Hacker News Reader

Comment by patmorgan23 | Hacker News Reader

Dear Rust leadership,

It's clear over the last 6-months that the project lacks clear and mature (in multiple senses) governance. I suggest you quickly take the following actions:

1. The individual(s) responsible for this situation publicly apologize, With their name(s) attached, and possibly resign from their leadership position. This muddy, cloak and dagger, he said she said, stuff is completely unnecessary and just breeds distrust. The community/project needs clarity and accountability if it is going to survive.

2. All statements need to have names of individuals attached, either "John Smith, on behalf of Rust Leadership chat" or a big list of all members of the leadership chat. Stop hiding behind amorphous groups.

3. Adopt and implement the Leadership Council RFC. It's obvious this intrum leadership chat is ineffective in providing direction and clarity on the project. Rust needs a clear organizational structure.

View on HN

Amen - there needs to be named accountability - not some bloody "leadership chat." Someone sent this message - who was it?

One of my more memorable work moments was sitting in a conference room with 20 irate colleagues and two sheepish executives, one of whom had sent out a company wide email adding a layer of middle management to production releases and making our jobs ten times harder.

The email was not signed, and the executives agreed that they had proofed it but there was no possible way to know who sent it! Never mind the email account or rationale or executive team; must have been a ghost. One hour later we were no closer to the truth. Moral of the story; accountability is difficult, and I doubt we will get an answer here.

I agree, it’s just very unprofessional. I wonder if this was the result of too much group chat nowadays.

they linked their (user)names:

https://github.com/rust-lang/team/blob/2cea9916903fffafbfae6...

> It's clear over the last 6-months that the project lacks clear and mature (in multiple senses) governance.

We have given Rust governance enough time and it is essentially still infantile and they continue to add fuel to the fire to this pointless drama.

Some people have warned for years [1] about the issues with Rust's governance structure as a 501(c)6 and now the core team have realized its inherent issues and is no more bureaucratic than the Linux Foundation. This is why you have these leadership issues and the opaqueness you have right in front of you.

Rust governance is not a 'community'. And its (past and present) problems of setting it up as a 501(c)6 just shows that to them the 'community' never mattered, only corporate interests.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35583460

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28513316

The Rust Foundation is a 501(c)6, but the Rust Foundation was not involved here. The Rust Project (which is not a formal legal entity, AFAIK, more like "the people who can approve GitHub PRs") was entirely at fault.

That is even worse. It only shows that the so-called Rust community and the project is still infantile and full of evangelists as well as the Foundation's interest is focused on corporate interests in general regardless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com