Re: [gentoo-nfp] drobbins, leadership, etc.

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 19:57 -0500, Caleb Cushing wrote:
>
> Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@g.o>
> > It's easy to make a decision when you're not the one who has to live
> > with it. It's also easy to make a decision when someone else has to do
> > all the work.
>
> This statement was in reply to a user who thinks Dan should get the position
> back, and I believe (let him correct me if I'm wrong) that he's saying that
> because he's the user he doesn't have to live with the consequences of the
> decision, or do any work.

It's not that their input doesn't matter. But it's very different to
casting an opinion, verses silently picking up a shovel.

> It isn't a free ride being a user either. I've helped on the forums, I've
> tried to help, by reporting bugs, sometimes successfully, sometimes I've been
> wrong, etc... and sometimes the devs just don't want to fix the issue. I've
> also had to fix problems caused by borked ebuilds... everyone makes
> mistakes... but don't assume that users aren't impacted by a devs decision.

We have no delusional fantasies that what we do doesn't effect users. Or
that users don't help us in return.

> ultimately I just don't want the devs saying let's vote to hell with the
> users.

It would never be that. But let me ask this, does the saying go, if they
come you will build it? Most times it is, if you build it they will
come. So no devs, no users. Egg must come before the chicken. It's not
meant rudely, it's just how things are.


> instead of "surveys" you could just set up a email address to receive votes.
>
> yes no in the subject line. and have all email addresses have to be
> pre-registered by a human... for added security you could require pgp
> signatures with keys that can be validated on a public mirror...
>
> otherwise just get a thread count after a week or so. 1 vote per email address
> or something, and ask people only to vote once. It's not perfect but neither
> is any other system. nor does it need to be. this isn't the president of
> <your country> after all.

I wouldn't hold out hope that any vote would be taken to the user base.
The user input won't be discarded either, but I am pretty sure any
voting would be restricted to Gentoo developers.

Sorry, but we are taking our time to put out a product, and being
responsible for it. It's not saying we are more important or our users
opinion doesn't matters. Nor that it won't effect our users. But if it
effects our devs it's going to effect our users.

Have devs volunteering their time earned some say? Do users have no
trust in the decision making skills of those putting out the code for
free others are running and depending on?

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.
Gentoo/amd64/Java