Hi Guys,
This is the first thing I've written for a *long* time, but this thread has
inspired me to commit something... :-D
I tried to get involved in jBoss a long time ago. To protect the innocent I
won't name names or teams, but here is (roughly) what happened:
1) I asked to participate and was gladly accepted.
2) I was assigned to a couple of teams but given no other instructions.
3) I had a couple of E-Mails between the other guys, but these stopped
fairly quickly.
4) I asked what I should do and got told to just 'follow along'. The problem
with this of course was that no one told me there was a mailing list for the
tasks I needed to put my name on and it was not made clear in any other way.
5) No one contacted me to find out if I was dead or alive and I didn't know
what was going on.
6) I got fed up and stopped trying to find out.
7) I saw the tasks I was meant to be working on were finished.
Now I am new to all this open-source and I'm perfectly prepared to accept
that much of this was or could have been my fault. The question is, though,
that no one really wanted to help me get into it and no one was prepared to
try to extend a hand. I am a good programmer and love jBoss and the
principles behind it. I would love to have been involved and cut some of the
code.
Since someone began talking about attitude, perhaps someone can explain the
attitude of people who should be doing everything reasonable to encourage,
welcome and help people - pointing them in the right direction. I realise
this takes time, but if it's a time you are not prepared to spend, you are
in the wrong role. I also have experience of E-Mails to the list going
un-answered until something more... shall we say... *direct* was written.
Let's not get bitchy... we are professionals. All I'm saying is that you
could get a lot more help to write the thing if the atmosphere was a little
more supportive and embracing, in my own opinion.
Peter Shillan.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
