[Gnu-arch-users] Re: fedora core 2 will include subversion (and not gnu arch)

[Miles Bader]

Colin Walters <address@hidden> writes:
> > The off-topic funkiness helps to build the kinds of _broader_
> > community that arch is meant to facilitate.  It _has_, in fact,
> > drawn in new arch users.
> 
> Sure, but is that outweighed by the users who will stay away?  I suspect
> in the long run it will be.

Do you have any evidence of that?  There are be a few readers on this
list who are notably ... prickly about such things, but I think every
healthy active mailing list I'm on has quite a few off-topic threads --
it follows naturally from people thinking of themselves as a community
rather than as a tech-support hotline (albeit a community with a
specific focus).

If such a `community' were noticeably cliquish or something, I can see
how it would be off-putting to newcomers, but I don't think that's a
problem with gnu-arch-users.

> > It _has_, in fact, helped at least some people to critically examine
> > the Big Picture of how their labor as free software hackers relates
> > to the rest of their world.
> 
> I agree that distributed revision control has an impact, but I think you
> overestimate the uniqueness of Arch in that respect.

What else is there?

All I can think of is bitkeeper, which is beset with its own Big Batch
of Bogosities -- not just the nasty license requirements, but a rather
creaky technical foundation, and a head maintainer who makes Tom look
like a cuddly teddy bear.

> But it's precisely at the least common denominator where this list will
> be most productive, because we will be working from our shared basis,
> instead of spending our time on offtopic flamewars.

This assumes that the list is overwhelmed by `offtopic flamewars', at
the expense of `real content' -- but that doesn't seem to be the case at
all.  There are occasional bursts of flame, but I honestly think they're
very rare compared to technical discussion.  Morever, the answers given
to newbies are by-and-large both plentiful and helpful; there are a few
people here, who often respond, um, unhelpfully (who I wish would learn
to just keep quiet sometimes*), but they're vastly out-numbered by
those who are genuinely trying to be helpful.

[* and no, I'm not talking about me, because I'm only _sometimes_
   a twit :-]

> > (And it _has_, in fact, pissed off or otherwise offended a sufficient
> > number of RH employees that they are, at least approximately,
> > self-excluded as a group from the arch community.  But that's a good
> > thing, in the long run.  
> 
> Wow.  That's an extraordinarily hostile and destructive point of view. 
> I can't even think of how you can imagine this to be a good thing.

I agree with you here; RH's influence in the long run is something I'm
not sure about, but their technical contribution and the number of both
skillful and honest-to-the-cause hackers that work there sort of hard to
miss!

Down, Tom, Down!

-Miles
-- 
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that
 you do it."  Mahatma Gandhi