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Date:      07 Apr 1999 03:33:35 +0200
From:      Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no>
To:        chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Lightbulbs revisited
Message-ID:  <xzp7lrpqknk.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>

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Q) How many FreeBSD hackers does it take to change a light bulb?

A) One thousand, one hundred and seventy-two:

Twenty-three to complain to -current about the lights being out;

Four to claim that it is a configuration problem, and that such
matters really belong on -questions;

Three to submit PRs about it, one of which is misfiled under doc and
consists only of "it's dark";

One to commit an untested lightbulb which breaks buildworld, then back
it out five minutes later;

Eight to flame the PR originators for not including patches in their
PRs;

Five to complain about buildworld being broken;

Thirty-one to answer that it works for them, and they must have
cvsupped at a bad time;

One to post a patch for a new lightbulb to -hackers;

One to complain that he had patches for this three years ago, but when
he sent them to -current they were just ignored, and he has had bad
experiences with the PR system; besides, the proposed new lightbulb is
non-reflexive;

Thirty-seven to scream that lightbulbs do not belong in the base
system, that committers have no right to do things like this without
consulting the Community, and WHAT IS -CORE DOING ABOUT IT!?

Two hundred to complain about the color of the bicycle shed;

Three to point out that the patch breaks style(9);

Seventeen to complain that the proposed new lightbulb is under GPL;

Five hundred and eighty-six to engage in a flame war about the
comparative advantages of the GPL, the BSD license, the MIT license,
the NPL, and the personal hygiene of unnamed FSF founders;

Seven to move various portions of the thread to -chat and -advocacy;

One to commit the suggested lightbulb, even though it shines dimmer
than the old one;

Two to back it out with a furious flame of a commit message, arguing
that FreeBSD is better off in the dark than with a dim lightbulb;

Forty-six to argue vociferously about the backing out of the dim
lightbulb and demanding a statement from -core;

Eleven to request a smaller lightbulb so it will fit their Tamagotchi
if we ever decide to port FreeBSD to that platform;

Seventy-three to complain about the SNR on -hackers and -chat and
unsubscribe in protest;

Thirteen to post "unsubscribe", "How do I unsubscribe?", or "Please
remove me from the list", followed by the usual footer;

One to commit a working lightbulb while everybody is too busy flaming
everybody else to notice;

Thirty-one to point out that the new lightbulb would shine 0.364%
brighter if compiled with TenDRA (although it will have to be reshaped
into a cube), and that FreeBSD should therefore switch to TenDRA
instead of EGCS;

One to complain that the new lightbulb lacks fairings;

Nine (including the PR originators) to ask "what is MFC?";

Fifty-seven to complain about the lights being out two weeks after the
bulb has been changed.

DES (with a little help from my friend)
-- 
Dag-Erling Smorgrav - des@flood.ping.uio.no


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