HEADS UP: FreeBSD 6.4 and 8.0 EoLs coming soon

[Vadim Goncharov]

Hi Andriy Gapon! 

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:39:53 +0300; Andriy Gapon wrote about 'Re: HEADS UP: FreeBSD 6.4 and 8.0 EoLs coming soon':

>> The Project is ultimately about the users, right? There are early signs that
>> some old FreeBSD users get tired from those changes, those removals, lesser
>> POLA adherence, marketing-not-technical-stuff for time-not-feature-based
>> releases, not so stable -STABLE as it used to be, and so on, migrating to
>> other systems. And older users are more valuable to project than newer ones.
>> May be it's time to revert to some of thet Old Good Things, if decade-long
>> project is mostly ended, while those signs are still early and not a strong
>> tendency?.. Given this thread, I've mentioned earlier about 12 messages in
>> announce@ from 2002 with such public calls for volunteers - there are several
>> years already without these.
> Hmm, it's really simple.
> If you want to shape the future of the project, then participate in the places
> where the future is shaped.  If you want to know what's coming up in the future,
> then watch the places where the future is shaped.  If you don't do either, you get
> what you get.  Complaining post factum just doesn't work.  (Numerous other
> examples and projects also demonstrate that).
> "Current", "stable" are not some alien versions of FreeBSD for some other strange
> people to use.
> Those are your future releases.
> Not looking into the future has its benefits - you are not doing anything; but it
> has costs too - you don't know your future.
> Looking into the future and shaping it has obvious costs, but the benefits are
> clear too.
> Business users and old FreeBSD users should know this best of all.
> It's strange that you try speak on their behalf but do not seem to realize these
> simple things.

The essence of your words and your position in other letters is:

"We are an open source project exactly the same kind like many others:
 we have no [moral] responsibility to our users, we are selfish and want only
 your code; give us your code and you will have the right to freedom of speech,
 otherwise you're an untermensch".

But FreeBSD Project tries, to the extent possible (of course, volunteers are
not paid), be different from those, and provides all those branches, lists,
etc. for different people. Business users and old FreeBSD users value FreeBSD
for this, and they know that it is official position and documented, e.g.:

    12.1 Statement of General Intent
    The FreeBSD Project targets "production quality commercial off-the-shelf
    (COTS) workstation, server, and high-end embedded systems". 

And what they are complaining post factum is that things go
_other way than declared_. And they are begin to go the way as you assertions
above, which clearly contradicts FreeBSD's official declared goals.

Yes, still that an open-source project, there are no liability, etc., etc.
But my criticism earlier in the thread was not unconstructive - I've suggested
one of the possible ways for those who cannot help us directly by code. Don't
reject them just on this criteria (and Project never did before).

-- 
WBR, Vadim Goncharov. ICQ#166852181       mailto:vadim_nuclight at mail.ru
[Moderator of RU.ANTI-ECOLOGY][FreeBSD][http://antigreen.org][LJ:/nuclight]