Appropriateness of posts to this list (Was Re: evince crash)

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday 06 December 2007 11:36, Kevin Fries wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 22:13 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:
> > For those of us who are volunteers (most of us), the compromise is
> > someone has to convince me it's worth my time to bother.  So I'd say
> > the other way around.  The users who want volunteers to actually do
> > free work for them need to be convincing why I should be bothered
> > (hint: threatening to switch back to Windows doesn't motivate me at
> > all).
>
> If you need motivation from external sources, then maybe you are
> misdirecting your efforts.  I am not trying to be mean here, but I use
> and advocate Linux for many reasons.  Nobody has to motivate me to do
> so.  I do so because I believe in the platform, and I want it to
> succeed.  I want it to succeed for selfish as well as altruistic
> reasons.  Many unpaid hours are spent helping someone get started, not
> because I need to be convinced to do so.  I do so because I want Ubuntu
> to succeed, I want Linux to succeed.  And I am not alone.  Many of the
> local Colorado Local Group, are looking for ways to provide help desks
> to noobs, to get more CDs out, or even get cards out pointing the
> uninitiated to online resources.  None of them are paid either.  Nor do
> any of them need to be convinced to do so.  They do so for the same
> reason I do... Because it is what is needed to be done.
>
> There seems to be this growing trend in the Ubuntu community lately, and
> I am pretty sure that it is an all bad thing.  The developers, not all
> but a growing number, seem to think Ubuntu is their baby.  The sweat of
> their brow, and therefore, only successful because of what they do.
> While I will be the first to say that these voices are still the great
> minority, they are getting louder.  And diminish the fantastic work done
> by so many.

I think you misunderstand my point.

I don't need external motivation to work on Linux.  I have my own for my own 
reasons.  My point is that I have limited time for development work and that 
if someone else wants me to spend that time on what they perceive as a 
problem, they need to convince me it's a worthwhile investment of my time 
(compared to what I would have otherwise done).

As you said, there are many ways to contribute and they are all needed.  

My concern is the idea that "because a user said they want it" is a meaninful 
metric in a largely volunteer project.  In Free software projects, the 
meaningful metric for what gets done is what the people doing the work think 
needs doing (and this applies to all types of work, not just development, in 
the project).  Volunteers can't be ordered.  They have to be convinced.

Scott K