Graham Perrin:  [[GrahamPerrin/#personal|personal]] | [[GrahamPerrin/professional|professional]] | [[GrahamPerrin/#project|FreeBSD Project]] | reboot | [[GrahamPerrin/#alum|alumnus]] | **[[GrahamPerrin/#help-graham|help required]]** | [[GrahamPerrin/#contact|contact]]

===== Resignation, late August 2023 =====

No, [[/GrahamPerrin#project|a white space error]] did //not// lead to my resignation :-)

==== Balance ====

The standing joke about //punishment with a commit bit// is not specific to the %%FreeBSD%% Project.

Whatever a person's commitment, factors such as these must be weighed:

  * pay
  * pleasure
  * prestige
  * punishment.

— a sometimes difficult //balancing act//.

=== Phabricator ===
Phabricator sucks ([[#phabricator-ymmv|YMMV]]), %%GitHub%% excels (particularly for pull requests that are not forced away from the %%FreeBSD%% organisation).

YMMV. %%FreeBSD%% aside: there's undeniably useful integration with BMO ([[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1812192#module-phabricator-revisions|example]] (not visible without logging in) ({{grahamperrin/reboot/bmo_1812192.png?linkonly|screenshot}}%%))%% — and I have done enough with Mozilla, over the years, to know that Phabricator can excel for some types of review — however from my %%FreeBSD%% perspective, Phabricator sucks, and it sucks for multiple reasons.

Downsides of Phabricator, for %%FreeBSD%%, probably include:

  * the absence of a simple routine through which ''%%doc%%'' tree changes can be **properly proofread** //prior// to publication. 

The %%FreeBSD%% Documentation Project (FDP) Primer places **[[https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/fdp-primer/book/#freebsd-installation-process|great emphasis]]** on this:

  * **ALWAYS** build and review the changes before submitting them. Running ''%%make%%'' in the ''%%documentation%%'' or ''%%website%%'' subdirectories will generate the documentation in HTML format.

Is this generation possible, pre-publication, with Phabricator as a hub?

Whenever a published change to the ''%%doc%%'' tree introduces an error such as a broken link ([[https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=273483|example]]) it is, to me, a signal that the stated need to //always// do something has been //ignored//.

== Preparing for a reboot ==

For posterity, 2023 captures of my profile:

  * [[https://web.archive.org/web/20230131033127/https://reviews.freebsd.org/p/grahamperrin/|January]] — engaged
  * [[https://web.archive.org/web/20230719175229/https://reviews.freebsd.org/p/grahamperrin/|mid July]] — disengagement (removal from eight areas, and an empty profile)
  * [[https://web.archive.org/web/20230821085231/https://reviews.freebsd.org/p/grahamperrin/|21st August]] — farewell, to my commit bit and all that went with it — //so long and fanks for all the thish//.

The July disappearance from all areas except (formally) [[https://reviews.freebsd.org/project/profile/3/|the committers group]] was:

  * my swift, silent reaction to things being pushed **off-balance**.

==== Reboot, late August 2023 ====

Before I formally resigned my doc tree commit bit, I found myself browsing last century's **[[https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-doc/commit/c4ab126805b0ecf8d200daba8990ddaac649b18f#diff-a882b32d7a463d6e3e2edb8c43176a67685359eac3e6f27f477c4e62bdad8176R98-R101|first edition]]** of the Primer. **Nik Clayton's first words** (abstract):

❝ Thank you for becoming a part of the %%FreeBSD%% Documentation Project. Your contribution is extremely valuable. ❞

In his final commit to the tree, four years later, the author [[https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-doc/commit/3d68db2b1dcc2fafe8ad7188f8106cea28ba6186|disentangled himself from the Primer]], prompted by [[https://web.archive.org/web/20040625195048/http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5091|an O'Reilly Network article]].

The article begins:

❝ Life is change: it's natural for people to get a life, stop their work on a software project, and for new people to take their place. … ❞

For me, the most relevant paragraph includes this:

❝ … often the right thing to do is to //just do something//, even if it's not perfect. …❞

==== Just do what things, now? ====

My goodbye — so long and thanks for all the fish — was not to all areas of the %%FreeBSD%% Project.

[[/GrahamPerrin|GrahamPerrin]]#alum lists some of my post-reboot focus areas.