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To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: Possibility? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:52:09 PDT."
             <199610241752.KAA12316@phaeton.artisoft.com> 
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 15:27:40 -0700
Message-ID: <15018.846196060@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
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> Why does everyone assume (incorrectly, IMO) that it is onerous to
> 
> 1)	Say what you are going to do
> 2)	Do what you say

Did you really want an answer to these rhetorical questions?  Is that
also a rhetorical question? ;-)

Because in a volunteer project, you invariably:

1) Say you're going to do a lot more than you can, human enthusiasms
   being what they are.

2) Do only some portion of these things, being somewhat encumbered by
   various laws of physics which state that you can't do 170 hours
   worth of work in a 168 hour week, even by eschewing sleep.

People have done this since day one, and I see absolutely no
indication that any "total quality mandate" or general love of
enhanced process will defeat these two factors.  When people do things
for fun, and for free, consistency is not something it pays to be anal
about.  If I want consistent behavior out of someone, like having them
show up every day between the hours of 9am and 5pm (just as *one*
example), I generally have to pay them.  If they're volunteers, I
shouldn't be surprised if they roll in at 10:00 or 11:00 (or even
sometimes not at all).  Extrapolate from this example and you'll see
why ISO 9000 methodologies and this project would mix about as well as
water and chalk.

					Jordan