[Nottingham] A few talk titles

[Joshua Lock]

On 4 December 2012 08:40, Roger Light <roger at atchoo.org> wrote:
>>> With regards to this, there is a minor point: because they are "free",
>>> should they be immune from critique or other negative comment?
>>> Does "don't complain, raise a bug" impinge on freedom?
>>
>> Of course not!
>>
>> I do strongly believe that as people who choose to use free software,
>> and are educated as to the nuances of Free, we have a social contract
>> to provide constructive feedback. This would be the thesis of my talk.
>
> I would take the view that you have the freedom to simply complain but
> I also have the freedom to ignore you. On the flip side it makes me
> inordinately happy when I get bugs reported with detailed information
> or even "this change will fix things". I try to make sure that the
> person reporting the bug goes away satisfied that their problem has
> been solved and about as importantly that they are glad they submitted
> the bug in the first place. It doesn't always work, but you can at
> least try.

I agree with all of the above, however I'm still going to encourage
folks to offer constructive feedback in appropriate forums when I hear
such complaints.

> Constructive feedback works both ways. Whilst I can sympathise with
> developers who removed features or don't want to include others,
> threads like this one just make me cringe:
> http://redmine.lighttpd.net/boards/3/topics/4782 Are any of the people
> involved likely to want to contribute anything in the future after
> having been shouted down? Unlikely.

Again, I concur. It definitely works both ways and that thread is embarrassing.

Thanks for sharing your experiences,

Joshua