Re: Recruiting volunteers - or, why should I become a DD?
On Wednesday 04 August 2004 3:42 pm, Almut Behrens wrote:
> So, what is it that's so attractive for people to want to become a DD?
> Sure, there are some psychological aspects (ego boost, or some such),
> but it can't be just that. Of course, it feels good to show off to your
> geek friends with a shiny @debian.org addy, unquestionably implying
> that you managed to be accepted and got the accolade by the Grand Club.
> But what else is it?
>
> Frankly speaking, I personally don't care much about status symbols.
> So why should I take the trouble (= time, work and other efforts) to
> apply for a DD account and go through the NM process? What would that
> give me in return? In other words, if I consider something too much
> inconvenience, and there's nothing of sufficient personal value to be
> expected in return, I just won't do it. Period. That's basic
> motivational psychology. Maybe I'm not representative of geeks in
> general, but I'll have to confess my little mind occasionally works by
> such simple principles.
I'm sure folks who really know what they are talking about will chime in
here. :)
One thing that occurs to me is such a process might weed out people who are
not able to deliver the level of commitment that's needed. Freshmeat and
Sourceforge are chock-full of half-baked and abandoned projects. The world is
overfull of poorly-constructed RPMs, thrown together by $random_developer,
and released upon an unsuspecting world. From a user/sysadmin perspective,
Debian is extremely reliable, more than any other Linux, except maybe
Slackware, which is also rock-solid. In my experience, even Sid is more
stable and dependable than most other distribution's "mature" releases.
What do you get in return? Is being part of a structured system that produces
a very good Linux distribution good enough?
On a sort of related tangent, the way Debian separates repositories into Free/
non-free is really nice. Let the users decide, and make it easy. What a
concept. :) A regular debate at Gentoo is over implementing a similar system,
but it does not appear to be close to a resolution.
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