Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:06:49 +0100 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Greywolf <greywolf@starwolf.com>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Jeremy Lea <reg@FreeBSD.ORG>, Kris Kirby <kris@catonic.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, netbsd-advocacy@NetBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did NetBSD and FreeBSD diverge? Message-ID: <v04220803b68dd677c22c@[10.0.1.2]> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.21.0101182302040.583-100000@starwolf.com> References: <Pine.NEB.4.21.0101182302040.583-100000@starwolf.com>
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At 11:18 PM -0800 2001/1/18, Greywolf wrote: > When there was a statement made about "hazing", it was made to sound > as though it covered both NetBSD and FreeBSD. Observing the ping-pong > match in progress, I think I can safely say that the newbies in NetBSD > are treated with much less of a hazing than they are in FreeBSD. Why > this is, I'm not sure. The ping-pong match currently in progress is in regard to certain people who have apparently been around in the FreeBSD community for quite some time, but who have personalities such that many within the community consider them to be, at best eccentric, and at worst complete and total whackos that aught to be locked up. This has nothing to do with "hazing" since it is not directed at a person who is new to the process, and it is not coming exclusively (or even primarily) from people who have been around longer, and feel that the hazing is not yet complete. If you've been around in the BSD community for a while, you should recognize situations like this, and be able to distinguish them from the "hazing" that newcomers are subject to. Now, if you've been in the NetBSD community for a while, I suspect that part of the reason why there appears to be less hazing going on over there is that there are a much wider variety of hardware platforms that NetBSD runs on, and many of the potentially abrasive and abusive people tend to be more isolated in hardware-specific sub-groups within NetBSD. As such, these abrasive and potentially abusive people tend to interact with each other less, thus resulting in less mud-throwing matches, and probably less hazing as well -- there's just too much porting work to go around and not enough time spent by enough abrasive people who are more likely to have similar skills and are likely to get put (or to put themselves) into situations where they frequently conflict with others. Speaking as a relative newcomer to FreeBSD, I definitely feel that there is a certain amount of hazing that goes on. If you want to contribute to the project, you're expected to write code. At the very least, if you want to contribute to the project, you're expected to be able to read code, so that you can point out what is wrong, although you might not be able to fix it. If you can't even read code, you're most definitely a second-class (or even third-class) citizen. The phrase "Use the Source, Luke!" is frequently used, and when the talents you have do not lend itself to doing this, quite frequently you get blown off. I know that this has happened to me. I'm here to tell you that not every FreeBSD user is a good systems administrator (or any kind of a systems administrator, for that matter). Likewise, not every FreeBSD user is a good programmer (or any kind of a programmer). You shouldn't have to be a programmer to be able to make material contributions to the project. While I believe that this attitude is slowly in the process of being changed, I do not believe that this process of change is anywhere close to being complete. Yes, people with other talents are in the process of becoming more appreciated (e.g., technical writers to do the documentation, etc...), but this process is not anywhere near as far along as it should be. -- These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy ====================================================================== Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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