[CMake] Sebastian Barre's private flames

[Brandon Van Every]

Ok, I think it's time to call the private behavior of Kitware employee
Sebastian Barre to the attention of the list.  I've repeatedly asked
him to stop sending me private e-mail flames, and he simply will not
do it.  This is the 3rd flame he's sent since being point blank asked
to stop initiating private communication with me.  I brought this to
Bill's attention; he said it's Sebastian's private e-mail and he
didn't want to get involved.  I will be getting Google involved as he
is in clear violation of their Terms Of Service.  It amazes me that
any so-called "professional" feels they have the right to routinely
engage in what every ISP out there defines as harassment, let alone
one representing a company such as Kitware.

Meanwhile, let's get the CMake community involved.  Do you think it's
acceptable for a Kitware employee to be harassing me in private e-mail
over and over again?   The amount of ill will that Sebastian has
singlehandedly created in the past few days is considerable.  Bill's
unwillingness to do anything about Sebastian makes me think he pretty
much agrees with Sebastian's opinions, and would like nothing better
than to drive me out of here.  If this is how Kitware thinks it's
acceptable to do business in an open source community, there is going
to be a sea change in how the open source world deploys CMake's core
technology.

Below is Sebastian's most recent missive:

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Sebastien BARRE
<sebastien.barre at gmail.com> wrote:
> At 3/4/2008 01:40 PM, you wrote:
>
>  >I said one can debate it.  Your position seems to be that one cannot
>  >debate it, and shouldn't be allowed to debate it.
>
>  Keyword "seems", as in: it's actually not what I said.
>
>
>  >I think everyone is capable of forming their own opinion of how precious CMake
>  >script is to any given company, and how many companies would be only
>  >too glad to move on if a viable alternative was available to them.
>
>  No, not everyone can, because not everyone is working on the CMake
>  product, and is interacting with those companies, customers, etc. on
>  a daily basis. You, especially, are not, so when you try to say that
>  it's a small/moot point you actually have nothing to base this claim
>  on, as usual; this is FUD, and you will find the corresponding answer
>  on the mailing list from now on. When I say that's it's an important
>  point, I actually do have the facts and experience to back it up,
>  since that's what we do. Do you understand the difference?
>
>
>  >Be advised: if there's a real market need and you're not willing to
>  >fulfill it, someone always comes along who will.
>
>  I'm shaking in my boots. Please refrain from talking about our
>  business or marketing, as I'm afraid you don't have a clue about it,
>  and admitted it a few days ago if I recall. Do I need to send an
>  email to Google to "make you stop"? (<- joke).

Below is the kind of missive that led me to ask Sebastian to stop
sending me private e-mails.  I tolerated his diatribe and tried to get
him to see my point of view.  When that proved impossible I asked him
to stop contacting me privately, and he has refused.  In fact, he
seems to delight in sending me more private flames, just to prove that
I can't tell him what to do.


Brandon Van Every


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sebastien BARRE <sebastien.barre at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: [CMake] CMake and Lua
To: Brandon Van Every <bvanevery at gmail.com>


At 2/29/2008 01:15 PM, Brandon Van Every wrote:
 >Sebastian, some frank feedback, since you continue to go on in this
 >vein.  You are obnoxious.

 Hahaha. Well if that isn't an accomplishment! Finally recognized by my peers!
 I'd like to dedicate this BVE Award to my parents. Honestly.


 >  Furthermore, you are not obnoxious as a
 >byproduct in the service of an actual goal, as I typically am.  You do
 >it to be deliberately irritating.

 As opposed to you being deliberately productive, and not getting
 complaints from anyone, or any other people from any other mailing
 lists. True words.


 >   I'm not interested in hearing from you in this manner any longer.

 Oh no!


 >   If you have something to discuss about
 >the future of CMake, you have to do it with professionalism.  Bill and
 >I have had many rows in the past few years, but ultimately we are
 >always professional

 "Bill and I". You are cute. There is only one professional in that
 sentence, Brandon.


 >about it and we each have our own vision of "best
 >interest for CMake" at heart.  I get no such indication from you.

 Brandon, I appreciate you being frank in your insul... huh I mean
 compliments, and honestly this is touching me (for about 2 secs). Now
 since you shared your personal opinion, here is my *personal* opinion
 as well, my *own*, fruit of my experience outside the company, on
 usenet forums, and other Internet media: you are a tool. I can't even
 start to describe you the credibility you have in the CMake
 development team in particular, and most probably in the software
 community in general. It's zilch. Nada. You are the bottom of jokes
 Brandon, the troll every mailing list maintainer would mention a beer
 in hand, when no stories are left. That you think you are pushing the
 enveloppe on CMake is the thought of a megalomaniac: an enveloppe
 would move faster if I put it in front of a glacier, to quote ZP. You
 have*nothing* to backup your claims at a "professional" level (thank
 you for using that word above BTW, that was fun, "marketing" too),
 and the CMake projects you worked on either failed or ended being
 rejected, but you still won't get a clue. Your excuses for those
 failures are sad and immature, blaming it either on the
 Chicken/Scheme developer for his alleged lack of vision, or
 pretending that  an "attempt at Mozilla" was good enough to be paid
 and that they did not see the true path: this doesn't fool *anyone*
 Brandon, it takes a few minutes of reading your prose to find out
 why. Do you really think that people will "adopt" your preposterous
 "plans" just because you have absolutely nothing better to do with
 your time than repeating the same things over and over ad nauseam?
 Newsflash: it doesn't work like that, you don't make an argument this
 way and it took me only 3 posts to defuse this inane ultimatum and
 expose your own contradictions. It would "eventually" work if you had
 an ounce of social skills online, but if there had to be a meter for
 that measurement, you would definitely be throning at one of the
 opposite ends, I'll let you guess which one. You have zero sense of
 business in short, mid or long term, you are pedantic, inconsistent
 and aggressive on any of the mailing lists I've seen; you make up
 facts, numbers and non-existing "followers"/"others"; when you are
 not posing as a CMake developer "by accident", you still manage to
 try to pose as a "community" when the community is not even remotely
 in sync with your concerns (we meet them). You called me obnoxious
 (?) but honestly I wonder from time to time if you are either on
 drugs or on meds, for you have absolutely *no* clue on how to
 interact online and once the comical effect wears off, it is mostly
 *very* embarrassing.

 Cheers.
 Really, cheers.