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0 pointssteveklabnik4y ago0 comments

> she just might not have wanted to become chairwoman of the foundation.

I can assure you she would have been happy to continue to be the executive director.

I talked about this briefly in the thread, but wasn't quite clear enough, so might as well also elaborate here, since it was brought up. I am not worried that she will not be the next ED. I mean, I would have preferred it, but it's not my decision to make. The structural issue here is that the foundation decided to forgo extending her contract while looking for a new ED; this means that the foundation currently does not have one, and we don't know when a new one is coming. During that time, the chair of the board has more power than they usually would, and Amazon is chair of the board.

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mattbnr324y ago

Hey Steve! Forgive me if you already have touched on this, let me know and I can do more digging myself, but upon expiration of Ashley's contract as ED, you said it was the foundation that decided to not extend her contract. Would that have be the group decision including each member director or solely the chairwoman's?

steveklabnikOP4y ago

I am not an expert in the foundation's bylaws, and the only thing they said publicly is "The Rust Foundation Board of Directors also wishes the best to Ashley Williams, who will be leaving the post of interim executive director "[1].

I expect that it was a group decision and not a sole one. But again, my point is not about how that happened, my point is that it has happened, and what that means for the state of the organization as a whole, that is, that leadership is concentrated in a single organization.

1: https://foundation.rust-lang.org/posts/2021-06-25-announcing...

erk__4y ago

This would likely have been easier to know if the foundation had been releasing the minutes from the meetings, the last set of minutes released at the moment is from May

CraftingLinks4y ago

I see now what this is truly about.

imheresamir4y ago

Cashing in social capital in retaliation for their partner getting fired?

unanswered4y ago

JFC, that's what you're dog whistling about?! That Ashley "all men are bad and I won't apologize" Williams got fired? Good riddance, and you can go with her.

edderly4y ago

I don't want Amazon to define Rust but I want my pal to define it doesn't exactly sound like a solid argument. Is there any more meat on the bone here?

steveklabnikOP4y ago

I did not say "I want my pal to define it" at all. My main thrust here is that no one organization, let alone one person, gets to define what Rust is. And that we have a situation where one organization is gaining a significant amount of power very quickly, and using that to gain even more power.

poppejans4y ago

Ashley has been really great for the Rust community, isn't currently employed by a massive corporation, and has some really solid views & principles on how to empower open source work. (See some of her talks) Empowering open source work on Rust is exactly what the Rust foundation is supposed to do, which is why I'd really have preferred a Rust foundation with Ashley as ED.

kettlecorn4y ago

An unfortunate blemish on her record is her handling of `wasm-pack`.

She worked to ensure it become a critical part of the Rust/Wasm ecosystem and then silently stopped maintaining it. For most of 2020 / 2021 `wasm-pack` was not updated with pull requests and security fixes because Ashley did not transfer publish rights.

Even though `wasm-pack` became unusable for many users it was still described as necessary in the official Rust / Wasm tutorials. Likely this set back the Rust/Wasm ecosystem by discouraging many new members.

It would have been far better if she just spoke up and asked for help.

It seems she wanted to ignore a problem she didn't want to deal with, which I can relate to, but that's not a good quality in an executive director.

Some relevant GitHub issues: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack/issues/914 https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack/issues/928

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addicted4y ago

That’s a ridiculous interpretation of what was said.

“There are 2 entities which make decisions...the contract for the person holding the post of 1 of those 2 entities was not extended by the other entity, and the other entity has not given any timeline on when they expect to fulfill that position, therefore leading to a situation where it’s the only entity with power” is not “I want it run by my pal”.

edderly4y ago

Whatever you say, at least it was to the point rather than making vague hand wavy allegations of malfeasance.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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mattbnr324y ago

steveklabnikOP4y ago

1: https://foundation.rust-lang.org/posts/2021-06-25-announcing...

erk__4y ago

This would likely have been easier to know if the foundation had been releasing the minutes from the meetings, the last set of minutes released at the moment is from May

CraftingLinks4y ago

I see now what this is truly about.

imheresamir4y ago

Cashing in social capital in retaliation for their partner getting fired?

unanswered4y ago

JFC, that's what you're dog whistling about?! That Ashley "all men are bad and I won't apologize" Williams got fired? Good riddance, and you can go with her.

edderly4y ago

I don't want Amazon to define Rust but I want my pal to define it doesn't exactly sound like a solid argument. Is there any more meat on the bone here?

steveklabnikOP4y ago

poppejans4y ago

kettlecorn4y ago

An unfortunate blemish on her record is her handling of `wasm-pack`.

It would have been far better if she just spoke up and asked for help.

It seems she wanted to ignore a problem she didn't want to deal with, which I can relate to, but that's not a good quality in an executive director.

Some relevant GitHub issues: https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack/issues/914 https://github.com/rustwasm/wasm-pack/issues/928

1 more reply

addicted4y ago

That’s a ridiculous interpretation of what was said.

edderly4y ago

Whatever you say, at least it was to the point rather than making vague hand wavy allegations of malfeasance.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse