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On 26.04.2013 22:25, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote: |
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[ snip ] |
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> You do realize that Lennart hasn't been the maintainer of PulseAudio |
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> since *BEFORE* the 1.0 release? And that now it has in fact many |
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> contributors, and they just released 3.0 in December and are getting |
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> ready to release 4.0? And that systemd/udev has dozens of |
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> contributors, from (basically) all the distributions, and that several |
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> of them are kernel developers? |
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Just the same way as Linus is the person of the kernel, and BG is the |
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person of Microsoft, and Moscow is the capital of Russia (don't you take |
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literally smth like "Moscow agreed to Washington's terms"), we probably |
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do not speak of personalities or capitals but there is of course some |
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connection and responsibility on their behalf. |
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> You may not like the *design* of the stuff, but you certainly can't |
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> complaint about the *quality* of it. |
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How can quality be apart of design? What do you then mean by quality? |
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Quality of bytes and indentation and comments? |
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> You are not being forced to anything: in the worst case you can patch |
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> all the programs you use, the code is out there. |
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Thanks, it really doesn't look like forcing. |
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On the higher level, there must be some politics going on; that's also |
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not forcing, but politics. On the lower level (that of users) one's |
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always got the worst case to demonstrate there's no forcing. But why not |
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go "the best case"? It's a big mistake to think that developing software |
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is about writing code; NO! it's about communication. What is your |
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software usable for except its users' usage? Ask users and try to do |
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what they want. Forcing begins when you the developer start to think |
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what users want without asking them, that's why (some) users don't go |
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the windows way, the mac way or other ways and NOT the quality or design |
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of windows or mac, nor their cost. |
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Free doesn't just mean you get it for free -- and as if that should be |
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the indulgence of the developers; free is (to me) the freedom of |
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communication between them and the users, it's what is called the |
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community! (As an example, you may notice what's going on around MySQL, |
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losing its community; feel free to take the code and patch though, as it |
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remains GPL'd and free!) |
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And when I hear |
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> Do you pay them? |
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I answer, you need money -- why code then? Go to a stock exchange and |
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trade, there's quite a bit more money guys. That's what about money. |
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But if you do your job, please do it with regard to how it is going to |
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be used. You agreed to the terms; there was no forcing. |
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This is the line that must be drawn. |
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(Similarly, when I'd start to pay, do I buy the right for `all my dreams |
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to come true`? Another fair question would be: do I pay *enough*? Who |
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pays more?) |
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It's a neverending talk anyway. Everyone has his own attitude, and |
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probably most of us are willing to make the world better, only according |
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to one's own perception of "better". |
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-- |
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Best wishes, |
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Yuri K. Shatroff |
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