Re: MATE 1.8 has now fully arrived in Debian
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 10:43:15AM +0000, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Sune Vuorela wrote:
>
> >The way is to put your time/money where your mouth is and provide the
> >code. Asking others to do all the work is not the way forward in OSS.
>
> I highly doubt you can call _me_ someone who does not do work in OSS.
I think Sune may have phrased it badly, but I read his text to be "all
the work in this area".
> You know, methods to clone a human being, time turners, etc. have not
> been invented yet. I'd like to think I'm doing enough considering that
> I also have a dayjob.
>
> That being said: people have different experiences in different areas.
> So, yes, it's a give-and-take, and I can fully well expect other people
> to do my work (in areas I have less experience in) just as I do other
> peoples' work in areas I'm good in.
>
I'd add some subtlety here: you can expect others to do work that they
a) find interesting, b) is useful for them, and/or c) is not an
inconvenience for them.
What you can't expect is that they'll do a non-trivial amount of work
just because it's something you personally want. This is pretty much
what's enshrined in the Debian constitution.
> Some OSS "advocates" say "it's OSS, just do it yourself". This is a
> harmful attitude and has turned away people often enough. Luckily,
> these are getting less and less. Do not become one of them, please.
> I do appreciate your work in Debian.
However, as this is the development mailing list, there needs to be an
impetus for things to happen. I believe that the suggestion is that if
you want to see this happen, you need to try and gather sufficient
support for what you want, possibly by finding other like minded people.
Simply saying "I don't like $foo, change it" is not going to work with a
volunteer project.
Neil
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