Re: I still can't help

[JF Martinez <jfm2@club-internet.fr>]

> Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 18:38:30 +0100
> From: Stefan Rieken <StefanRieken@SoftHome.net>
> Organization: Flip de Egel Productions
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> Hi,
> 
> I feel that not everybody did entirely agree on my last mail.
> 
> Has anybody of you ever taken notice of "the cathedral and the bazaar",
> the now popular article about the power open source?
> 
> You say you get a lot of people who are willing to contribute, but don't
> do a thing in practice. The reason is in my eyes is that they cannot
> try. They all have limited spare time and are not sure if they can spend
> it on you.
> 
> Imagine the following example: you make the complete sources of the
> website available, with instructions on how it should be edited and
> what's important. I then can grap this source, improve it, and if AND
> ONLY IF I think that I have made real improvements, I offer you my
> changed version. Any free software developer starts just by TRYING if he
> can improve something, without having to make promises, right?
> 
> This way you avoid a lot of talking about nothing, but you will also get
> the spontaneous improvements. The quality remains because you can simply
> not use some "improvements" that you don't like.
> 
> Now all that my mail has resulted in is some discussion about ssc or
> whatever and I still can't TRY if I can be of any help to you.
> 
> (If you already have such an infrastructure, please tell me.)
> 
> Greets,
> 
> Stefan
> 

Communication had been at a complete disarray last times but it hasn't
been ever like this.  Problem is that for much time outside
contribution was nil and in fact an exercise in frustration as time
and again people promised, mde you lose time in discussing what they
could do, at times solve their non-Indy problems, and then vanished.
We even had two who were simply dishonest: one who used his account at
Indy (he was supposed to improved the website) for downloading porn
and another who asked for a zip with the differntials (I didn' have a
CD recorder then) and never sent it back.  In addition he dared to
criticize me when I made a contribution in another mail list.

After a few months of this, communication is seen as something who
takes time and only serves to destroy your moral.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org