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From: j@bonnie.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD
Date: 22 Jun 1995 19:39:48 +0200
Organization: Private U**x site, Dresden.
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References: <3qfhhv$7uc@titania.pps.pgh.pa.us> <3s323f$87p@agate.berkeley.edu> <3sa7tg$fu9@park.uvsc.edu> <3sb2sr$rl8@pandora.sdsu.edu>
Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
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Larry Riedel <larryr@saturn.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>I don't think the average user wants to have to subscribe to a mailing
>list if they have a question about the product for which they would
>like to get an authoritative answer - [...]
Umm, did Terry advise you to *subscribe* to that mailing list? Nope.
He simply told you to mail the question to questions@freebsd.org. Of
course, when somebody's replying to your question, he _will_ send you
a copy! (Or rather just the opposite: he will send you the answer and
a copy to the list.)
>If I post a question to comp.lang.perl.misc, [etc.etc.etc.]
If you're posting a question here, you'll see Jordan Hubbard, Terry
Lambert, Peter da Silva, Brian Tao, Stefan Esser (in case you've got
the regexp [Pp][Cc][Ii] in the subject), ..., and me answering it.
Usenet round-trip times are usually longer than mailing list rtt's, so
expect your question being answered somewhat later. Timezone differ-
ences provide for another skew.
Anyway, the freebsd-hackers list counts ~ 500 hackers meanwhile, at
least 100 of them being more or less active, and about 50 allowed to
commit code theirselves. You cannot expect *everybody* of them caring
for this newsgroup with the same degree of attention. Don't forget
that it's a volunteer's project, and many guys spend countless hours
into the system. Unlike Perl, sendmail, NNTP, ... (your list
continues here), it's far more complex, so it's far more difficult to
dispatch a known problem to someone who also feels responsible for it.
NB: i said: `far more difficult', not `impossible'.
>I don't see any good reason why the people involved with the
>development of FreeBSD should not be reading comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
>and answering questions. The traffic in this group is relatively quite
>light, [...]
This is a total understatement. It takes me two or three hours each
day to dig through the questions and answer where i think i can give
an at least somewhat useful answer. Given the fact that two or three
hours per day is the absolute maximum for many of us, what do you
think is better at the end: spending at least 80 % of that time into
improving the system, or spending at least 80 % of that time into
watching Usenet?
You are quite welcome to be our Usenet Master and dispatch the
question to the people responsible. You are also quite welcome to
contribute to the system in any other way (including writing
documentation, fixing bugs etc.) It's a lame excuse to say: ``I don't
have any clues about that system, sorry, I just cannot do this.''
Unfortunately, i've never ever seen your name in such context. Unlike
Brian Tao, Jordan Hubbard, Terry Lambert, Peter da Silva, John Dyson,
John Fieber, Dave Burgess (who's not directly related to FreeBSD, but
maintains a nice FAQ), Stefan Esser, Frank Durda, hmm, i'm sure i've
forgotten a lot of them!
--
cheers, J"org private: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de
http://www.sax.de/~joerg/
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)