Saturday, November 03, 2001, 4:18:15 PM, you wrote:
>> Have you two guys ever spoken outside of email? I suggest that a phone call
>> may be a quicker way to resolve these issues than continuing public debate
>> :) Feelings are running high and "face-to-face" communication may cut
>> across any misunderstandings.
JR> Tried that. No response. I've been sending him patches to fix bugs in the
JR> code and resolve issues many others have pointed out, and the most I ever
JR> get back from him is a single, one-line sentence. And I usually have to write
JR> again and ask for that.
Tried calling Paul? I'd be extremely surprised if you had his phone
number but whatever, this claim seems to match the rest of your posts.
If you want to have a real discussion about this issue and your
perception of the developer, you might want to include all of the
facts, for instance:
- You sent mail to Paul on Tues evening at ~5pm with patches, etc.
- You sent mail to Paul at 5 am Wed demanding a response.
- Paul responded saying that he had not had time to look at your
patches yet.
- You sent mail a few hours later demanding a response.
- Paul sent mail stating that he was working on something else and had
not gotten to it yet.
- You sent mail a few hours later again demanding a response and
basically a commitment from Paul that he would incorporate your
patch. To this Paul no doubt gave no response.
Does the above scenario sound reasonable to you? Sending mail to
someone after they've quit work for the day and again before they
start the next day does not sound like being ignored. It sounds like
you are unreasonable. Assuming that Paul will drop everything to
look at your code immediately is simply ridiculous... you have no idea
what Paul's priority list is. And then assuming that just because you
submit a patch that it is going to be incorporated is just silly. I
have a ton of things I'd like the FreeBSD and Apache teams to incorporate
into their stable branch but just because they fit my need does not mean
they belong in the standard distribution. And this assumes that my patches
are of any quality to being with.
Frankly Joe, I'd be surprised if Paul were to ever respond to you
again. I've seen your rude little notes and completely understand
why Paul has a communication problem with you. I've also seen Paul
go back and forth with other folks and get them dialed in and no,
they were not one-line responses. If I were you, I'd take a look in
the mirror before assigning a "communication problem" label to other
folks. Paul is under no obligation to respond to you, ever, so you'd
do well to tone it down if you want anything from him. Being
critical is fine but you don't need to be an *sshole about it and
fuel fires by sending half-true messages to the public list.
It sounds to me like *you* have some sort of need or deadline to meet
and because Paul won't drop everything to help you with that, you
decided to send a half-true note to the list in hopes of making him
respond in a way that suits you better. Well, as the saying goes,
you'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.
-tom
JR> Paul evidently has serious communication problems that evidently prevent
JR> him from engaging in dialog. Any time you send him a question that "yes" or
JR> "no" isn't an appropriate answer, you get no response. Or he'll cut out
JR> the part that he doesn't want to answer and answer the simple question in 6
JR> words or less. More than half the time the part he does answer is useless
JR> without an answer to the bigger question, but...
JR> This was true before I told him he was babbling, and its true now. Given
JR> that I just submitted a patch that fixed (or allows to be fixed) over half
JR> the open issues listed in the sourceforge system, you would think that
JR> engaging in discussion or at least responding intelligently would be
JR> important on some level.
