From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Pjotr Prins Subject: Re: my latest blog post Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 08:55:55 +0200 Message-ID: <20180610065555.dhqv5vzp6njsoziy@thebird.nl> References: <87in6ra84f.fsf@g1.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me> <87muw3mpjk.fsf@netris.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37678) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fRuGg-00022I-Ui for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jun 2018 02:56:04 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fRuGc-0007at-2w for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jun 2018 02:56:03 -0400 Received: from mail.thebird.nl ([94.142.245.5]:37044) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fRuGb-0007aR-PE for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jun 2018 02:55:58 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87muw3mpjk.fsf@netris.org> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Mark H Weaver Cc: guix-devel , myglc2@gmail.com On Sat, Jun 09, 2018 at 08:51:59PM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote: > myglc2@gmail.com writes: > > Thank you for taking the time to contribute your thoughts. I am sorry to > > see you getting so beat up by the responses. Unfortunately the > > nit-picking of criticisms and the "we are busy, why don't you dig in and > > fix it" responses occur too often on the Guix lists. > > > > Such responses are fundamentally unhelpful: A defensive response of > > counter-criticism that spirals out of control buries the original input > > and alienates potential new contributors. I agree with you that the > > suggestion that you dig in and fix something you are struggling with is > > a fundamentally unfriendly response. > > What kind of response would you consider acceptable? > > I suppose the most helpful response would be for one of us to volunteer > our time to fix the bug, or to implement the feature you desire. > > Are there any other acceptable responses, in your view? > > Mark And here we arrive at a fundamental problem that all *complex* free software projects that have with many users. And these discussions end up hurting/upsetting everyone involved! The fact is that only a few people really understand any chosen part of the project. And these people tend to have day jobs, families and work on the project in their spare time. In that spare time (maybe only a few hours a week) they make choices what to work on - and, yes, it tends to be what they think most important. Not what others think most important. The Clojure developers are considered haughty and give others the cold shoulder. The Dlang people are very open, and get a lot of abuse and kranks on their forum in return. You just can't win!! It is easy to find examples about this. Some projects, notably Elixir, are exceptionally good at the balancing act. But, it is not for everyone. If you take Guile, what started this thread, it is really one core language maintainer. What talent! Nothing to stop you from jumping in... I think Guix is a great project. Not only does it scale (ref. the number of weekly contributors), the maintainers do a good job of being nice where it matters. Guix had a community day at FOSDEM and out of that came the recent work on 'guix pull' which is a great improvement, ultimately asked for by the user community! I think that is amazingly good. Mark, indeed, from a contributor perspective the natural response is to volunteer work on a topic users ask for. Since we write code, we think in terms of responding in code. But that is not what this thread is about. Here we have users who want *attention* for their concern(s). My response to such users is two-fold: (1) dig in and prove you understand the issue first. A lot of response goes by merit you acquire. People tend to spend time on people they like/respect. So, George, it is not a knee-jerk reaction. It is easy to talk, much less easy to do. And coders and project maintainers know that. And (2) bring up real issues on the bug tracker and try to fix them. That way you get attention. So, yes, dig in and try to fix it ;) As in chess or football, people who acquire merit get taken seriously. Not the person shouting on the side-line - unless they are respected in some other way (maybe by giving money or other resources). Talk is cheap. Coding is hard. We are always balancing this. I don't contribute much to Guix at this point (other than talk ;), but we face the exact same problems in other projects I am involved in. I get most upset by the sense of entitlement that people have just because they *use* my work. Many an E-mail I wrote, but did not send, to users, just to vent steam. I have a feeling I am not the only one. I.e., it is not easy running a free software project. We want and like our users, but not at all cost. I think we should close this topic unless there are concrete suggestions on how to improve and scale Guix development. As George writes, we can encourage new contributors and users more, but I doubt the route is to take core contributors away from their work. I think the route is to improve our web presence by tutorials, blogs and internationalization. And, in fact, those already are priorities. Pj.