[Pan-users] Re: [OT] Software politics (was Re: Re: Questions about the next release)

[Duncan]

Charles Kerr posted on Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:19:57 -0600 as excerpted:

> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 10:01 PM, Lacrocivious Acrophosist
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> More importantly, now that Charles has moved on to other projects [...]
>> Duncan has become the Institutional Memory of Pan. Duncan is the keel
>> that keeps the Pan project together. He provides a center for other
>> contributors to attach ribs and decks.
> 
> For whatever it's worth, I agree with this 100%.  There have been
> several times where Duncan has remembered the reason behind this-or-that
> change better than I did.  He has been a consistent fixture and go-to
> "answer man" for ... well, for longer than either of us would like to
> admit, probably. :)

The years tick by like the numbers on an odometer...

> I'm not saying you need to read every word he writes -- I don't -- but
> pan-users would be a much smaller place without Duncan.  I enjoy both
> his singular institutional knowledge *and* his off-topic discussions.

Thanks.  I must admit that when I saw your name in the author column, I 
was a bit worried that I might not like what you had to say.  Which means 
I appreciate the above all the more. =:^)

OK, this is another tangent here, but in context...

Back when I first joined the list, I had just switched from... well... 
that /other/ platform, and believed (as I still do) very strongly in the 
forces of freedom and community that together birthed this whole free/libre 
and open source software movement, multiple whole platforms, foundation to 
apps...

I was looking for my niche in it all, a way I could contribute back just a 
bit for all I was getting, playing my small part in making the whole even 
better.  But while at the time I still hoped to become a good coder 
(something I recognize now isn't likely, as there are others that do that 
better than I'd likely ever get), I wasn't yet a "real" coder, only 
knowing some VB, etc (which has developed into scripting and sysadmin type 
skills on Linux), so I couldn't contribute in the most obvious way.  And 
I'm not particularly good at art, either, so it wasn't to fall to me to do 
the icon design, or become the UI layout go-to-guy, either.

But I discovered that I had three qualities which together filled a niche 
in the ecosystem in an all too rare way.  First, tho I wasn't particularly 
good at actually coding, I'm reasonably comfortable with the lingo and 
actually enjoy following various development discussions/debates.  (This 
is probably how I come to remember the reasons behind things so well, as 
Charles mentions above... I enjoyed and enjoy following the discussions, 
yet was/am able to do so without the "fog of war", the clouds of 
"implementation detail" that the actual devs must deal with.)  Second, I 
seem to have inherited from my dad (a teacher) this way of repeatedly 
driving a point home in slightly different ways, that's apparently rather 
effective (for some people at least, others find it simply irritating) at 
getting a point across in such a way that it's ultimately retained.  It's 
still with some amazement that I say that, as I can't quite explain how it 
came to be -- it just happens -- it's natural to me, but it /does/ seem 
/amazingly/ effective, for some at least, so who am I to argue. <shrug>  
Third, I have an apparently rather rare quality, the "patience of Job" as 
I've seen it referred to.  The willingness to take the time to spend 
(sometimes scary to think about) hours on a post, if that's what it takes 
to cover the subject matter to my own satisfaction.

Together, those qualities have allowed me to find my own rather unique (if 
I may say so) way of contributing back.  Pan's lists happened to be one of 
the first projects I chose to become involved in, as I was and remain 
fascinated with this whole idea of news, the technology behind it, the 
dynamics of the communities that form, etc, and I happened to find pan a 
personally useful news client in this area of personal interest, so 
looking around for some project to contribute to, it was a natural fit.

Now let's turn the focus around, from me, to everyone else here in this 
little corner of the net and the FLOSS ecosystem.  I can now say from 
personal experience how rewarding finding your own niche, your own way to 
contribute back to the system just a bit in return for this massive gift 
it has given you, can be.

Many here have already found their niche.  Even if I don't use MS, I can 
and do certainly appreciate the work some that still use it put into 
making pan a viable option there.  Not only is that useful for MS users, 
it's useful for pan (and the rest of the infrastructure/dependencies it 
needs, and thus FLOSS as a whole) because it has long been observed that 
porting projects to new platforms strengthens them and makes them 
technically better projects, since the ports have a way of finding and 
fixing latent bugs that would otherwise take years to come out.  The code, 
and the people that write it and do the porting, are better for the 
experience.  I'm thus glad that while I'd personally not touch those 
servantware foundationed technologies with a 3 meter (10 foot) pole, 
/someone/ does!

I'm /certainly/ grateful for the work Charles and Chris have done (and 
those before, as well), and of KHaley's work as well, now that Charles and 
Chris are generally moving on to other things.

Some of us have particular gifts at finding bugs!  That's about the level 
I'm at in regard to the Linux kernel, for instance, where I run direct 
Linus git tree kernels, finding, reporting, bisecting, and running temp-
logging and interrim patches, on the way to having the bugs killed.  It's 
a great feeling to be able to say that a particular bug occurred but got 
found, reported and stamped out before release, due to my testing and 
reporting efforts!  I'm sure khaley's grateful for those that find and 
report bugs here, the sooner to get them fixed, as well.

Others may be busy with other aspects of their life, not having much time 
to do testing, but follow along here mostly as lurkers, just trying to get 
a heads up on changes to an app they use and depend on in some form.  
Maybe all they have time for is the occasional confirmation when someone 
else mentions a bug, or to confirm and say thanks when it's fixed.  But 
then just watch when some member of the community gets attacked, as I was, 
and it's amazing to see them coming out of the woodwork to their defense!  
That too is a contribution!

In fact, one could almost go so far as to say that the attacks themselves 
play a role.  Of course it's not one that ought to be encouraged, far from 
it.  But if one is getting a bit down about their own contribution and 
then gets attacked, it may at first seem like the last straw... but then 
just watch the forest come alive as the trees themselves[1] come to the 
defense of the one attacked!  Surely, then, even these mostly-lurkers make 
their contribution in such cases, as without them and their defense and 
thanks, it's quite possible valuable contributors may be discouraged and 
ultimately lost.

Which is my way of once again saying thanks to everyone who came to my 
defense.  Not that I should let it all go to my head, but perhaps I can at 
least claim my own modest and unique contribution, which it is gratifying 
indeed to see recognized, and it's only fitting that I recognize in turn 
how much others encourage me to continue my efforts.  Remember, it's 
seldom that a volunteer/contributor simply stops giving.  Rather, they 
simply gradually find other things to do with their time, as they are, 
after all, volunteers, and there's certainly no shortage of projects 
looking for such in this world.  But it's encouragement like what just 
happened that helps prevent that from occurring.  How much your posts did 
to save that one contributor is often not something ever known, even by 
the contributor themselves, because as I said, the alternative is 
otherwise simply just drifting away.  So even just coming to the defense 
when the time comes, and saying thanks once in awhile, is a big 
contribution, in its own way.  =:^)

Meanwhile, for those who haven't yet found their own level of contribution 
they can be satisfied with, I really do encourage you to do so.  How great 
it is to say when all is said and done, that you made life better with 
your little contribution, than to not know for certain, or worse yet, to 
realize that you made life worse!  There really /is/ a place for your 
contribution, whatever it may be.  Please don't rest until you find it.  
It's with personal experience that I can definitively say, you, and others 
too, will be the better and the happier, for it, even if it's just 
stopping to say thanks, once in awhile! =:^)

________

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman