[Sussex] Thoughts On Contrubuting to the Community

[Steve Dobbo Dobson]

Nik

On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 05:21:01PM +0100, Nic James Ferrier wrote:
> Steve Dobbo Dobson <steve at dobson.org> writes:
> > Nic wrote:
> >> We're not a community that normally DEMANDS things from people. 
> >
> > We're not?  The GPL is full of terms that you *must* follow in order to
> > use that software, (a point you make later).  If you don't consider them
> > demands what are they then?
> 
> What the GPL says and what the community asks are two different
> things.

Agreed.  When I started the thread I said there was an implied requirement
that one should share one's experiences with the community.  What I wanted
to do was get people thing about that.

There are those that join mail lists, read, but never post.  There is little
that you, I, or anyone can do to get those people more involved.  But who
cares?  They cost us nothing as they take nothing away from anyone else.

The people I'm trying to get thinking are those that ask questions but never
post answers.  They take without giving, as it takes time for people like you
or me to answer their queries, so they do cost the community.  That is against
the spirit of the GPL if not the letter.  My hope is to encourage them to 
reply to this thread, to get them started, because the more people that 
contribute to the community the richer we all are.  A point I believe you
agree with.

>          You, Steve Dobson, can probably make the SLUG community a
> demanding place if you want because you're very influential and
> respected here.

I may have influence, I may have respect.  But if I do I only have them
because others have given them to me, I certainly have no power.  I can
lead but everyone else is free not to follow.

>                 But the community at large isn't demanding of people.
>
> The GPL is very undemanding compared to all proprietary software legal
> documents.

Whole heartedly agree.

I'm sorry that you took offense at my approach of encouragement by setting
some homework, but there are those that need that kind of encouragement
to do something.  There are people somewhere that will be offended that
you and I are communicating in English.  There are those that object to 
the fact that I'm male, white, or have blue eyes.

You can't do or be anything without offending someone, and rather than do
nothing I thought I'd do something, a topic that has been much talked about.

> > You've already done much, and in many ways your post will be off putting
> > to someone who can't contribute in that way.  
> 
> So now I shouldn't have replied?

No!  I wanted everyone's contribution.  That's the point!!!

> >        In many ways those contributes are more important to get Linux
> > to the masses than those of Linus T.
> 
> I don't disagree with this at all. I just don't like saying "hey! you
> all aren't contributing and you HAVE to - I'm setting you homework."

I'm sorry you don't like my approach.  But:

   * If RMS hadn't thought it was worth trying to stop the move to the 
     commercialization of Unix then we wouldn't have GNU and Emacs today.
     And RMS has certainly offend some in how he gone about that.

   * If Linus had thought that writing a monolithic kernel and releasing
     it on the minix forum would have offend Andy Tannenbaum then we
     wouldn't have Linux today.

Some things that offend are worth doing, and I'll let history decide
whether this falls into that category.

> Because just by being here people ARE contributing, even if they don't
> say anything, ever. They're using GNU/Linux and that's the single most
> important thing.

The first point I really disagree with you about.  Just using GNU/Linux
is not contributing.  They are just don't  costing the rest of us anything.
To contribute you must give something back.  I'm trying to get more people
to see that whatever they have to contribute it will be approach here.

> I guess I just don't like that sort of evangelism.

How many times must I say sorry?  But different approaches work for
different people.  This is one of my attempts.  I'll judge how successful
it is at the next moot.

Steve
-- 
                              Steve "Dobbo" Dobson
                                steve at dobson.org
                               SussexLUG Master
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BOFH excuse #166:

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