RE: Are we in this for ourselves?
Bruce,
I have watched the threads on naming a new program, and maintaining packages with amusement, shock and horror. I recently volunteered to pickup the gpc package. I did this for two reasons:
1. I am more comfortable with Pascal programming than any other language at present
2. I believe in giving back to the community
3. The personal satisfaction I get from solving problems
If you ask any leaders in volunteer organizations why people volunteer, you will get a lot of different responses, but I guarantee if you ask the volunteers you will get a majority of responses indicating the desire to give bask to the community and the personal satisfaction they receive from their volunteer work. When the volunteers lose the personal satisfaction they quickly find something else to do with their time.
I agree with the statement that a certain amount of cooperation and working together is needed, but many of the posts I have seen from you tread dangerously close to squashing the spirit that made Debian the great distribution that it is today. Joining any organization involves giving up some amount of individual control over your work for the organization, and people need to realize this too. The amount of control people are willing to give up is usually directly related to the personal satisfaction the volunteer feels (to a point).
As I understand the situation SPI was formed to allow a means for people to contribute money and equipment to a legal entity and (at least in the US) deduct the amounts on their tax returns. This allows SPI to further development of free software by providing support for software development and education for the user community. SPI initially sponsored the Debian Linux distribution, and recently has added some other Linux software development projects to the list of supported projects.
I support this type of effort 110% (unfortunately I cannot provide much financial backing at the present time)!
The danger I have seen is SPI has issued via the president's email many statements that could be construed as coming dangerously close to biting the hand that feeds it. While individual volunteers must give up some control over their projects for the good of the group, the leadership of the group must make (in many cases larger) sacrifices of personal control over the individuals for the good of the group.
I am not saying the leadership has not done so - I believe it has or the organization would not have made it this far. I'm just trying to add a little outside perspective on the situation, from the position of a newbie.
Please do not construe any of this as a personal attack on any individual or group. The intent is to help improve the situation, not create strife and discord.
Pat
P.S. - Bruce, you are the person (through your early promotional support of Debian) responsible for my using Debian. I'm still waiting for the amateur radio CD to appear :-)
Pat Ouellette
Assistant Computer Engineer
Engineering College Computing
The University of Toledo
pouellet@eng.utoledo.edu
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Nothing I say is ever official - just ask my wife.
You can ping your node, you can ping your neighbor, but you can't ping your neighbor's node!
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From: bruce@va.debian.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 1998 1:25 PM
To: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
Subject: Are we in this for ourselves?
A common message I hear on Debian lists is "I just do this for myself".
I understand that we are all volunteers, and we can't be expected to give
up everything for the users, but the mission of Debian is _not_ to make a
great Linux distribution for "myself".
The mission of Debian and SPI is to promote and distribute free software
to the world, and to educate the user community. This is especially binding
on SPI: it's in the declaration of the purpose of our corporation, and we
are legaly bound to pursue that mission.
So, while we welcome the labor of people who mostly do it for themselves,
there is a certain amount of working _together_ that is required of every
member. Even though you do all of the work on your packages, you're not
an island, and you're not expected to act like one. The alternative is
many teams of one person, all creating the ultimate distribution for
themselves.
So, please folks, less "me" and more "the world".
Thanks
Bruce Perens
President
Software in the Public Interest
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