>Answer inline >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Andrew C. Oliver [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >> Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2002 3:53 AM >> > > ... >> > >> >I can not express this POV better than Linus did in posts reported by >> >this article: >> > http://kerneltrap.org/article.php?sid=398 >> > >> >Any corporation "organizizes" things and I do not see better user >> >understanding there. >> > My viewpoint is a bit different then Linus on some things.
>Keep in mind that Linus does not favor complete anarchy, as is obvious >from the grip he has on Linux. Yes. Linus has different beliefs in release management. I'm a bit more disciplined in style. Don't get me wrong, Linus is like my idol and all, just I bet I'm far more likely to do a sequence diagram or write documentation. We have different viewpoints on a lot of different things. Yet I don't care to maintain as tight of control over POI. I'd exert my say if say someone wanted to do the equivalent of maybe embed X inside the kernel (like the whole thing) directly, but mostly I don't try to direct things quite as much in some areas. >>The point is that too many restrictions are bad. The problem is to >>find out what "too many" is. >IMO, things can be improved but the main problem is not lack of rigid >discipline. true, I wasn't meaning to say rigid discipline would. >As an example of "too many" or "too less" restrictions, I believe that: > - forcing every project to follow the same code conventions would be > counterproductive; Completely and TOTALLY agree. > - forcing each project to have explicit code conventions and follow > them would be just fine. As long as those projects can have explicitly lax coding conventions in places where others would be more rigid. (POI - write good code. be self consistent and we all kinda agree that embedded ternary operators is the most evil sin of all) >It is good to have diversity. There is the cross pollination effect and >there is also the fact that what one group things is better is not so >sure that it should be imposed. +1 >> >Besides, there is no such thing as an Open Source external customer. >> >Those that contribute to it (the authors and even noisy guys like me) >> >ARE the customers. >> > >People PAY Open Source by participating. If something is wrong FIX IT! >> > I don't completely agree with you on that. Some contributions to Open >> Source are less quantifiable than others. I see I'm a bit >> more....communistic. I'm so far the the left on this that I'm on the >> right? >I doubt you are that different. *Looks down at his cookie monster slippers* > is not withing to POI's mission, that won't fly. (There will be NO GUI > components in POI)... If they feel like working on a feature that I just > don't think is in our critical path...go at it. >So, you try to keep people happy but you are not so communistic that you >make everybody happy (which would be crazy, I agree). Which reminds me of an Abe Lincoln quite. >> Anyhow I contributed ideas. Take them for what they were. They were >> NOT complaints. Apache is the most healthy opensource group there is. >> > (its healthier then GNU IMHO) >I also believe so, of course. > >You probably know what I am talking about since POI is Open Source. > > POI is opensource, there are some differences of opinion between you and > I on who the "contributers" are. To me: > > User: doesn't submit patches, but uses the software. The more people > who USE POI the better and healthier POI is. > > For example. A user the other day sent a bug. He had an toasted XLS > file. It had confidential data in it so he couldn't contribute a > sample. I talked him through running HSSF through a debugger and he > found the problem. HSSF 1.0.1 can't handle cells with strings over > 15,000 characters long if they don't occur early in the file. (there > is a static string table and it is kinda blocked or paged). > You are talking about users that contribute something to the projects: >they test it, report problems and help making it more solid that way. > I still do not see any difference in your opinion. Gotcha. It often does not seem that many agree with this viewpoint. >In my posting I even including this paragraph: > Besides, there is no such thing as an Open Source external customer. > Those that contribute to it (the authors and even noisy guys like me) > ARE the customers. >"Noisy guys like me" means I only contributed a couple of patches but I >still like to think that the some of the ideas I dumped on Jakarta >lists >are worth something (hey, some of them did result on something besides >flames). +1 Gotcha. I missed your meaning before. > One way or the other, I am involved. I am NO external customer. Even if > many times just with ideas, I try to influence and contribute to the >evolution of the products I use. yup. >And when I see no possibility of changing the product in the way it >suites my needs, I fork and still save a lot of work. Like I said. I see the fork as something to generally be avoided unless there is another mission and the code can be used for two places. I still prefer to library-ize smaller components at that point as opposed to truly ending up with two completely different code bases that have to maintain the same code. I'm sure you'll agree. Those > were mine. Like I said. Thoughts. I like open source. I do open > source. I use open source. I don't think its perfect and there are > additional things I do that don't happen in most open source projects > (like documentation ;-) and modeling the hard stuff), but thats a > different story. > It is that free expression I am defending too. So it looks like we agree more than differ. > ... > > >Relax and have fun, organic growing works or we wouldn't be here! > > organic growing can happen outside of open source. > open source can be inorganic. > Like I said they were random thoughts in RESPONSE to messages. I didn't > say anything in particular was busted, I stated some viewpoints I'd read > and stated some problems that exist and some things I thought could help > improve them. Thats all. >All I am saying is: do not try to regulate too much. Completely agree. But keep the ship sailing toward one destination...side trips are fine ;-p and its the journey that matters but keep your general heading. -Andy -- www.superlinksoftware.com www.sourceforge.net/projects/poi - port of Excel format to java http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html - fix java generics! The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. -Ambassador Kosh -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
