Re: Users versus developers (was: Tempo mark alignment)

[Tim McNamara]

On May 23, 2009, at 5:05 PM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:

> In message <address@hidden>, Ari Torhamo  
> <address@hidden> writes
> > > The first option is achieved by handling everything a non-programmer
> > > can do: managing bugs, helping new users, writing the newsletter,  
> > > etc.
> > > The second option is achieved in two ways: helping expand our
> > > community (and hoping this way more programmers will join on a
> > > long-term perspective), or hiring someone (with decent money) to let
> > > him learn the code and implement the feature/fix the bug you want.
> >
> > You don't quite seem to get Tim's point: everybody can't and doesn't
> > need to participate every project they find useful - especially when
> > they don't consume the resources of the project in question (more  
> > than
> > marginally). Most people don't contribute equally to things in their
> > life - people specialize, which is good, because they have different
> > lives, situations, skills and talents. It's good to encourage  
> > people and
> > make them aware of the ways to contribute - and then leave it to  
> > them.
>
> Unfortunately, Tim's point is at odds with the philosophy of free  
> software - which can be pretty succinctly stated as "he who writes  
> the software makes the rules".

Ummm.  That's not the philosophy of free software.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html

Indeed, projects governed by Anthony's description of the philosophy  
tend to die quickly or get forked and the original developer loses  
control over it.

> And while I think that Graham is often more "bad cop" than  
> necessary (I've fallen foul of him too :-) he does have somewhat of  
> a valid point - if you're not prepared to put in any work then why  
> should other people put in work on your behalf?

Because if those things adversely affect my use of the application,  
the odds are very good it adversely affects someone else's and maybe  
lots of someone else's use of the software.  Graham's idea (I am  
interpolating here, he can correct me if I'm wrong) that "people  
should be willing to put into the project is very valid."  My point  
was that the form of those contributions is going to vary with  
people's abilities.  For reasons already mentioned, I'm not going to  
learn Scheme and I'm not going to contribute code.  It is very myopic  
to define "helping" as "writing code" (this is a widespread problem  
in the FOSS community).  On the other hand, I am a psychologist with  
some knowledge of how people interact with information and those  
skills might offer a way to contribute and I have tried to do that.   
Also, my use (and others') of the software, feedback on its  
usability, etc. is of utility.