Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 11:48:10 -0800 From: "Schnitzer, Jeff" <JSchnitzer@maxis.com> To: "John Polstra" <jdp@polstra.com> Cc: <freebsd-java@FreeBSD.ORG>, <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: patchset 2 report (billh's resignation) Message-ID: <DFBF3A523B068A4DBCF49ACE98B3463602C7FF23@jethro.max.ad.ea.com>
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> From: John Polstra [mailto:jdp@polstra.com] >=20 > I have just one other thing I'd like to say as I end this lengthy > e-mail. We at the FreeBSD Foundation are volunteers who are simply > trying to do something for the benefit of the FreeBSD Project. We > don't get paid. In fact, we donate money as well as time to the > Foundation. It is a rewarding job, at times, but frankly it isn't > much fun. The Internet is a big place, and there is always somebody > out there who can manage to view just about anything as a > conspiracy. There is really nothing I can do about such people. I > just try to keep my cool and do my best, knowing full well that I > can't please everybody. You blew it. People contribute their time and effort to open source projects for a lot of reasons, but chief among them is recognition. You got an angry piece of mail from a contributor who felt unappreciated by your actions - and what was your response? It could have been "I'm sorry, who are you? Please explain." Instead you gave him a brush-off. Maybe the guy has legitimate reasons for being irate, maybe he doesn't, but you didn't even ask. It doesn't matter who "could" do the work, it matters who IS doing the work. From following freebsd-java, it's obvious there are at most two or three people putting significant effort into the project. Now there is one less. =20 Personally, I think you should apologize - to the community of people who want to use Java on FreeBSD. A bit of patience, understanding, and explanation might have ameliorated Bill's sense of alienation and encouraged him to continue his contributions. In the long run, fostering a vibrant development community is a much more important activity than issuing grants. =20 Jeff Schnitzer jeff@infohazard.org I don't know any of the people involved. My only involvement is an overwhelming desire to run JDK1.4 and JBoss on FreeBSD. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-java" in the body of the message
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