Linux is not about choice [was Re: Fedora too cutting edge?]

[Adam Jackson]

On Wed, 2008-01-09 at 23:47 +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 03:58:45PM -0500, Adam Jackson wrote:
> > The complaints up-thread about juju and pulse are entirely valid, but
> > the solution is not to try to deliver two things at once.  If you try to
> > deliver both at once you have to also deliver a way of switching between
> > the two.  Now you have three moving parts instead of one, which means
> > the failure rate has gone up by a factor of _six_ (three parts, and
> > three interactions).  We have essentially already posited that we have
> > insufficient developer effort to have 100%-complete features at ship
> > time, so asking them to take on six times the failure rate when they're
> > already overburdened is just madness.  Alternatively, we could say that
> 
> Who 'essentially already posited that we have insufficient developer
> effort'? Who decided that, and for what task?

Partly that's just how software _works_.  You don't ever ship anything
100% perfect because it's not an achievable goal.  But, partly because
it's just observed reality of how the project is staffed.  For many of
the features that people consider vitally important we have at best a
small team of contributors.

> Isn't the fedora contributors time used like they want to?

Oh man.  If only.

> If there are three parts, and three interactions but dozens of contributors
> willing to fix them where is the issue?

If the moon were made of cheese, would you eat it?

We don't _have_ dozens of contributors willing to fix them.  I can count
the number of unsolicited X patches I've received from random Fedora
people on one hand.  Statistically speaking, zero bug reports come with
patches attached.  Again, this is just a reality of software.  Most
users are not developers.  There is no reason to ever expect this to
change.

Go read No Silver Bullet again.  Software is hard.  Complexity is the
essence of the problem.  Complexity is a handshake problem, n(n-1)/2.
You can not just throw manpower at the problem, because the
communication problem between the developers is also a handshake
problem.  The only solution is radical simplicity.

I would love it if for every compromise problem like firewire we had a
team of people ready to step up and own the transition and all the
consequent complexity.

We don't.  We never will.

- ajax