Why needs Lazarus users that contribute nothing?
They are testers and they infect others by the virus ;)
More users are already an good thing.
Well, that was my question, please explain why. What benifit gets Lazarus
from a user? Lazarus doesn't get a thing for users that just uses Lazarus
and doesn't contribute anything. Codegear for example gets a couple of
hundreds of dollars for each user.
The benefit that Lazarus gets from an user is that it is easier to motivate
_a developer_ to contribute to a popular and widespread program than to an
obscure and mostly unknown one.
Why Lazarus is Open Source ? If you dont need users you can also work
with your 2 neighbours on it in your cellar.
No, working with my two neighbours would not work. Lazarus needs lot's of
testers, document writers, support givers in the forums (main,
distro-specific and in several languages), graphical designers.
If me and my two neigbours work on it in my rate, we couldn't finished it
in my lifetime. So we need more developers and more other contributors,
that can help to alleviate the tasks of the developers and may become
developers in the future.
So what we need it users that are willing to become contributors, not
users that contribute nothing. They are welcome of course. But they are
not *needed* for Lazarus to advance.
Please, correct me, where I am making a mistake in my reasoning.
There is also the network effect. An user that, apparently, does not
contribute to the project but is happy with it will attract more users and
eventually a few developers. Sometimes, a small investment in polish and
some hand holding, can have some spectacular effects in the future.
More. A newbie can grow and eventually help as a tester, document writer,
support giver, graphical designers, etc. If he/she was discouraged in the
first place...
Another aspect is the perceive openness of the project to contributions. If
there is the perception of some cadre that you have to be member before you
are accepted as a contributor (this is not yet the case of fpc/Lazarus)
then the project will have more trouble to find contributors, they will
gravitate towards more open projects. That perception of openness comes
also from the way that people that are starting are treated.
Paulo Costa
_________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
"unsubscribe" as the Subject
archives at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailarchives
