Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2022 17:34:14 -0700 From: Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> To: "Steve O'Hara-Smith" <steve@sohara.org> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Using a FreeBSD desktop was somehting about dog food Message-ID: <20220328173414.0572dd85@bigus.dream-tech.com> In-Reply-To: <20220328213101.b4e8a7c447964ba025d30883@sohara.org> References: <38b7f44-6d54-fec6-c1f0-d3609d301687@safeport.com> <20220327132420.201da20c@archlinux> <20220327212421.adaee52ba708a058e5ef6bd8@sohara.org> <4f3edca7-45ec-b8ae-45dc-9648cced9bfe@kicp.uchicago.edu> <772cf4b0-9e26-3126-ec4b-bd91986883dd@kicp.uchicago.edu> <20220328055449.8a30774a61f3b298e778ae68@sohara.org> <20220328121115.7d368d32@bigus.dream-tech.com> <20220328213101.b4e8a7c447964ba025d30883@sohara.org>
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On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 21:31:01 +0100 "Steve O'Hara-Smith" <steve@sohara.org> wrote: > On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:11:15 -0700 > Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> wrote: > > What I don't understand is the implication that we are somehow ungrateful > > and rude if we have to settle for what sometimes is -far- less. By > > "settle" I mean the idea of "we should just shut up and take what we are > > given". > > When we are talking about the product of volunteers using their > free time and companies donating money, equipment and/or time then yes it is > extremely rude to think that they should concentrate on what someone else > wants done rather than what they want to do with their own time and > resources. > > Open source projects have become so big that we tend to forget that > for the most part they are the result of people scratching their own itches > in their free time and freely giving away the results of their work. There > is absolutely no reason to expect them to do anything other than precisely > what they want to. I would agree that it is -futile- to expect someone else whom you do not pay to instantly focus on your issue. Where I disagree is this notion of impoliteness, in the general case of someone who's issues with the software in question aren't handled at all. (Edge cases a few sigmas off the mean where someone gets annoyingly rabid at a developer for no good reason .... these are -not- what I am talking about, and I suspect those edge cases might be -why- you said what you said.) Some open source projects (e.g. samba, Xorg, chromium, nginx, php, perl) are almost required alternatives to handle real world issues for many users. As well, if you care about security like I do, it's necessary for the project you use to -be- open source. If the operative ideas in open source are to move away from commercial computing, liberate software, use more secure alternatives, use more flexible alternatives, and getting more people to actually use open source, then I claim that the -voluntary- efforts of taking care of other people's issues *within reason* will properly express your support for the open source paradigm in general. In other words, I want devs to -want- to help more. :D Putting open source out there -for people to use- and then saying "I'm not fixing it ever" (an extrema, but illustrative) ... well I personally feel -this- is at least in the same class of rude you allude to...especially if it's useful software. If you are going to make your open source available to others and then turn around and have an attitude (also an extrema, but also illustrative) that "you can't tell me what to do" ... I will argue that this is counter-purposed to the original idea of making the open source available to use for others and also counter to the entire idea of open source as anything other than someone else's bikeshed. Ostensibly, supporting open source that 100s of people or more use would be the polite thing to do. I want to be clear that I am not expecting, advocating, or even implying any -involuntary- or -forced- re-focusing of time. To be very clear, I feel that one of the big problems of human culture is this idea of forcing others to do what they don't want to do. I'd like to say that my intention is anything but this and I'll need to repeat this idea because my experiences tell me that people will not understand where I am really coming from unless I repeat it many times...and even then it might not be possible. :) I also want to be clear that the above support I allude to actually -does- happen on many projects, even some in FreeBSD. It doesn't often happen though, and I have more than a few outstanding bug reports in the FreeBSD bugzilla that have been sitting there for years. The irony of -many- years of watching these lists oscillate between "you can't force open source devs to do what you want" and "why don't more people use FreeBSD" coupled with the commercialization and marketing infestation of most for-pay software has forged my viewpoint in that crucible. Why don't more people use FreeBSD (or by extension, open source)? Because they need to get things done, a fair number of them would rather pay for someone to go to who -will- fix the problem or issue, and most people want everything to Just Work(tm). (How many times have -you- heard some manager or CEO say this same thing about support and then say "because of this, we're going microsoft"?) > When I first used FreeBSD it lacked support for QIC tape drives, > so I started in on writing a driver for my tape drive and had it just > starting to work when a fully finished one landed in the tree from > somewhere else. When the window manager that I still use to this day lacked > some features that I wanted I talked about it with the author and he agreed > to accept patches if I could produce them - which I did. Conversely, I have submitted patches for poudriere which have never -been- accepted. I have to maintain them myself. This has never been frustrating enough to me to mention except as an example, and part of my unwillingness to mention the issues is I am convinced by experience that unless I post a security issue they will be ignored. In FreeBSD, you can't get a ports committer to commit some things that are really useful to get committed (e.g. the librewolf port) and as with all human organizations there exists just a bit of favoritism and politics. (Organizations claiming to be free of those two ideas are generally -more- suspect than those who chalk it up to the human factor.) Open source has to be open, not just to new ideas, but in a manageable way to people's needs ... failing to do these things isn't some transgression, it just means people won't use open source. I can never tell if this is something "the freebsd community" wants or not, but there has certainly been discussion both ways. > Some do of course and that's why things happen but IME most of the > bitterly complaining do none of the above and expect someone else to solve > their problem or they point to where it's already solved and get surprised > when people suggest they use the solution that exists. ... > Bottom line if you want "the FreeBSD developers" to do something > they're not doing then you need to find and motivate some more developers, > not harangue the people giving their time for free because if it stops > being fun for them they'll stop doing it. Some of those people who have the expectations and bitterness you refer to are in that category of people who are never satisfied with anything. Basing any policy or discussion on these people is the mark of futility. While I do acknowledge their existence, I am attempting to leave these people out of this conversation, and address the people who -appear- to be these people but who are actually just frustrated with something a dev could spend 5 minutes either fixing or telling them how to fix. Not every frustrated person is an automatic troll. To be clear, I'm not complaining here ... I would just like to express my wish for more benevolence and toleration from FreeBSD devs, if not humanity in general (a much harder problem). -- Dave Hayes - Consultant - LA CA, USA - dave@dream-tech.com >>>> *The opinions expressed above are entirely my own* <<<< Due to confusion, people mistake things for themselves; covetousness flares up, and they get into vicious cycles that cloud perceptions and enshroud them in ignorance. The vicious cycles go on and on, and people cannot be free.
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