[HCoop-Discuss] Recusing myself from HCoop planning

[Adam Chlipala]

Rob Gubler wrote:
> I think this is a mistake.  HCoop has been community grown but in my 
> eyes you've been the primary driving force that has made HCoop what it 
> is.  If your efforts and involvement had not been made I doubt the 
> coop would be as functional.  I think because of your involvement in 
> both technical and political issues of the coop you have been a target 
> of unfair criticism.  Personally I'd like to see you continue in both 
> roles.
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 7:10 AM, Adam Chlipala <adamc at hcoop.net 
> <mailto:adamc at hcoop.net>> wrote:
>
>     I no longer want to be involved with planning HCoop's next steps.  In
>     response to my attempts to get discussions going on what the best
>     moves
>     are for us, I've encountered too much negativity of the kind that
>     mistakes the argument for the person who's making it.
>

Thanks to Rob and the others who wrote to express support.  
Unfortunately, the problem isn't that I don't think it's best for the 
co-op for me to keep doing what I've been doing.  Instead, the problem 
is that I think the cost to me is high enough that I question whether 
it's worth it _to_me_ to continue volunteering as seriously as I have 
been since 2002.  If I'm putting in so much effort in planning and 
implementation, why not just get my own server and direct my effort 
towards it?  Everything gets simpler when you don't have to worry about 
compromise or resource sharing.  It takes a group of people all pitching 
in to overcome this inherent cost.

HCoop has generally had a problem with getting many people to pitch in 
and stay in.  I would say that only two people so far have volunteered 
for serious tasks and stuck with them for more than a year or two: Davor 
and me.  I think I'm the _only_ one who's ever done any kind of people 
management halfway effectively, and that's kind of a hilarious 
statement, given my legendary talent for rubbing people the wrong way.  
Both of us have progressed from studenthood to The Real World, where 
we're trying to start our own businesses, such that small amounts of 
time taken away from that task can have a big impact on future prospects.

I've never really _enjoyed_ any aspect of HCoop volunteering besides 
writing custom software, and even that feels like undesirable work 
sometimes.  I put in the time because I thought the costs to me were 
outweighed by the benefits that resulted.  Today, I would need to see a 
lot more involvement by at least 5 more people, persisting over at least 
a year, before I would feel that the cost/benefit ratio is back to an 
appropriate point.

The outright hostility I've been getting from some fans of AFS is 
another issue that provided the concrete tipping point.  We always had 
cordial discussions before.  When I'm volunteering my time for the quite 
thankless task of "cat herding," I don't want to deal with petty 
responses like those that have come up here recently.  We also seem to 
have a genuine disagreement among members, with a roughly even split 
about the basic question of how much distributed infrastructure we 
want.  It's hard to find the energy to organize people in such a 
decision when the easy alternative is to get my own VPS.  From the 100% 
lack of discussion on these issues since I stopped facilitating, you can 
see how much recurring work that facilitation requires.