Dixit port bad management

Fri May 7 06:27:14 UTC 2010

 [ top posting makes it hard to read ]

On Fri, 7 May 2010 03:27:50 +0300
Mihai Militaru <mihai.militaru at gmx.com> wrote:

> Sarcasm may not be an excuse for an irrational behavior. 

I don't understand what you are referring to above.

And let me note there is a difference between sarcasm and insults.

> I noted this "suprematism" he's talking about as well, although I'd
> not call it like that - it assumes a superiority - but an unnecessary
> hubris. Most questions I investigated since I'm on this system have
> been answered already here and there on the internet by some
> maintainers, things like: "go read the Bible", "it is a problem with
> your hardware", "you've done something wrong." or no answer. Note the
> period after "wrong".

Well, first of all I would avoid putting labels like this. The only
thing you can get is get the other people (the one that actually do the
work, as imperfect as it might be) upset.

Compared to the major Linux distros, you might want to keep one thing
in mind: we are not backed-up by a commercial entity that pays for our
work and for the hardware to do the work on. Indeed, I am not aware of
any ports committer hired by someone to work on ports.
So when someone who did nothing at all pops up and starts shouting at
people, those people that actually did spend a few hours per day, each
day, for some years, getting things to work on FreeBSD, not only for
themselves but also for others, and helping users, spending money on
hardware bandwidth and electricity (do a quick math for example for 4
machines x 24/7/365 x 6-7 years), etc. ... no good result can be
expected.

"Tonul face muzica" ;)
There is a difference between:
"With S I tied to do this and this, I expected G to happen but instead
B happened, here is the debug information I've been able to collect and
the steps to reproduce the problem"
and
"S is a piece of shit and you suck".

The former approach will likely to get the problem fixed, being it a
software error or a pilot error.
The later will likely get the person that could help throw up his hands
in disgust and take a (hopefully non-permanent) vacation from any work
he does for free.

> I understand that people are busy, we should collaborate (aka. I
> should fix some bugs as well) - but that assumes that users who are
> not expert should be helped with tips, advices quickstarts not to be
> dismissed as suckers. 

I do not think this is the case in our community. In my experience
we're much friendlier that a lot of other.

As for "should be helped" -- yes.
Should != Must; in other words, when the X that already did some work,
finished providing for himself and his family, that X can start
thinking about helping others, writing code for free, etc.

In F/OSS word things work like this: one write the code, others use it
(and RTFM about it). If someone needs more support then that someone is
free to pay for it.

> Indeed, like Tim said, the ports are listed -I was happy to see that
> I could use most of the software I was used to - but a lot of them
> simply don't work, in other words they're empty advertising.

The PRs numbers for those broken things please?

> Let's take an example: LXDE. We have a desktop listed; its
> capabilities? Dumping core on amd64, since Q1 2009 if not earlier.
> Nobody says anything about it, I would like to ask about it, but

The PR in which you reported this please? I don't use it, I know people
that use it with success (dunno if on amd64 or not), there's no way to
test at run-time a port, except by actually running it.
If nobody says anything, no one can know something is broken, except if
it stumbles on it.

> considering the "encouragement" I got from my previous experiences -
> eg. a simple unanswered question about openssl and something else
> where "my hardware was faulty" although it works flawlessly on other
> OSs - I prefer to shut up and get back to my torn and partially sewed
> installation.

Well, the "faulty hardware part" might actually be true; it's amazing
how much bad (as in non standard-compliant, or even own
specs-compliant) hardware there is out there. Take a look for example,
at he acpi code SVN logs, or the network cards drivers  commit logs (or
the code itself).
The fact that other OSes work might mean they have a workaround or
better information from the vendor, or that we have a bug, or ...

> Thanks for reading and btw, I like FreeBSD, its principles and many
> things to count, so don't try to kick me out back on Linux :P.
> That means that I seriously appreciate most of what's done and I'm
> excited something new almost every day, except for these unfortunate
> situations which break any hope of reliability, from a pragmatic POV.

Glad you like it. And please help us making it better.

> What would be the best approach for an user who simply can't find
> other way around than to get help or ask for something to be fixed,
> to keep insisting, posting new threads?

 [ .. ]

Maybe take a stab at fixing it himself? Or trying to see if he can get
more information to the people more knowledge in that area?

-- 
IOnut - Un^d^dregistered ;) FreeBSD "user"
  "Intellectual Property" is   nowhere near as valuable   as "Intellect"
FreeBSD committer -> itetcu at FreeBSD.org, PGP Key ID 057E9F8B493A297B
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