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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!cs.utexas.edu!usc!nic-nac.CSU.net!newshub.sdsu.edu!saturn!larryr From: larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu (Larry Riedel) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD Date: 6 Jul 1995 01:50:49 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 103 Message-ID: <3tffhq$qfu@pandora.sdsu.edu> References: <3qfhhv$7uc@titania.pps.pgh.pa.us> <3snkrt$fjk@pandora.sdsu.edu> <id.FB7L1.JG6@nmti.com> <3t33vq$5se@pandora.sdsu.edu> <id.DMCL1.BVI@nmti.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: saturn.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Peter da Silva (peter@nmti.com) wrote: > Larry Riedel <larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu> wrote: > > Peter da Silva (peter@nmti.com) wrote: > > > In the meantime, if you were in the developer's shoes, what would YOU do? > > > > *I* would not be writing code if I was not going to be available to > > provide technical support for it > > Your point being? My point being the one I made - that I believe providing technical support for a software product is as important to the success of the product as the software itself, and that I personally would not provide one without the other since the success of the product is of paramount importance to me. > > - to USENET directly when necessary, > > Ah, so you think a developer who doesn't feel that Usenet is worth spending > his time on should quit writing code. My sentence quoted there started with "*I*", as a response to a question containing "YOU"; since I am not a developer who doesn't feel that USENET is worth spending my time on, my statement did not apply to that group. > FreeBSD doesn't have the hordes of Stallman-worshiping GNU fanatics to give > them the luxury of turning away developers who generously give freely of > their time and effort because they don't pass your Usenet acid test. As I have said, I think if FreeBSD or any other software product (for-profit or not) wants to be successful, then it needs to provide technical support for its users that is perceived to be as good as that of its competitors, and consequently to be successful in competing for the average user with Linux, FreeBSD needs to acknowledge USENET as a "correct" mechanism for the users to be able to ask questions and feel that those questions will be read by the developers when necessary, and that the answers (if any) will be posted here. Any "Usenet acid test" associated with what I have said here would need to be based on a belief that it is not fair to prospective developers not willing to provide USENET support to ask them to generously give freely of their time and effort to a product which is going to be unsuccessful because of a perceived lack of support, and it is not fair to other developers already generously giving freely of their time and effort for the project to welcome new developers who are not willing to provide the support necessary for the product to be successful. This "Usenet acid test" would need to be similar to a "quality acid test," which is based on a belief that it is not fair to prospective developers not willing to debug their code to ask them to generously give freely of their time and effort to a product which is going to be unsuccessful because it has too many bugs, and it is not fair to other developers already generously giving freely of their time and effort for the project to welcome new developers who are not willing to provide the quality of code necessary for the product to be successful. > > So I would find the time to read the newsgroups and post when I thought I > > had something important to contribute that no one else had yet; I would also > > let other members of the team know if I saw an article that I thought they > > ought to take a look at - as I would hope they would do for me. > > Oh, this is your answer to my first question. You hid it down here to see if > I was alert. Problem is, that doesn't fit in with your original response. > Let's replay... > > > > > Wait for a heads-up from someone else on the team that there is an > > > > article in the newsgroup which I should look at, and then go read > > > > it and maybe post a followup. > > > > > > Now then, where do we get this volunteer to send all the heads-ups? > > > > Where do we get this volunteer to write the operating system? :) > > We have them, thanks. It's harder to get typing machine slaveys. I'm not sure what "doesn't fit in." My answer was that the volunteers to send the heads-ups would be the volunteers writing the operating system because I think supporting the code is as important as writing it, and that as a member of the team I would read the newsgroups, give the heads-ups and expect to receive them from other team members as well, because everyone on the team wants the product to be successful and recognizes that providing technical support for the software is as critical to the success of the product as the software itself, and that sometimes this means reading and responding to USENET articles. > [ I weary of people who DEMAND that volunteers spend more time on a product > than people who are getting paid for it do ] Does this have something to do with the rest of the article? If so, to what specifically is it referring - who are the people, and where are these demands that volunteers "spend more time on a product than people who are getting paid for it do," and what does that mean? Isn't jkh the only one who gets paid for working on FreeBSD - who would ask that anyone spend more time on FreeBSD than he! :) Larry