Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!arclight.uoregon.edu!super.zippo.com!zdc!szdc!szdc-e!news From: John Dyson <dyson@freebsd.org> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: freeware community Date: Sat, 05 Oct 1996 09:13:05 -0500 Organization: John S. Dyson's home machine Lines: 44 Message-ID: <32566CF1.2781E494@freebsd.org> References: <5314us$t7e@tweety.sna.com> <5334ba$jp6@innocence.interface-business.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (X11; U; FreeBSD 2.2-CURRENT i386) J Wunsch wrote: > > Jim Howard <jiho> wrote: > > > I am just *beginning* to appreciate why there have been (and > > continue to be) so many personality conflicts in the freeware > > community as a whole, the BSD community in general, and the NetBSD > > community in particular. > > Can you explain this? > > It's a matter of fact that these personality conflicts are around > there -- but i cannot think of anybody who would really _appreciate_ > them. > I am chiming in here. It has taken me a few years for my opinion to form, but IMO, the biggest problem has been the different goals, and those goals being orthogonal to each other. When the goals are different, there can be frustration in communication. Why doesn't BSDY take a patch from a user, when BSDZ has an equivalent fix? It isn't because BSDY doesn't wan't that fix, it is that the fix does not further the goals of the developers on BSDY. The user of BSDY then becomes irritated, and considers using another BSD or L****. The longer that the user continues to use the BSD with laudable, but different goals from the user, the more the user (or developer) becomes irritated :-(. It seems that alot of the people on the core teams/Linus (who is a core team in Linux), have strong personalities. Believe me, it takes a strong personality to spend the time that we all spend on our projects. Lately, it has taken a very strong will for me to keep from going to bed at night, but the commitments of working on these projects are important. I am sure that it true of the members of other development projects. So, the issue is that of choosing the right team to align yourself with so that disagreements are minimized. Next, try to find people that you can get along with, so that when disagreements appear, then they can be resolved peacefully. So much for my blathering. John