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On AD 2007 January 07 Sunday 11:51:59 PM +0100, Hans-Werner Hilse wrote: |
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> But *I*, as a user (this is -user, after all!) don't feel bothered by |
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> any kind of bureaucracy. Please explain first why I should take action |
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> at all at the moment. And why I shouldn't just go and take the next |
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> distro that fits my needs best (brrrr, Slackware :-)? |
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You won't be bothered by bureacuracy untill the day you discover that |
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that package you want has been left months ago to fall into ignominious |
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forgottenness among the thicket of bugzilla ebuild requests or the day |
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you discover your favorite package hasn't been updated in 2 years and |
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the herd responsible won't (or can't?) respond to email inquiries. You |
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will care that day when you realize many things that are wrong with |
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gentoo may be the result of corruption or inefficiency. |
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You should care because not even Free Software or gentoo is free. As in |
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politics apathy will only get you what you want or keep the affairs of |
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state safely insulated in the bureaucracy as long as somebody favorable |
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or benign is in power. You may be satisfied with gentoo now but what |
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will you do when emerge --sync stops working because somebody stopped |
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caring? I don't claim that everybody should contribute the same effort |
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or work or any work at all, but rather that you ought to at least care. |
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Go ahead and pick up a copy of the next distro when gentoo crumbles to |
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the ground but at least reflect then that each distro out there is made |
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great by the work of lots of talented developers, volunteers most of |
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them, because they care because they love hacking software. |
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This isn't meant to chasten anyone into a state of open source piety, |
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but rather is offered as a somewhat incoherent argument for why caring |
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matters, because in the end free software is a human endeavor. |
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|
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Justin |
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-- |
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gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |