Developers, Community, Progress

[Allan Clark]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 7:52 PM, MonoApe <monoape at gmail.com> wrote:

> Gary Kramlich wrote:
> > The users contribute?
>
> That explains part of the problem.  Yes, users contribute.  Not always
> with lines of code, but they contribute ideas, bug reports, encouragement,
> criticism and a sounding board for design decisions.
>
> > If Pidgin we would be making money off of it, which it would then most
> likely be our primary source of income.
>
> So, you're saying that if you were drawing income from Pidgin, you'd
> listen to the community?  As you're not, you're entitled to say 'fuck you'?
>  Do you think this attitude increases or decreases the likelihood of future
> financial success?


Hey MonoApe, I'm not sure if the adversarial posture helps inspire others
around you to action, but the Pidgin guys get beat up no matter what they
do.  As a reader, I'm not sure if you're trying to change Gary's mind, or
just beat up whoever takes you on.  (google me, I've been there)

Don't get me wrong; routine beatings are great for productivity, but
consider that the guys who add to the software are often quite busy, they'll
fix bugs and discuss things, but the requests probably outnumber the coders,
and without constructive suggestions, whatever changes they do will be
wrong.

WRONG WRONG WRONG DAMN YOU GUYS... something like that.

Be constructive -- and share the blame when the beatings start.

I'm not singling you out -- OK, I am, but it's not your real name, so it
becomes victimless -- everyone who is reading or skimming this thread has
seen this kind of discussion before, and it doesn't leave anyone happy.
 Probably chases away your support, and makes you more frustrated.  If my
writing appears condescending for pointing that out, probably just fuels
that fire.

If you were a coder, they'd tell you to "fork off!" -- no, wait, fork the
project, or just experiment on the issue -- but you might have to motivate
someone else to.  So motivate!  Your goal is to make changes without coding,
so make it easier, and make people want to.  OpenSource permits coercion,
extortion, and the occasional cake (does Rob read this?)

I'm a non-contributor -- my RVP efforts were crap -- so I have lots of time
to argue.  Gary doesn't need me to defend him, and there's not enough humour
in this post to make me famous, just... try to think about how to get what
you want out of this.

Allan
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