Christopher Schmidt kirjoitti:
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 10:17:56PM +0200, Mika Lehtonen wrote:
Christopher Schmidt kirjoitti:
attitude is everything when communicating with
a mailing list
Shouldn't that also concern developers?
Absolutely; and developers like me who are rude end up paying for it.
I am asking this because I've been noticing that in OL-users list there
are time to time so hostile responses to the users ideas that for
example I haven't ever experienced such in the Geoserver users list.
Is this thread an example? Do you have other examples? (Are they all me?
In which case, that's fair, and I should probably just get off the users
list.)
I don't like digging old dirt. This was just a feeling based thought.
I think that all the users throwing ideas in the list are just trying
to make things better, not to question developers competence or
ability to do their work.
I think that many users of OpenLayers consider it to be the
responsibility of someone else to fix their problems. I think that's a
silly expectation, and I don't feel that it's neccesary to entertain all
ideas that come -- since for every idea that comes with code behind it,
10 more come in as "Wouldn't it be nice if?"
There are many things that would be nice, but given that a huge majority
of OpenLayers development is done by a very small core of developers,
with limited contribution from people who wish that things would somehow
magically get better, the social environment degrades. This thread is an
example of that, in my opinion.
http://openlayers.org/pipermail/users/2009-February/010300.html is
another case where I blew up.
In fact, reviewing the OL-users list, I see that I respond an order of
magnitude more times than all other trunk OL developers combined. If
there is a feeling that developers are being rude to users, then that
can only be coming from my behavior. I think that's a sign that I
shouldn't be on the users mailing list anymore. Thank you for pointing
that out to me; from here foreward, I will shy away from responding the
users list.
Don't you dare. 95 % of your answers is pure help and the rest.. yep I
would say that the rest is enjoyable reading.
Yeah, it easily happens that you come up with a superb idea and share
it in the list without thinking how to put it in there or
reconsidering how superb it really is. But one shouldn't take it as an
insult or yelling. In my opinion, everyone should have one vote,
regardless of whether you are a developer or an user, to vote for
things and features you like. After all, it isn't just developers who
are making open source (software) possible.
It is my belief that everyone who is contributing code should
absolutely get one vote.
I disagree. You know I like metaphoras. I think that open source
software development is like motor racing. Developers are engineers who
build the chassis and suspension and motor and tune them up as good as
they can. Users are those arragant drivers who come and test the car
and after that tell what they think it could be done better. Some of
them just say: this is too slow, others may have an idea of getting
more revs out of the engine. But most of them have no idea how to
implement these improvements. They come and go. But engineers stay all
night and build new engines. Some times they get bitter of hearing
nothing but complaining. But deep in their hearts they enjoy the
excitement and the joy of success of what they are doing. Either of
these groups wouldn't exists without another. No real progress is made
without feed back. Criticism is a good concept, if you take it that
way. Sarcasm sucks.
- mika -
Regards,
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