Re: [gentoo-dev] ML changes

[Richard Freeman <rich@thefreemanclan.net>]

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Andrew Gaffney wrote:
> 
> Yep, this is all anyone is trying to say. We aren't paid, so we work on
> what we feel like working on, and do what we feel like doing (within
> reason).
> 

This is the great difficulty with any open-source project, and yet most
work fairly well (including Gentoo despite all the talk in the last few
months).

Nobody is paying the devs to be devs.  Nobody is paying the ATs to be
ATs, nobody is paying the formum mods to keep things clean.  Nobody is
paying the users to submit bugs, or to humor the flamewars that often
follow in bugzilla.

Why are the users here?  Gentoo meets a need.

Why are the devs here?  Gentoo meets a need.

While they might have different roles, ultimately we all benefit from
working well together.  What the project needs to do is to create an
environment where each can succeed without burning out.  This requires
effort on all parts, and the occasional application of moderation
between the brain/keyboard interface (regardless of one's stance on ML
moderation I think we can all agree on this point).

I think that this particular debate is coming across fairly divisively,
and has the potential to be very damaging.  I think we need to choose
our words carefully.

Ultimately we're all here to scratch an itch of some kind.  To the
extent that devs work on projects that might not benefit themselves
personally we need to recognize and appreciate their charity.  For their
part devs have to realize that users often do recognize this and often
do try to go out of their way to humor some devs abrasive retorts in
bugzilla/etc (and this does not in ANY way apply to all, or even most,
devs).  There are both devs and users which give the larger population a
bad reputation, even though their individual contributions might warrant
their continued participation in Gentoo - and we all need to recognize this.

The fact is we all get further ahead in life when we learn to work
together.  Some here might not be in the working world yet - trust me -
corporate IT is a whole different beast whether you're working for a
start-up or an enterprise - say something rash to a customer or partner
and you might never work in the industry again (and that goes both ways
in the vendor/customer relationship).  For those already in the "real
world" - it is nice to have a project where one can pick and choose what
one works on without having to "keep one's guard up" - but all
interactions in life require some level of care if we ant to work together.

Ultimately fostering some level of professionalism has to be a goal of
the project.  It doesn't have to be so dry that there isn't any fun -
but raging flamewars will cause the project to bleed contributors,
future-contributors, and sponsors (those nice infrastructure servers
require power, bandwidth, hardware, and people to run them).  And we
don't need the bureaucracy associated with most large IT organizations
to accomplish this - just being polite goes a long way.  When somebody
treats you as if you're their personal slave do feel free to point it
out, but do so nicely and they'll probably get the point and bug you a
whole lot less in the future than if they just get a snappy retort.  And
extreme problem cases can always be dealt with using technical means
(bans/etc).
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