Am Donnerstag, 16. Dezember 2004 18:49 schrieb Stéphane Rollandin:
> hey goran, no offend intended, but reading this exchange makes me feel
> that you should resign as a Guide. 
> or what is a Guide then ? 
I think goran is doing quite a good job there: what he wrote is not a mission 
statement for the guides, it's an interesting observation to think about (for 
everyone, guide or not).. and while we could discuss that someone who 
accepted such a position can be held to a higher standard (but only that 
far), the average developer can't.

you can't tell the average dev that he has to put the interests of the 
"community of users" higher than his interests (as user of the system), and 
it's high time that someone points it out and faces the consequences (and 
makes the other people here face the consequences - so thanks for 
_guide-_ance, goran) - basically, that there is chaos (due to all the diverse 
influences), and all that can be done is to attempt to manage it.
with better tools, intermediate releases that might be incomplete wrt package 
support to get those issues fixed and all the other ideas that appeared in 
this and the other threads


so, as I see it, there are (at least) two possibilities:
1. tell interested people that they should obey^Wrespect the common good (and 
see them running away, screaming, because they want to get their job done, 
not serve "the community")
2. encourage interested people to do what they want, but provide ways to 
reconcile any temporary forks - and pointing out that this is important (and 
maybe even right) is a necessary step, when it's about finding ways to do 
that.

would you propose that in the "bend over backwards to please 'the community'" 
scenario, people should commit to x hours per week of "squeak service", 
before their patches are accepted?
after all, that's just a tiny little bit more "bending over" and should barely 
hurt more ;)


patrick mauritz
-- 
Das Streichen der führenden Nullen ist der 
große Vorteil der Informatik vor der Politik