[Gnu-arch-users] Re: quality, bazaar, arch, etc.

[Thomas Lord]

Stephen (I'm the "you"):
>> Jose Marchesi I don't know, he may be credible but not to me.  You 
>> and Andrew I know and respect, but both of you have big blind spots 
>> around marketing and human resource management.

Andrew:
> I don't have a blind spot about them, I simply detest them and avoid
> going anywhere near them.

Stephen, 

I don't have a blind spot about those things.   Please remember that 
volunteers and other participants in the GNU Arch project are not now 
and never have been my employees or people whom I've funded -- they 
could not ever have been "human resources" from my perspective except 
in a con-artist sense which I reject.  As for users: a busker's users
are not customers. My relationship to this group has been strict and 
formal, even if my language sometimes "colorful" and often critical.

There was a time in my youth when I most definitely had a blind spot.
"Why doesn't everyone just think a little and do the right thing?"
Yes, back then, I lacked perspective on perspectives.   That's far less
true now.  I've met, interacted deeply with, and appreciated people 
from far wider backgrounds than just about anyone you've ever met.
I think I get the "herding cats" thing far better than most of the 
people of power who quietly toss that offensive (and indicative of
attitude) phrase around.  (I also understand actual cats far better
than most people.)

As for colorful and critical language:  may I point out that my
language is also persistent, patient, and varied.  I say the same
things again and again in many different ways.  It is very, very 
rare that I utterly reject communication with participants although
I certainly tune and time manage.   And may I at last hypothesize
that, as a result, I communicate more effectively across many 
cultural boundaries than most people.   Do I put some people
on the spot, sometimes in a way that "sticks" and lasts for years?
You betcha -- isn't that life?

And may I point out that I've achieved some remarkable results and,
no, I don't simply mean technically.  I survived to this point, against
all odds.  No small part of that is due to generous support at critical
junctures from people of considerable relative means but, also,
no small part of that is due to generous support from people of quite
humble means.  By most conventional theories I shouldn't be here at
all, by this point -- but I am.  If I have a blind-spot about what's
happened over the past 4-5 years, at least mine is not the only one.

I am not fatalist or defeatist in my approach to Power and, indeed,
it is in the society of the powerful where I think the real problems
reside and solutions are possible.  You sometimes seem like someone who
tut-tuts that I should prostrate myself more towards elites.  When you 
do, you strike me as intrinsically defeatist.

I prefer to recognize at least a subset of elites whom I viscerally
recognize as peers who share a common pedagogical experience, life
experience, ethical outlook, and so on.  In the first year of the 
Arch project their turning their backs on me was a plausible thing.
The plausibility seems to me to have monotonically decreased over
time, from all perspectives.  Shame is not a comfortable or generally
recommended motivator but that doesn't mean it is always inappropriate.
And after shame comes --- not humiliation, necessarily, not at all -- 
just banal and relatively painless participatory problem solving.
It is about time (a bit overdue) for certain people of power to join
the community rather than just tossing around the word "community".

I don't have a "big blind spot", Stephen --- I'd just rather die
than sell my soul and "dance with the devil in the pale moonlight."
The unexamined life is not worth living.  Examination sometimes 
compels hard choices.

-t