Yet another unofficial Ubuntu guide

[Benj. Mako Hill]

<quote who="Dennis Kaarsemaker" date="Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 01:20:25PM
+0100">
> On vr, 2006-02-03 at 18:56 +0700, Ananda Putra wrote:
> > http://easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu
> >
> > Very nice. Only in single page, simple.
> > This guide based on Ubuntu 5.10.
>
> Why do people keep doing this?!?! The documentation team needs help
> and
> yet people are only doing things by themselves. That is SO not
> helpful...

Be careful. Ananda, at the very least, *did* find this helfpul. I
suspect other people did as well.

There are lots of reasons why people will choose not to work within a
project. Sometimes these reasons are universally recognized as good
ones and sometimes they aren't. Sometime the barriers to collaboration
mean that some things will be done sepereately or not done at all.

For example, Ubuntu founding members have been criticized for not just
working within the Debian project. For a number of reasons, those that
made that decision felt strongly that a new project, collaborating
where possible, was the best decision for everyone involved. I hope
that time has showed that this was the best choice for everyone but it's
important to recognize that this issue was, and may still be, very
contentious with some groups.

Of course, in most cases, split efforts are based on a lack of
information, a lack of transparency, or a set of percieved barriers
that may not actually exist. In these cases, it's important to
approach and educate folks and invite them to collaborate. If they
choose not to, they probably have good reasons -- even if you don't
share them. My own experience says that by recognizing good work
wherever it is, and working hard with to bring folks into the fold, we
all benefit most.

I absolutely understand and empathize with frustration over 
unnecessary duplication of work. That said, telling people that they are
not helpful is, very often, not the most helpful way to remedy the
problem. :)

Regards,
Mako

--
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako at ubuntu.com
http://mako.cc

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so
far as society is free to use the results. --RMS