[chat] Re: The Linux Article Of The Year

["Marcel Kunath" <kunathma@xxxxxxx>]

mkraus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: 

> Hi Marcel and all, 
>
> Matt does have a really good point on this one. The diversity of Linux and 
> the fact there are a million and one code branches and projects is a 
> longer-term strength rather than a weakness. 
>
> Whilst this does cause interim problems with standards adoption, long term 
> it offers advantages. It opens up choice for implementation, and it also 
> provides development in areas that one project may not forsee. 
>
> Having first hand watched the development of the like of Gnome, one can 
> see the relationship this software has had with other, more experimental 
> software such as enlightenment in addition to the role of others with 
> longer history such as WindowMaker. 
>
> When software becomes too diverse in an area, such as what is being 
> complained about now, people start to see their own duplication of effort 
> and the formation of defacto standards starts to occur within 
> distributions in that area. 
>
> The fact that there is a great duplication of effort in multiple areas 
> leads to it becoming observerable, and as all the source code is available 
> and freely reuseable, projects can identify these areas and create levels 
> of interoperability and adoption. New larger projects evolve that 
> encompass smaller projects and vice versa happen all the time. 
>
> To complain about a lack of standards and that everything should be in one 
> particular way would be to destroy the foundation of much of the 
> OpenSource/FreeSoftware movement achievements. The complaint that there 
> isn't enough forward planning may be viewed offensively in light of the 
> number of software projects that put a great deal of resources into 
> forward planning. There is no one great big Open Source steering 
> committee, just lots of players who band together to form one large 
> community. All the players have their own views, opinions and 
> philosophies. Where they differ doesn't divide them, its where they agree 
> that bind them together into a community. 
>
> FWIW, the complaint this web page author makes are long standing 
> criticisms of the OpenSource/FreeSoftware modus operandii - yet they 
> continue to gain momentum and positive growth. 
>
> Part of the philosophy of this movement is self-involvement - if you see 
> something that could be done better make suggestions, contribute to the 
> project. Don't know which one? - Choose the one you like the best and get 
> involved. 
>
> Everyone has their right to their opinion - too much complaining, whilst 
> venting your frustration doesn't really get the end result and may serve 
> to create animosity. 
>
> All things being equal, things balance out... :) 
>
> All the best... 
>
> Mike
> ---

A pretty well-reasoned reply. I couldn't find any weak point so I won't 
comment on it. I suppose I am less tolerable to this approach. As Grant 
described it before "projects volumes tend to go through evolutionary stages 
where they accumulate and then some die again." The problem is I haven't 
seen any shrinking of the pool and I am in my fifth year of using Linux. I 
guess I am growing impatient to the balance getting here. 

Anyhow I am no code monkey but I tried to contribute to Linux in the past 
and I haven't met too much welcome. 

In 2000 (after 2 years using suse and frequenting the mailing list) I was 
giving feedback to SuSE regarding their admin tool yast and what features it 
lacked. I got told off and their reply was basically "nobody would ever want 
such feature". Two years later yast2 had the feature implemented I was 
asking for. By that time I had lost interest in SuSE. It's not the fact that 
it took them two years to implement it. It was the fact that they didn't 
acknowledge that a user made a implementation request they would eventually 
get around to. They don't use an open bugzilla format so one never knows 
what is going on with SuSE development efforts. 

Then last year I gave Gentoo a couple of pointers (re: portage and distfiles 
flexibility and portage and --security) and there was little response. The 
features are getting talked about more often now (on bugzilla) and I figure 
eventually they will be implemented. 

The developer community has to realize there are two ways to contribute. The 
standard phrase: "go code it yourself" just doesn't apply anymore since 
Linux is not a field made up of code monkeys only. There is the people who 
can code and then there is the people who are technologically literate but 
don't want to code but plan, come up with ideas and give feedback to the 
coders, and help manage development issues (e.g. HR, project management, 
documentation, etc.). 

Marcel