keeping spare-time-contributors happy

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 02.09.2007 16:40, Mike McGrath wrote:
> Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> On 02.09.2007 08:52, Tim Lauridsen wrote:
>>> Mike McGrath wrote:
>
>> But I really dislike Mike's comment.
> I'm literally asking people for help.

Which is fine as such, but the way you did IMHO wasn't the best.

>  I'm saying we don't have enough 
> man power to make the tools work the way you want to.

Then the tools maybe shouldn't have been put in place baack then *or*
the people that put them in place (that's neither you or Luke; probably
more rel-eng or the Board) should free resources and assign man-power to
keep contributors happy.

> [...]
>> 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

Well, it sounded like it to me due to those links your gave and the
"Those of you wanting something done, create and own a ticket and see it
through until it gets closed." sentence. Seems Ralf got the similar
impression.

> 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.

Which is a good thing and it seems to work well.

I think for the issue at hand it also not "volunteers" vs. "non
volunteers" -- it's just that those that forced bodhi on all of us
(including non-volunteers) are by accident afaics those that are payed
for their work.

>  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.

Well, sure, it doesn't help, but it shows how frustrated at least some
people are, because they wouldn't invest the time in writing those mails
otherwise.

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

+1 (from someone that ever wanted to learn python, but never found time
for more then baby steps due to other work for Fedora)

Cu
knurd