User talk:Gerv

Your actions on MozCamp/Sessions

Hi!

First, let me tell this: I read your page on Christianity (I am Christian, too; Roman Catholic, to be precise) and I found it edifying that you talk openly about your faith.

Now, let's talk about your comment and action related with the page MozCamp/Sessions.

First, you reverted my edit without any explanation -- could you explain why did you do this?

Then, you protected the page in question with words:

Request by Gandalf, to try and help persuade BartZilla not to spam his point of view inappropriately

I strongly disagree with these actions and comment. You used the word "spam" which has obvious negative connotations - however, I wasn't "spamming" anything in usual sense of the word (aka "sending unsolicited message of a commercial nature"). I made constructive edit and Gandalf reverted it few times without any meaningful explanations - so, I restored it.

You wrote about "point of view", however I haven't added any "point of view", only facts and reasonable suggestions. I added the following words to the point "proprietary data formats" in Traps section: " and protocols (provide some examples, eg. Google's "safebrowsing" protocol, used in current Firefox)".

Where do you see any "point of view" here? Let's analyze text added by me, step by step:

• I added "and protocols" -- I think it is useful suggestion to talk on MozCamp sessions not only about proprietary data formats, but also about proprietary protocols
• then I suggested providing some examples -- it is always good to give some example, so people may better realize what is the topic of the presentation
• I provided some concrete example: Google's so-called "safebrowsing" protocol; it is proprietary protocol, since it requires explicit written agreement from Google to use and implement it: here are the exact words from the specification page (http://code.google.com/p/google-safe-browsing/wiki/Protocolv2Spec):

"... Do not use this protocol without explicit written permission from Google.... Note: This is not a license to use the defined protocol."

• I mentioned that this particular proprietary protocol is currently used in Firefox; I will provide wider explanation in case you have any doubts:

• this site in mozilla.com has a section titled "How does Phishing and Malware Protection work in Firefox?" which points to the page with the specification
• I am a programmer and I spent a lot of time auditing source code of Firefox related with so-called "safebrowsing", so I know that it works -- more or less, there are some differences in details -- as described in the specification
• although it is not fully indicative (after all comments may lie, deliberately or not) some comments in source also point to this spec.: see eg. here and here (these are links to mxr.mozilla.org; concrete line numbers may change in the future when there are some changes in the file in question (nsUrlClassifierDBService.cpp); for this reason -- ie. to give a possibility for providing stable links -- I put online sources of Firefox, too (but only parts interesting to me in a given moment - the whole source tree is too big); each stable version has a separate directory, so it is possible to provide stable links; for example here are links to source code of Firefox 3.0.12 (I will put online sources of newer versions soon), pointing to the lines that mention the URL of a proprietary Google protocol: here and here).

Your comment suggests that you want to "try and help persuade" me -- I believe that it is better to calmly talk and discuss than to force some unilateral solution (as you did by reverting my edit and protecting the page). I hope that you respond to this message with reasonable arguments. Thank you. BartZilla 23:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I have replied via email. --Gerv 14:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)