Re: Some thoughts about problems within Debian
Fabian Fagerholm wrote:
>
> I agree. After all, it's voluntary to volunteer.
> But it should be very clear what is expected of you, and what you are
> willing to contribute. At the moment, much is expected, but the
> willingness can only be observed afterwards, day by day.
>
> Recent discussions on this and other lists are showing signs of the
> debian (and possibly the free software) community wanting to change the
> way development is done. Where before we had chaos and charismatic
> people hacking away into the night, we now have people striving for
> orderly development of mature systems. It is time not only to become
> hackers of code, but also hackers of project management, hackers of
> quality assurance and hackers of user interfaces.
>
> But fresh ideas require new participants - only it has become so much
> more difficult to get involved. Not only do you have to possess almost
> cs major skills to keep up, the debian project is so large that it is
> very difficult for a prospect maintainer to grasp the whole picture and
> find her own place. I sense countless lurkers reading this list and
> others, trying to get a glimpse of what debian is all about, and if it's
> something to get involved in. I count myself as one of them.
>
> Think of it as getting a job at a very large company. What if you knew
> nothing of the people working around you, nothing of the internal
> structure of the company, nothing of what you are expected to do? There
> are many able programmers and would-be-maintainers that cannot find a
> place to start.
> ...
Great post. I hope you do find your place to start and don't get
discouraged and move on to something else.
I too feel there are many trying to find a way to contribute. I
don't think there's any shortcut. You have to find something
bite-sized that interests you -- be it boot-floppies, translation,
porting.. -- find the appropriate list and look for a place to
help.
The internal structure you talk about...well, there isn't any.
It's all little bits that fit together pretty well, mostly.
Rick
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