[RFC/P] Port System Re-Engineering

[David Southwell]

On Monday 03 December 2007 10:59:00 Chuck Robey wrote:
> Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > Ade Lovett wrote:
> >> On Dec 03, 2007, at 10:12 , Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> >>> I have about 20 responses in private email and only the ones you
> >>> have seen in public are in this category
> >>
> >> Enough said.  There are currently ~180 people with direct access to
> >>  the ports/ tree (ie: ports committers).
> >
> > Only 2 are self-reported maintainers and at least 5 admit to not being
> > maintainers... I think your main issue is you are 100% in "there is
> > nothing wrong" camp and for what ever reason want to convience
> > everyone else any effort to say/do differently is misguided.
> >
> >> Even assuming all private email responses came from committers,
> >> that's an 11% hit rate.
> >
> > That is why I am planning to wait to the end of Dec. or so to report
> > the results in detail (and widen the audiences/forums)
> >
> >> Which part of "statistically invalid" is not getting through here?
> >
> > A self-selected sample will never be "statically" valid *BUT* it can
> > be informative about what people are thinking.
>
> One item that's always been completely true, it's that NO ONE, I mean NO
>   ONE AT ALL, gets any sort of approval for software until it's actually
> written, so folks can see what's really being talked about.  Does this
> mean that you might end of doing work that gets tossed away?  Yeah, it
> does mean that, but it's the cost that's paid, even by core members, in
> order that really sneaky bombs never make their way into FreeBSD's base.
>
> If you don't like this, unfortunately, you don't get any say about it
> whatsoever.
>
> About what Ade's been talking about, I mean all his comments about folks
> who come up with plans (he used the term Napoleonic, I think it fits).
> Probably every single one of us folks who are actual coders has gone
> thru the painful initiation trying to help folks who at first present as
> folks who are honestly trying to learn, so they can contribute, then you
> find out that their real agenda is in talking YOU into doing THEIR
> ideas.  The dodo-bird that woke me up, I finally realized that he wanted
> me to write the program that included the entire universe of possible
> binary combinations, in the belief that such a task, although difficult
> (and costing MY life, but he was willing to pay the price of MY life,
> that's ok with him) would be the final program ever needed.  After I
> found his true goals, and realized that no amount of explanation was
> going to wake him up to the reality of the sheer idiocy he wanted me to
>   launch off on, I shook him off (he was hard to shake, too!) and began,
> myself, to form the psychological callus that we have most of us formed
> against these armchair Napoleons.
>
> So, how can you tell if you are in that category?  It's simple ... are
> you asking others to do your task for you?  Are you justifiying this by
> saying that some folks should code, and others should plan?  Have you
> actually got any demonstratable code to offer, so that others can REALLY
> evaluate your goals?
>
> If you fit that description, you are an archair Napoleon, that is not
> arguable, merely something to wail about, won't change any reality.
> Note that I am NOT telling you here that you are in any category
> whatever, you can do that as well as I can, and you haven't yet asked me
> to do anything.  At least, you won't, for me, because my own "callus" is
> thick enough to shake stuff like that off, the same as I ignore the
> entreaties to pay 100 bucks for those "life experience" dipomas.  I do
> know someone who paid something like that, and he STILL can't understand
> why they won't let him prescribe.  That's the real truth, although I
> won't divulge the name, he exists.  Some folks just can't see, that you
> can't TALK you r way into real respect, that takes honest
> accomplishments.  Like Ade so obviously can point to.
>
> If you can, then maybe it's time to prove it, we'll all of us appreciate
> it very honestly, because the only way to prove it is to DO it.  If you
> can't, then maybe it's time to realize why folks don't listen to
> self-important people.
> _______________________________________________
Just what is your agenda here?

Why all the spite and venom?

If you do not have anything practical to contribute to the current discussion 
that takes it forward then why waste your energies saying anything at all?

The venom has has sufficient airing and everyone is aware of your attitude.

It has already been made clear -- stage 1 information gathering. Either be 
thoughtful and  contribute genuinely useful information  or constructive 
suggestions that takes us forward alternatively you may be ignored.

David