Nate Bargmann wrote:
* Nate Duehr <nate@natetech.com> [2006 Oct 16 12:42 -0500]:Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:It's even worse "form" (and foolish) to complain in a public forum about how much time volunteers spend working for a volunteer project.On Fri, Oct 13, 2006 at 11:50:41AM -0800, Joshua J. Kugler wrote: >From the September 26 DWN:As Debian experiments with funding, the author of DWN is going to experiment with spending less time on Debian. Please understand that due to this there may be no future issues of DWN in the current form or that they will only be released less frequently.I'd say that is quite poor form/sour grapes/whatever.While volunteering is laudable and everone that has contributed to Debian and Free Software has my sincere thanks, volunteers aren't necessarily above reproach. Generally, when a volunteer has a lack of time, they ask for help, if they don't receive it, then appropriate steps must be taken. As I read it, this was not one of those cases.
His blog indicates his thought process and his decision better than I can. It's in public view.
The DWN author apparently felt a strong disagreement with the DPL and opted to take out his frustration on his readership, many of them notDebian Developers and thus not even a part of the process in question. I suspect that had the DWN author announced that he wished to transferhis volunteer task to another volunteer there would have been well-wishes toward him and no ill will regardless of the stated reason. As it is, he opted instead to spite a large portion of the community that wasn't even a part of the disagreement in question. His actions are similar to a school yard pout and thus are fair game for comment.
Everything on the Internet is "fair game for comment". :-)But seriously -- would folks rather he'd just walked away without an announcement or offer to have someone else take it over?
I think he did it correctly. Someone continuing to work on something in a volunteer organization that they don't really want to do is a huge recipe for disaster. I have seen that before. And not announcing that you're leaving also leaves holes to be filled that are unknown. I think he did the *exact* correct thing. Cut ties, announce your intentions publicly, be done with it, and move on. As a volunteer you really don't have any more responsibility than that, ever. You can *choose* to hang on for a while or try to make it an easier transistion, but you don't *have* to.
KNOWING what motivates "staff" is 100% the job of the people running the show -- if the people that made certain decisions that led to Joey being unhappy with being involved in the project didn't know or pay any attention to the possible consequences and risks of their decisions, THEY were the ones negligent.
People are your most important resource in any volunteer organization, and having run a volunteer organization now for just over a year (unrelated to Linux), I work harder on figuring out what keeps my group's volunteers and people happy and productive than I work on anything else in the organization. I know who likes to work with whom, which people shouldn't be put in the same room together, what talents each person has and what they'd like to accomplish in and around the organization's goals, etc.
And I'd *know* if any policy change or decision would alienate certain "staff" and be PREPARED to deal with the consequences if that happened.
They didn't pay any attention and got caught with their pants down with no "backup" plan for how to replace a DWN author. (This might indicate that they also had never thought about how important DWN is as a resource for the organization -- another sign they're not paying attention.)
I'd say -- Joey did what I'd expect any volunteer who was blindsided by a policy decision above their heads would do -- quit immediately and cleanly. If the people above him didn't see that coming, they weren't paying attention to their most important resource and deserve to have to spend a lot of time and effort fixing it. It's the only way they'll learn to not neglect that aspect of their jobs EVER again.
Nate