how to get started with helping the project [...]

[Marcus Lauer]

On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 16:07, Thomas Reinke wrote:
> Jim Popovitch wrote:
> 
> > All I'm saying is this:  Put the truth on the website.  If FL isn't
> > meant to be relied upon, nor if it isn't meant to be used in production
> > systems, nor if it isn't suppose to be quality support for EOL'ed RH
> > systems... just put the truth on the website so that visitors have
> > correct data. 
> 
> It seems you're not asking for the truth. You're asking for your
> requirements to be reflected in the statements on the web site and
> the handling of the project as a whole.  But your requirements are
> not the same, it seems, as others.  FL CAN be relied upon, IS used
> in production systems, and has adequate quality of support (for us).
> But then, as you see, our requirements as a tech savvy shop are a bit
> different from yours. As a lurker ONLY, I see nothing misleading or
> misrepresentative of the legacy project or the statements.
> 
> 1) There is a community of people (small, but there none-the-less)
>     providing work to extend the life of selected RH/FC releases
> 
> 2) They provide this work for FREE.
> 
> 3) They make no guarantees about the quality. But hell, nor does
>     FC.  For those of us that choose to use FC and extend its
>     usefulness with FC Legacy, I see nothing misrepresented here.
> 
> 4) They provide this work for FREE. For FREE!!!! If you don't like
>     it, either get involved, or use another distribution.
>     There's nothing wrong with providing some criticism where due,
>     but there's a fine line to toe when criticizing the quality
>     of something that comes for free and for which (it would appear)
>     the largest effort that has been expended is in this email
>     thread.
> 
>  From my perspective, Kudos to the legacy team for tackling a hell
> of a difficult job with very limited resources and for actually
> making somewhat a go of it.

        As a lurker myself, I'm more inclined to side with Mr.
Popovitch.  His original criticisms about there not being an e-mail
about the website going down and about there not being an alternate
leader in case something happens to Mr. Keating's ability to communicate
aren't unreasonable.  That doesn't mean that they're right, but just
that they're the sort of thing which should lead to a discussion.  I
mean, what would happen to the project if Mr. Keating just disappeared
one day?  Is there any contingency plan in place at all?

        Here's how this all started.  Apparently Mr. Popovitch had put a
lot of effort into finding out what happened to the website, and after
several e-mails trying to figure out why there was nothing mentioned on
the e-mail list, he finally got frustrated enough to post that "At the
risk of sounding like an absolute ass" e-mail.  It didn't sound to be
like a particularly insulting e-mail, just a frustrated one.  The
replies, especially the out-and-out flame from Mr. Vidal, sounded much
worse to me.  That led to a flamewar which like all flamewars got out of
control, made everyone divisive about every little comment, and so on.

        Again, while I don't agree with Mr. Popovitch's position on
everything, I think that he has made some legitimate criticisms of the
project and I think that they got ignored (this time -- I see that Mr.
Popovitch has been around for a while and has made suggestions which did
get discussed previously).  My guess is that a lot of the people
involved were frustrated or under stress because of things like websites
and build servers going down.  That sort of thing happens.  It's
unfortunate, but there's just no way to prevent people from having bad
days. :)  What really worries me is the way that phrases like "volunteer
project" and "they work for free" are being used.  They're being used to
mean "take it or leave it".  While this is well within the rights of a
volunteer group, it's generally not a good way to operate any sort of
project.  Criticism can be a valuable contribution, and criticism coming
from outside of the core group working on a project can help illustrate
problems which they might miss.

        For example, take Mr. Popovitch's Bugzilla/Midnight Commander
comment.  I'm inclined to agree.  The one time I tried to submit a bug
to Bugzilla, I couldn't figure out how.  Admittedly, I didn't spend a
whole lot of time on it, but I did find the time to figure out that bug
in some detail so that I could report it.  More recently, when I tried
to figure out why nfs-utils was in testing I couldn't find anything on
it.  Every now and then I'm willing to contribute to FL, but I'm having
trouble.  Mr. Popovitch described this aspect of FL as "painful" and
"difficult" (and I notice that the thread was simply dropped after that
post).  I would be more specific in saying that perhaps it should be a
goal of the FL project to put something more detailed than just "Report
your test results in the Bugzilla system." on the wiki so that the
newbies have an easier time of picking it up.  I suspect that this is
the sort of thing that a core group on a project would miss, in this
case because they all know how to use Bugzilla already and think it's
easy.

        Meanwhile, several respondents are saying things like "they're
working for free, so either get involved ('take it' as is) or go use
another distro ('go away')".  Based on my experience, I sympathize with
whomever is _not_ saying that.  Sure the FL team is working for free,
and that's great, but are they really unwilling to listen to people who
say "things could be better, here's how"?  Especially coming from people
who _have_ done at least a little work for FL?  I sure hope not.  One of
the Catch-22s of volunteer projects is that the people who volunteer
already like the project.  They're the people least likely to criticize
its flaws.  So then who will identify flaws in the project?

        Again, when the hard feelings from this flamewar have left
everyone, I hope we can all go back and think about what has been said. 
The FL project is not perfect.  There are criticisms of it to be made,
and I think that some of the ones made this time were legit, or at least
worth discussing.

-- 

Marcus Lauer
Lab Manager for the Curtis Lab
6 Washington Square, Rooms 875 and 876
Psychology Department, NYU
Phone: (212)998-8347
http://psych.nyu.edu/curtislab/