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On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 9:54 AM Richard Yao <ryao@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> That said, I want to point out that our ability to move in a |
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> constructive direction after discussion is praiseworthy. I have |
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> recently had exposure to certain other areas of the OSS community |
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> where disagreements are not handled well. I find our approach to |
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> things to be a breath of fresh air in comparison. |
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I suspect a lot of that has to do with the fact that our distro is |
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strongly organized around some principles that are fairly unique in |
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the FOSS world. We're source-based with an emphasis on user choice, |
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and also stick close to upstream. The latter is fairly uncommon, and |
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the former is basically non-existent elsewhere. |
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So, even those who have become extremely exasperated with the overall |
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community still tend to stick around. Our PMS is largely maintained |
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by a former dev who many do not get along with. Our founder isn't |
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really involved as a dev but never wanders too far and maintains a |
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fairly friendly fork. Many who are devs have waxed and waned in |
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activity but even after expressing extreme frustration tend to return |
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after a break. |
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We're also a small community, so when there are disagreements they |
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might seem large in that context, but the number of people involved |
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tends to still be very small. That means that there is less |
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temptation for groups of contributors to go off and start forks. |
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All of that has its pros and cons. The obvious pro is that it tends |
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to keep us together and I think it really does demonstrate how a group |
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that is fairly diverse in many ways can rally around just a few common |
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goals, even if we sometimes disagree vigorously about all sorts of |
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things. The obvious con is that we don't really have much of a |
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release valve for disagreement and so battles tend to just rage on |
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over certain things, with the distro reaching uncomfortable |
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compromises instead of a few forks organized more closely around one |
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principle or another. |
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|
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-- |
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Rich |