keeping spare-time-contributors happy

[Mike McGrath]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> On 02.09.2007 08:52, Tim Lauridsen wrote:
>   
>> Mike McGrath wrote:
>>     
>>> Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Sat, 2007-09-01 at 10:09 -0500, Mike McGrath wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> Tim Lauridsen wrote:
>>>>> You guys all know better then to post this to the list -
>>>>> https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/bodhi/
>>>>>           
>>>> And you probably know what "increasing the pressure" means?
>>>> You bodhi and rel-eng guys know about this bodhi usability deficiency
>>>> for quite a while, but nothing much seems to have improved on this
>>>> matter since - Actually, this issue becomes really annoying :(
>>>>   
>>>>         
>>> http://docs.python.org/
>>> then
>>> http://turbogears.org/
>>> then
>>> https://hosted.fedoraproject.org/projects/bodhi/browser
>>>
>>> increasing pressure does nothing to people who don't have enough time 
>>> and resources to get their current stuff done.  I can't emphasize 
>>> enough how much we need more people looking at the code we're running 
>>> and doing work on it.  You can complain all you want but right now 
>>> Luke is pretty much the only guy working on Bodhi.  There's only a 
>>> handful of people doing 99% of the coding for Koji, Plague, pkgdb, 
>>> bodhi, and mirrormanager.  I don't think anyone disagrees that all of 
>>> these tools can use some polish but mindless comments on the mailing 
>>> list don't help anyone.
>>> Those of you wanting something done, create and own a ticket and see 
>>> it through until it gets closed.
>>>       
>> I agree, discussing how to make the tools better is a good idea, but 
>> contribution is much better, I think Luke has done a great job with 
>> bodhi, there is always place for improvement, but flaming don't help 
>> anybody.
>>     
>
> +1 for Lukes work; good stuff.
>
> But I really dislike Mike's comment.
>
>   

I'm literally asking people for help.  I'm saying we don't have enough 
man power to make the tools work the way you want to.  And you're saying 
you "dislike it"?   How do you think the we feel about it?

> The whole situation feels a bit like working for a charity organization
> in your spare time -- for fun and because you like it. But then the
> professional part of that organization and the up-to-then independent
> part that took care of the spare-time-contributors merge into one
> because it has many benefits for both sides. But during that merge
> suddenly your work as spare-time-contributor becomes much harder,
> because the professional part now forces you to do way more paperwork
> then before. That's frustrating and hindering your workflow -- you are
> not that effective as before and the paperwork is boring.
>
> Then you speak up and say "hey, I dislike that; can you fix that please
> so it nearly as easy than before". Other spare-time-contributors agree,
> but nothing happens for months. Then you again say "I really dislike
> that" and then someone from the professional part says "make it better
> yourself; just learn foo and bar "(which for most people will be some
> days of work if they never touched foo or bar before; time that BTW will
> be lost for the stuff you like and do well)" and make yourself familiar
> with foobar; then improve it yourself". I'd feel really pissed of at
> that point, because I did and do good work in my spare time for one part
> of the whole organization, but some people that are responsible for
> another part made it my workflow much harder; and not even that, they
> even tell me now *I* should invest days of my rare spare time to make
> myself familiar with and area I might have no real interest in.
>   

I'm not saying you or ralf or anyone in particular has to learn python 
and help out but out of the 1,300 or so people with the CLA signed I 
could count the number of people helping with bodhi and pkgdb on one 
hand.  In infrastructure especially we work extra hard to make sure the 
distinction between volunteers and non volunteers is as minimal as 
possible and I think we do a good job of it.  We repeatedly ask for help 
from people and only a few people actually step up to actually do 
anything.  This stuff is really really hard and complaining about it 
just doesn't help, you can pretend it does, you can continue to email 
negative comments to the lists but at the end of that day it doesn't do 
anyone any good and it saddens me to no end.

> IOW: if the professional part and their people that were responsible for
> putting the boring paperwork in place should have an open ear and react
> quickly to comments like "you made the workflow harder" or "I'm not as
> effective as before" to keep the spare-time-contributors happy, as they
> are doing some good work as well -- thus the professional part should
> not risk to loose or burn them.

Keep in mind that very few people with the @redhat.com address actually 
get paid full time to work on Fedora.  Many of them do it just like you 
do in their spare time. 

Please help!  I'm on my knees begging anyone with python experience.  
Help us volunteers help us!  You're our only hope!

    -Mike