general public but they are available to (at minimum) everyone who participates in that standardization effort, and possibly to any dues-paying IEEE member.

Ultimately the only thing these standardization groups have is their reputation for fairness and legitimacy, so there's no room for any of this anonymous "leadership chat team" nonsense.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 11:52 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

> Here's the thing: as soon as someone takes a public role that person has involved themselves in the disgusting world of politics.

In general, when it comes to improving processes it helps to try and figure out what went wrong, rather than spending time pointing fingers. The airline industry only started becoming safer once investigations focussed on how to improve systems rather than figuring out who to blame. In large engineering projects you get the same effect: if the purpose of an investigation becomes figuring out who to blame, then people will withhold evidence and not cooperate which in the end is bad for everyone.

In this case it seems that the issue perhaps isn't with the people, but with the structures themselves and if you want to fix that, you don't do that by pointing fingers. An especially in the current world of anti-social media, publishing names of people leads to consequences way out of proportion. And maybe I'm getting old, but I find the trend of abusing people in public positions an unwelcome development.

Don't be fooled.

Posted May 30, 2023 10:00 UTC (Tue) by Subsentient (guest, #142918) [Link]

Nothing will change.
I've seen this play out in many places before, it only gets worse.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 10:11 UTC (Tue) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (5 responses)

Somehow I've learned more trivia about the Python [sic] community from this incident than I would've liked to. Ignorance is bliss.

I'll believe Rust's actually *done* something to address its internal dysfunction, toxic positivity, cult of respectability politics — whatever the root cause of all this is, when we can all go a single browser release cycle without being reminded it exists. Just a single one. Six weeks of silence. I would really like to see this language do better and not destroy itself from the inside, but the sheer frequency of WTF they're emitting lately makes the never-ending stream of apologies and excuses ring hollow.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 13:41 UTC (Tue) by jafd (subscriber, #129642) [Link] (3 responses)

As if other communities don’t have their “tempests in teapots”. Notably, even Perl, you learn that it’s still moving and that it’s got a “community” by flamewars that happen now and then, it’s just that the frequency of them happening is lower.

At this rate, the word “community” itself becomes quite loaded with negative connotations.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 22:49 UTC (Tue) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Yes I'm well aware of the meta-state surrounding Perl, the MOP wars, the release manager burnout, the DBIx::Class drama, the 4chan racist that Raku kept around as a bargaining chip in petty office politics, etc. You don't need to tell me it has problems, I've been around the block.

But those problems aren't as regular as the rain nor being thrust into my face (and everyone else's) everywhere on the open internet. The Rust Battle Royale is uniquely hard to avoid.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 10:34 UTC (Wed) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link] (1 responses)

Building a community is significantly hard. Respect and understanding goes upwards, downwards and sideways from any individual: respect is earned intangibly (especially online / over email / IRC or whatever) and it takes a moment to lose everything you may have gained in years.

Building understanding is *really* hard and fully shared understanding and a sense of purpose and a means of dealing with disagreements successfully is almost impossible over a long period of time.

Human society has evolved largely for close contact, communities you could reach and people you knew by sight and could name: communication at a distance and building relationships without ever seeing someone is, at best, something from 1840 or so onwards (see landline telegraph operators and amateur radio folks for examples of mostly one-one relationships).

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 5, 2023 4:58 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> Human society has evolved largely for close contact, communities you could reach and people you knew by sight and could name: communication at a distance and building relationships without ever seeing someone is, at best, something from 1840 or so onwards (see landline telegraph operators and amateur radio folks for examples of mostly one-one relationships).

This.

Listen to any psychologist or sociologist for more than 5 minutes and they will mention it.

Human nature is still _tribal_. You don't need to be an expert to see it on social media - and even on cable news to some extend.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 21:59 UTC (Tue) by intelfx (subscriber, #130118) [Link]

What’s about Python community?

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 12:06 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Strict consensus is tough, it's basically means requiring unanimous votes on everything. It can only work if you have someone on the sidelines verifying that the consensus actually exists. And if you're not in a physical setting and everything is remote it gets even harder because there's no way to force everyone to make a choice *now*. It can work well though if done properly.

I see comments in this thread suggesting all sort of nefarious things happening in the background. I wouldn't know about that, but it does appear that they're all at the least rookie mistakes and they're missing a few old hands with experience running large volunteer organisations. It's not something you can make up as you go along.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 15:27 UTC (Tue) by zaitcev (guest, #761) [Link] (46 responses)

So what the hell actually happened? The blog post by the offended party has a furry imagery in the middle, with no relation to the text of the post. Was the real reason that he assumed that it was okay to make a keynote in his fursona?

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 30, 2023 16:16 UTC (Tue) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

(setting aside your strange and prejudiced leap of logic...)

my assumption was that image was supposed to convey "side eye" - in that context, it's basically a custom emoji

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 3:34 UTC (Wed) by pavon (subscriber, #142617) [Link] (2 responses)

From what I understand, JeanHeyd is a proponent of adding a new feature (a type of reflection) to Rust, and intended to make that the subject of his keynote speech. Some of the Rust leadership felt that a keynote speech on this subject would be seen as an endorsement which wasn't appropriate for a proposal that that is still being debated, and that the subject would be better suited for a normal presentation. Which is completely reasonable, except those discussions should have taken place before JeanHeyd was told he would be the keynote speaker.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 4:32 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Additionally, there were apparently a number of disclaimers about any such endorsements being non-existent in the presentation itself.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 5:39 UTC (Wed) by edomaur (subscriber, #14520) [Link]

said research project has now been canceled by the team working with JeanHeyd... :-/

https://soasis.org/posts/statement-on-rustconf-compile-ti...

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 4:36 UTC (Thu) by burki99 (subscriber, #17149) [Link] (41 responses)

https://www.jntrnr.com/why-i-left-rust/
A bit too much drama for my taste.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 9:46 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (7 responses)

> https://www.jntrnr.com/why-i-left-rust/

If this is an accurate representation of what happened, then it is indeed a stunning failure of process. There's a reason why articles of association spend a lot of words on defining the process of voting. If a point is listed on the agenda before the meeting and you don't vote either yourself or by proxy at the meeting, then tough. To then on own initiative take actions against the results of a vote is bizarre. In many contexts this would be grounds for legal action. I'm thinking they probably don't have the legal set-up for that to be relevant but at this point disbanding and rebuilding from scratch is probably the only option.

Process matters.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 11:10 UTC (Thu) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link] (3 responses)

> If this is an accurate representation of what happened, then it is indeed a stunning failure of process.

Seconded. It also paints the apology in a somewhat different light. When I first read it, it sounded like the two people who stepped down are those who downgraded JeanHeyd's talk after he had been explicitly invited. No matter how that invitation came to be, as long as the speaker can be expected to give a relevant talk in good faith, this is IMHO not something that should even be considered. So stepping down after causing such a screw-up (and later realizing the error) would have been an understandable and appropriate decision.

But instead, it seems like one of the individuals who stepped down is one of those who proposed the invitation in the first place - not those who sabotaged it later. And if that blog post is accurate, it was decided on properly according to the established process at that time (even if that process - consensus of whoever happens to be present - seems not to be a very good one for contentious issues to me).

This is a sad state of affairs. I hope that they can find a better governance structure and avoid such failures in the future. And I very much hope that whoever side-stepped the existing process to force the demotion has enough self-reflection to realize that this was a mistake and learn from it. It would be sad to see Rust fail because the community eats itself.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 12:27 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (2 responses)

> And I very much hope that whoever side-stepped the existing process to force the demotion has enough self-reflection to realize that this was a mistake and learn from it.

More context is available in the links here: https://soasis.org/posts/statement-on-rustconf-compile-ti...

It seems (to me) like the individual involved with the communication failures has stepped up and taken responsibility (with appropriate consequences at least proposed).

Better governance and such is warranted. I suspect it's been too much of "we're nerds and can figure this stuff out; how hard could it be?" and not really realizing that it's a completely different set of skills involved.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 22:54 UTC (Thu) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks, I had missed those. It does indeed seem that none of those involved acted maliciously, but a lack of process and a lossy communication setup, with at least two groups working independently and people relaying incomplete information between them, combined to produce an outcome that nobody is happy with.

If anything, this episode could be seen as an argument for having all communication happen in public by default. That way, at least the partial information problem might have been avoided.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 10:40 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> If anything, this episode could be seen as an argument for having all communication happen in public by default. That way, at least the partial information problem might have been avoided.

IMHO that's going to make matters worse. That only leads to people demanding to know why they weren't told yesterday, about a water cooler discussion that happened today. (And even if they're intelligent enough to realise that the discussion was today, they will want to know who organised it and why they weren't invited ...)

And it still doesn't address the problem of who makes the decision - THAT was the problem here. Two different groups of people made two different conflicting decisions. And holding the communication in public is going to INCREASE the chances of them missing each other's discussion amidst all the noise.

As mentioned elsewhere, you need some sort of formal setup. At an absolute minimum, you need a group of people authorised to make decisions, you need a formal mechanism for informing them about a decision-making session, and you need rules on how many people are needed to make or change decisions. In short, you need a formal committee.

Oh - and the number of people required to make decisions should not be a woolly number like "one quarter of our (active) membership", although "one quarter of our paid-up membership" isn't too bad. The other thing is, while it should not be the norm, a group I set up did have the - and we used it sometimes! - rule that a quorum was whoever turned up IFF it was the third consecutive meeting where not enough people to make the standard quorum turned up.

The "Rust Community" leadership need to arrange a vote, appoint a committee to take over (put themselves up for election, why not?), and disband. Replace what is basically a ragtaggle mob with some sort of formal structure.

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 11:56 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

This fisasco reminds me of something I wrote a couple of years ago: [1]

> Rust is able to be more "responsive" to users' complaints than the C & C++ folks because it is young, immature, and not widely used. I'm not saying that pejoratively; this gives Rust a _lot_ more freedom and flexibility to rapidly evolve and improve, and this is also reflected in the processes that Rust uses to improve itself. Its lack of users (and diversity of use) means there's very little at stake, and the single-implementation monoculture ensures everyone is using the same tooling with changes becoming rapidly available.

> However, C & C++ have many independent implementations, and (due in part to a 30 year head start vs Rust) have many orders of magnitude more lines of code, projects, and active coders out there, with the inevitable (and _considerable_) historical baggage that entails. Each of those stakeholders has different requirements and goals (that are, more often than not, inherently confliciting), and collectively represent a _lot_ of investment. This means the standardization efforts operate much more conservatively, slowly, and *formally*, but perversely, that many-independent-implementations state of affairs means that there's _less_ need to actually participate in standardization efforts. (This is why C++ was such an utter interoperability mess for so long..)

In other words, Rust-the-project's leadership and processes need to mature if it's going to have any hope of attracting investment, both in Rust itself but also non-trivial codebases. I hope they understand how severe this self-inflicted wound has become.

[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/862840/

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 1, 2023 22:09 UTC (Thu) by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231) [Link] (1 responses)

> In other words, Rust-the-project's leadership and processes need to mature if it's going to have any hope of attracting investment, both in Rust itself but also non-trivial codebases. I hope they understand how severe this self-inflicted wound has become.

I’m curious how to best interpret the “if it’s going to have any hope of attracting investment”?

Perhaps I have a different understanding of the facts, but I thought that hurdle was pretty far back in the rear view at this point?

From cloud computing to automotive systems, from Google to Amazon, from Windows to the Linux kernel, I’m seeing what I interpret as an unparalleled level of investment.

Wondering if you might help me understand your view on the breadth and depth of industry investment in Rust to date?

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 11:32 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

By "investment" I mean two things.

First, the act of working to improve Rust itself -- ie participating in its development, adding new language features, and so forth. This sort of work takes months-to-years to land, and to loop back to the original article, is what the dude affected by this fisasco was doing. They (and their team) had been working on a new feature for about a *year*, and as a result of this, both them and their team have not only abandoned that work, but have stepped back from any other development effort entirely.

This is why the likes of C/C++, Java, etc have slow, bureaucratic, and very formal change processes. Because as a language/platform grows, not only will everyone involved is try and pull in different directions, but some of those will be in completely mutually-incompatible ones, and there needs to be a fair & formal, public process to mediate these things.

Secondly, the act of developing large codebases in Rust. To some extent we're past this hump, but organizations and developers are _very_ conservative in the space Rust targets, and we're a long way from a critical mainstream mass -- If the stewards of Rust show they're completely dysfunctional (see also the recent trademark fiasco) it tells the PMs and VPs who make decisions about major projects that Rust is not something that is suitable to implement (and support) a project that has a planned lifecycle of longer than Rust has existed (decade+) Those projects simply cannot just "update to the current version" on a whim.

That said, some of the players starting to do real work with Rust (eg Google, Amazon, Microsoft) are known to up and fork and maintain stuff internally if it's that important. But only a fool would rely up front on that happening.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 3:15 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (32 responses)

See also this rather lengthy article: https://fasterthanli.me/articles/the-rustconf-keynote-fia...

In short: Lots of people talked to lots of other people, nobody managed to communicate effectively with anyone, and at the end of it all, JeanHeyd was asked/told "how do you feel about demoting your keynote to a regular talk?"

I find this plausible as a case of Hanlon's razor, but at the same time, this is more or less the same as the explanation we got for the trademark mess. The fact that their internal comms have evidently not improved, and if anything have gotten worse, is not encouraging to me. At this point, I think they need to enact a formal constitution a la Debian, because it is apparent that they lack the maturity as a project to operate with a lower degree of formal process than that. Maybe in a few years they can downgrade to "just" having a formal steering council a la Python.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 10:44 UTC (Fri) by zorro (subscriber, #45643) [Link] (29 responses)

> at the end of it all, JeanHeyd was asked/told "how do you feel about demoting your keynote to a regular talk?"

A reasonable answer could have been "Sure, no problem, but may I ask why?" instead of all the drama.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 12:46 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (28 responses)

You've missed the point. JeanHayd was MASSIVELY insulted, on MANY levels.

You do not give a formal invite, to someone who hadn't planned on even attending, to be a keynote speaker AND THEN WITHDRAW THE INVITE, JUST BECAUSE.

And that's probably not even the biggest insult. I don't blame him for just walking. Maybe I wouldn't have, but insults at that level go very deep.

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 21:01 UTC (Fri) by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901) [Link] (27 responses)

I disagree. While there was an offense, and an insult, it wasn't "MASSIVE". Jean wasn't uninvited to speak. He was asked if he would mind downgrading his keynote to a regular talk. This is simply not the end of the world. He could have pushed back, saying he was offended, and a possible outcome would be that they let the talk be keynote anyway (since they already asked him), and let the complainers deal with it. This much hew and cry over whether a talk is a keynote or not is disproportionate.

It is too much drama for this level of insult. Many members of leadership are falling on their swords and walking away, over a relatively minor slight, IMHO. See https://hackmd.io/p3VG_bK9TXOvtgh1oA2yZQ?view for Josh Triplett's account of what happened. The amount of angst and self-recrimination here (not just by Josh, but by a whole lot of people) is just too much.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 23:18 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (26 responses)

Again, you miss the point. THE ONLY REASON he was giving the talk, was because he had been formally invited. How would you feel, if you were asked OUT OF THE BLUE to be your mate's best man, only to be told later his parents had given the job to someone else? It's a huge snub.

I'd certainly be questioning whether I even wanted to be at the wedding after that, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

You don't give someone an honour they weren't expecting, then just withdraw it for no reason, without expecting consequences.

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 3, 2023 9:09 UTC (Sat) by zorro (subscriber, #45643) [Link] (20 responses)

> You don't give someone an honour they weren't expecting, then just withdraw it for no reason, without expecting consequences.

They did not withdraw it for no reason. There was a reason: his chosen keynote topic was controversial.

Was this a SNAFU from the RustConf side? Absolutely. Very amateurish. But the hysteric reactions look straight from an elementary school yard.

And what is the biggest consequence of all this? That JeanHeyd burned his Rust introspection work to the ground. I'm sure the Rust project is really upset about this.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 3, 2023 9:49 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (15 responses)

Rust: Would you like to give a keynote?

JH: Yes, the topic will be "reflection", but beware it could be controversial.

Rust: That's great, no problem, let's get it organised.

Rust: We don't like your topic - it's too controversial. Would you downgrade your talk?

WHERE in that is a genuine reason? Rust ASKED him to give a keynote on reflection, then asked him not to. Rust changed their mind for no valid reason whatsoever.

> Was this a SNAFU from the RustConf side? Absolutely. Very amateurish. But the hysteric reactions look straight from an elementary school yard.

Unfortunately, SNAFUs have consequences. On a personal level that sort of snafu destroys trust. On a professional level that sort of snafu destroys trust. You talk about "elementary school yard" - imho the kid who is prepared to overlook a snafu like that is the unloved kid who is desperate for any attention, even abuse ...

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 3, 2023 14:18 UTC (Sat) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (14 responses)

They changed their mind. That's it.

There are two possible reactions to this: Deal with it or act like a preschool kid.

Welcome to real life, where people do stupid decisions that we all have to deal with it. It's part of growing up to deal with these things.

I really don't see the big "fiasco" here.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 3, 2023 15:55 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (13 responses)

> They changed their mind. That's it.

Sure, Google "just changed their mind" when they dropped Google News or any of their innumerable products. Fast forward to today, where hardly anyone trusts Google to keep any new service running for more than a year or two (or even services that have been running for a decade!) which severely hurts uptake and adoption of anything they try to launch (most recently Stadia, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy!)

So no, there are very real _consequences_ for the folks in charge of Rust "changing their mind", especially in light of the sub-par reputation they're continuing to show is well-earned.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 3, 2023 16:38 UTC (Sat) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (12 responses)

> Google
> which severely hurts uptake and adoption of anything they try to launch

https://www.google.de/search?q=google+yearly+revenue

Does not look like a company that has trouble with product adoption to me.

> So no, there are very real _consequences_ for the folks in charge of Rust "changing their mind",
> especially in light of the sub-par reputation they're continuing to show is well-earned.

Yes. There are consequences for everything. And we simply have to live with the consequences. People usually learn how to do that when growing up.

But this is a tempest in a tea cup.
This is about re-categorizing a talk from Keynote to Regular Talk.

Yes, this is annoying. Yes, they could have done better.
But this is not the end of the world.
Get over it.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 4, 2023 1:43 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (10 responses)

> Does not look like a company that has trouble with product adoption to me.

Google has one profitable product: Advertising. Everything else is funnels eyeballs (and/or user data) into that.

Meanwhile, despite being wildly profitable, Google has killed (as of this counting) 285 products, most of which had sizeable userbases.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

> Get over it.

The folks directly affected by this "got over it" by ending their involvement with the Rust project altogether.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 4, 2023 7:08 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (9 responses)

> Meanwhile, despite being wildly profitable, Google has killed (as of this counting) 285 products,
> most of which had sizeable userbases.

Companies start and terminate products all the time. That's just a normal thing to do. It's not specific to Google.
The purpose of a company is not to provide a product forever, but to make revenue.

> The folks directly affected by this "got over it" by
> ending their involvement with the Rust project altogether.

Exactly.
Ending their involvement just because a talk has been changed from Keynote to Regular is just the behavior I would expect from children.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 4, 2023 12:05 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

*Asking* for a keynote talk, and then downgrading it to a regular talk, is exactly the behaviour I would expect from bullies.

"Sometimes the only way to win, is to refuse to play". When dealing with hormone-laden pre-teens like Rust, I think that's a pretty adult response ...

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 4, 2023 13:30 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link]

>*Asking* for a keynote talk, and then downgrading it to a regular talk,
>is exactly the behaviour I would expect from bullies.

Wow. You are saying that they asked him for a keynote talk with the indent to downgrade it just to bully him?
Seriously?

>"Sometimes the only way to win, is to refuse to play".

If writing a big blog post is defined as not playing.

>When dealing with hormone-laden pre-teens like Rust

Do you think this is polite?

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 5, 2023 5:07 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> Companies start and terminate products all the time. That's just a normal thing to do. It's not specific to Google.

No it's not specific to Google. But there is something specific to Google: doing things on a massive scale!

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/googles-constant-...

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 6, 2023 17:36 UTC (Tue) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (5 responses)

Here, the childish behavior was clearly on the Rust side (read: they were behaving like schoolyard bullies), and not on the side of the insulted person.

Well, I'm not part of the Rust community and have not used that language and ecosystem once. I just observe the toxic atmosphere and the fanatiscm of that community, and that makes me want to don't touch it with a ten-feet pole.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 6, 2023 18:42 UTC (Tue) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (3 responses)

>they were behaving like schoolyard bullies

They were inviting him with the intent to downgrade the talk just to bully him?
What facts you you base this bold claim on?

Changing mind is maybe rude and is certainly not what they should have done, bit it's far from intentional bullying. (There is no such thing as unintentional bullying).

Bullying is a criminal offense.
Downgrading a talk is rude.

>and have not used that language and ecosystem once

I doubt it. Used Firefox or Android or Windows or ...?

>I just observe the toxic atmosphere and the fanatiscm of that community

You are overreacting a lot. Really.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 6, 2023 23:05 UTC (Tue) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (2 responses)

> >they were behaving like schoolyard bullies

> They were inviting him with the intent to downgrade the talk just to bully him?

Of course, nobody did this as a plan. But, obviously from the reports, nobody put a minute of thought into thinking what this degration means to an accomplished expert. There was a link to a post from somebody named "JT" who resigned, who put it into words: He asked around if anybody he knows has ever experienced something like this -- and the answer was "no".

Schoolyard bullies don't plan their actions, they see something they dislike, see an opportunity, and take it. That's why they are called "bullies", they don't act strategically, but on an emotional whim.

> > and have not used that language and ecosystem once

> I doubt it. Used Firefox or Android or Windows or ...?

This comment makes me question your willingness for discussion. IMNSHO it was obvious that I wrote this as a software developer. I wanted to make clear that I'm not involved in software development with Rust. I.e., that I'm impartial to the internal struggle in that project. I'm solely active in the TeX community -- and I'm proud that we don't have as much quarrels as is reported here.

That makes me ask -- just for interest: What is your involvement?
Are you active in the Rust Project?
Were you active in that conference?
Do you have connections to the people that we talk about -- whom I don't know?

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 6:52 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> > > and have not used that language and ecosystem once

> > I doubt it. Used Firefox or Android or Windows or ...?

*I* haven't used it. Software I use (I use all three you mention) obviously do.

> That makes me ask -- just for interest: What is your involvement?
> Are you active in the Rust Project?
> Were you active in that conference?
> Do you have connections to the people that we talk about -- whom I don't know?

I have my own projects to be involved in (md-raid, ScarletDME). That said, I read the back-story, which is a bit horrific. That, and posters here saying "Oh it's nothing" and I found it hard to keep out. "Don't feed the trolls" and all that. I think there's a couple of posters here who know how to press my buttons ...

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 19:38 UTC (Wed) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link]

I'm not posting anonymously here.
It's easy to find out who I am and what I am involved in.
So if you really mean it, go for it.

I just don't think it matters.

> This comment makes me question your willingness for discussion.

I have a different opinion than you have and all that is left is a personal attack from your side.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 6, 2023 22:47 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

I like the sound of Rust the language, I really do. And it seems (as always) the people doing the work are simply putting their heads down and getting on with it.

It's the others that seem rather disfunctional. At the end of the day, they need to grow up and get some sort of formal structure in place (and not do what another organisation I was involved with did - they got what I charitably described as "organisational Alzheimers" :-)

Cheers,
Wol

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 4, 2023 1:48 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> But this is not the end of the world.

Maya Angelou said something that is quite relevant:

"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

...This wasn't the first time.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 3, 2023 22:12 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (3 responses)

Reading JeanHayd's post closely, I think his attitude is basically "Rust should be better than this, and if I don't go public with it, then they won't improve." Characterizing that as "hysteric" feels quite unfair to me.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 11, 2023 1:15 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

It's certainly not hysterical but the consequences seem disproportionate.

We've become deaf due to the necessity to ignore all the people from all sides constantly whining with a megaphone on Twitter. But when you complain with a megaphone about people who (for a change) do care about their mistakes then you get mega consequences.

> "... and if I don't go public with it, then they won't improve."

This is the key, unsubstantiated claim.

Loudly but _privately_ complaining to the Rust leadership about the "opaque governance" could have resulted in more productive changes. _Private_ discussions is how millions of people routinely discuss mistakes and conflicts every day. The megaphone is for when all private channels have all failed. Please correct me but I haven't seen these private discussions mentioned anywhere.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 11, 2023 1:56 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> Please correct me but I haven't seen these private discussions mentioned anywhere.

I believe the original post referenced multiple attempts to have the situation explained (if not resolved) privately. Attempts that clearly failed.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 11, 2023 5:27 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> I believe the original post referenced multiple attempts to have the situation explained (if not resolved) privately.

Which original post? I don't see that mentioned at https://thephd.dev/i-am-no-longer-speaking-at-rustconf-2023

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 11:46 UTC (Wed) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link] (4 responses)

Quite recently a friend of mine was invited to be a groomsman at a wedding. At the rehearsal he was the best man. It was not suggested to him that it would be any different on the day. Come wedding day, he was informed that someone else was best man.

This is basically the scenario you are describing. And guess what? He played his role with good grace because he's a nice guy.

"ThePHD.dev", on the other hand, is one of the biggest drama queens on the internet and has demonstrated through all of this to all sensible people that working with him is to be avoided if you want to live a calm and simple life. Let's remember that this is the same guy that has written blog posts boasting about how he has infiltrated the C standards committee in an attempt to destroy the C programming language from the inside because he hates C.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 12:59 UTC (Wed) by rschroev (subscriber, #4164) [Link]

When I go to a wedding of friends of mine, I don't care much about what function I'm going to be in. I'm happy to help out in any way, or be just a guest, doesn't really matter. I'm happy to be there.

When I'm invited to some event I wasn't planning to attend, only because the organizers really want me to do the keynote, that's a different story. Doing the keynote is the only reason for going. If I'm then told not to do the keynote, then that reason doesn't exist anymore. I probably wouldn't attend either (I wouldn't be pissed either; just not going). Offering me a talk wouldn't help: I had never intended to give a talk at that event.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 13:33 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Quite recently a friend of mine was invited to be a groomsman at a wedding. At the rehearsal he was the best man. It was not suggested to him that it would be any different on the day. Come wedding day, he was informed that someone else was best man.

...Did he (and his colleagues) spend a year working on wedding tasks before he was asked to be the best man?

Meanwhile, to carry your analogy forward to what actually happened; he was asked to be the best man by the groom, re-arranged his plans to make that possible, and then at the last minute the bride demanded he be replaced with someone else. At minimum, that _strongly_ implies that he was not actually as welcome at the wedding as he was lead to think.

(And for the record, I've been put in this situation. Suffice it to say she is now my ex-wife)

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 13:50 UTC (Wed) by mikebenden (guest, #74702) [Link] (1 responses)

> Let's remember that this is the same guy that has written blog posts boasting
> about how he has infiltrated the C standards committee in an attempt to destroy
> the C programming language from the inside because he hates C.

While so far all other replies to your comment focused exclusively on rebuttals to your "best-man-at-wedding" analogy, and didn't touch this part of your post with a 10-foot pole, I think this is the actually useful information. Do you happen to have a link to one of said blog posts? That would be even more interesting!

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 7, 2023 17:04 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

I'm not sure how an editor of the C standard could be considered to "hate C". Parts of it, sure. But I don't think such a position (at least based on my C++ ISO experience) is one of supreme power or financially rewarding to overshadow any such "hate". It could be that some "I'm going to make C better even if it means burning it all down to build it better" kind of language got taken the wrong way. But that approach also seems a far cry from getting anywhere with ISO voting rules (as I'm sure JeanHeyd is well aware).

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 13:10 UTC (Fri) by timon (subscriber, #152974) [Link] (1 responses)

> This is more or less the same as the explanation we got for the trademark mess.

AFAIU, the trademark mess was brought about by the Rust Foundation, while the RustConf keynote fiasco was brought about by the Rust Project.

> The fact that their internal comms have evidently not improved, and if anything have gotten worse, is not encouraging to me.

Those would then be two more or less entirely different sets of internal comms.

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted Jun 2, 2023 16:43 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> Those would then be two more or less entirely different sets of internal comms.

That's even worse.

Plato

Posted May 31, 2023 1:01 UTC (Wed) by mtaht (guest, #11087) [Link]

I have often wished far, far more folk read more Plato in thinking about how to govern. Here's a good intro:

https://iep.utm.edu/platopol/

A post on the RustConf keynote fiasco

Posted May 31, 2023 6:19 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

What a toxic environment, we should immediately cancel Rust now. #metoo was nothing in comparison.

(First world problems for social media drama)