Debian: contempt for "end user" values has to stop!"

[Samuel Thurston, III]

On 8/20/09, Derek Broughton <derek at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> Samuel Thurston, III wrote:
>  > On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Ray Leventhal<ubuntu at swhi.net> wrote:
>  >
>  >> The complaint that 'I'm not a developer, I can't do this' is hogwash.
>  >
>  > Is it? Do you think it's a good idea to have amateur coders
>  > spitballing package fixes to get things done?
>
> Absolutely.  They don't get "commit" access - somebody still has to check
>  and then commit their patches.  Now, if he submits a fix, and the maintainer
>  either ignores it or dismisses it derisively (both things do happen), _then_
>  he has grounds for his complaint.

I don't know if you read the linked flame in BTS from the blog post,
but the maintainer's flame amounted to "don't crowd the BTS with stuff
because I don't have time."  Now, if the maintainer doesn't have time
to mark bug reports as duplicates and move on with his life, does he
have time to qualitatively evaluate alternate configuration tools
submitted by amateur coders and choose the best one(s), fix glaring
problems with them and continue to maintain these tools as well?

I'm not saying am's shouldn't try their hand at coding, but there's a
difference between "good enough to use on your home system and maybe
distribute from your homepage" and "good enough to include in a
mainstream distro."

>Yes, _users_ find "put up or shut up" off-putting - but they should!  They
>have no right to gripe about quality if they're not willing to do their best
>(whatever their talents) to help fix it.  Actual _developers_ don't have a
>problem with "put up or shut up" - they're more likely to complain that they
>_did_ put up, and nobody wanted their input.

But that's exactly what the original article addresses: the attitudes
that prevent widespread user-level adoption of GNU/linux in general
and debian specifically.  Of course developers don't have a problem
with it because they can and do "put up," but, as both a developer and
user, for way too long I've heard the chorus "fix it yourself" which I
just really don't think is helpful.  It creates more work for everyone
down the chain, and frankly, it's a copout on the fact that the
software in question doesn't address some need that's being
articulated.