Interview with Dr. PC of The Gatalog, Feb. 11, 2024
February 21, 2024
The following is a transcript of a telephone interview with “Dr. PC”, a longtime member of The Gatalog. The interview was conducted Sunday, February 11th by the editors of DEFCAD. The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. “Dr. PC” requested the use of a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Q. Thank you for reaching out to us and agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell us more about yourself and your role with The Gatalog?
Dr. PC. Okay. I joined The Gatalog in 2021. I don’t really have a role. I have helped with some of the betas.
Q. What betas did you help with?
A. I don’t think I should say. Some of them had only a few people in the betas and if I say which ones, you know, they could tell who I am and then they’d probably ban me (laughter).
Q. Are you actually worried about consequences with The Gatalog for speaking with us?
A. Well yeah, that’s part of why I emailed you guys. Like, the drama is real. But yeah, they’d probably, you know, kick me out for talking to you. My friend was kicked out in 2022 for talking about Are We Cool Yet.
Q. When you say “kicked out”, do you mean kicked out of the betas or kicked out of The Gatalog?
A. Yeah, I mean banned from everything.
Q. So your friend was banned for being a part of Are We Cool Yet?
A. No, it was for just talking about them. And I should point out they stopped doing that since then, but it was really bad back then, the autobanning.
Q. Could you say why you wanted to speak to us?
A. I guess just because a lot of us are tired of the drama, you know? Every week it’s Ivan fighting with someone. Obviously you guys aren’t innocent here, but I wanted to put the word out that we should get back to the real work.
Q. Why did you want to put the word out through us?
A. “You know who” won’t like it. But we read your newsletter. And I guess if I’m saying that we should work together instead of fighting, it makes sense to me to reach out, you know?
Q. Were you prompted by the recent developer call to action on Twitter?
A. No. I mean I reached out to you guys before that letter. I didn’t know that was coming. But I agree with what they’re trying to do. A lot of people feel the way I do.
Q. What does The Gatalog make of that letter?
A. So the letter is basically saying that the 3D printed gun community is supposed to focus on making guns first, and that we shouldn’t let politics get in the way of that.
Q. Isn’t guncad and making your own guns inherently political?
A. Okay, maybe, but the letter is saying that we should only focus on the guns. And not on these debates.
Q. What are these debates?
A. (Pause) There’s the same guys who are constantly jumping in about, you know, trans stuff. Or like, communism (laughter). Making everything about them.
Q. Does your leadership endorse these issues or positions?
A. We don’t have a leadership. If you mean [Ivan], then no, I know he doesn’t respect the trans stuff.
Q. So The Gatalog is practicing diplomacy when promoting leftism?
A. (Pause) Well, again, I’m not here to be political. I’m saying, or that letter was saying, that we shouldn’t care about that. We just want to make guns. We should cooperate. The groups shouldn’t fight each other all the time. That’s all I want to say.
Q. With respect, it seems your group does care about that. It seems that The Gatalog’s culture is built on challenging other group’s identities or norms. Like calling another group’s files “untested garbage.”
A. Most of us don’t feel that way. I’m saying that is not what we’re really about.
Q. In your latest guide, The Gatalog claims to be the only guncad group that tests their files. Is that something you agree with?
A. Which guide?
Q. The CtrlPew guide.
A. (Pause) I wouldn’t have put it that way. That might have been true, like, a few years ago, but everyone knows now to test and learns to test. I mean, maybe not Frytech, but… (laughter).
Q. May we ask you more about testing, since you participated in several betas?
A. Sure, okay.
Q. What are The Gatalog testing standards?
A. Okay, we make sure that anything we put out is fully tested and documented. We won’t release something if it hasn’t been fully tested. There’s a beta process and it’s supervised.
Q. What does fully tested mean?
A. In the betas I was in, we spent, probably, at least six months or a year testing something before we released it.
Q. How many people helped test during that time?
A. Usually like five to ten, probably.
Q. So it should take five to ten people up to a year to test a design?
A. Normally they aren’t all in there at once, though. It can get paused if there aren’t enough testers. One of my betas was paused for like three months because nobody was testing.
Q. Why are there so few people?
A. Okay, yeah. That’s another reason I wanted to talk. It’s just a lot quieter now since when I joined. I think a lot of people who just want to print guns get turned off by the drama and lots of them have left.
Q. Let’s take the last beta you participated in. In those six months to a year, how many rounds did you fire? How many different people printed the design? Is there a minimum standard you had to hit?
A. I don’t know.
Q. Are We Cool Yet, as we understand it, insists that a design must have one thousand rounds on a single frame before releasing. Does The Gatalog promote a round count like that?
A. I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a single round count.
Q. Were you ever asked how many rounds you fired, in your betas?
A. No, I posted pictures of my build, to prove I’d built it.
Q. If there is no standard, then what allows a Gatalog dev to release his design?
A. I guess it was just, you know, when enough people had successfully built the gun, and when the documentation was written.
Q. How many people were “enough”?
A. Sorry (laughs), I don’t know. I never ran a beta, so maybe they just never told me this stuff.
Q. So there are no public or private standards?
A. No, not that I’m aware of.
Q. Last question. Do you have an opinion on FOSS?
A. Um, no, I really don’t. That’s not why I got into this. Like I said, I just want to build the guns with my friends. With no drama.
Q. Thank you for your time.
