Thanks for your thoughtful response. Dave On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 10:43 -0600, Tilghman Lesher wrote: > On Saturday 15 December 2007 12:14:29 David Boyd wrote: > > On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 10:51 -0600, Tilghman Lesher wrote: > > > Of course, all of these deprecations should be covered in UPGRADE.txt, so > > > please read that file every time you upgrade to a new version. It will > > > contain everything that has changed in a possibly incompatible way. And > > > if you find something that broke that wasn't in this file, please let us > > > know, so we can revise that file. We may not have gotten everything, but > > > we do try. > > > > So if I read you correctly, all of the pain of the upgrade is due to > > lack of effort on the participants part! > > I wouldn't say all of it, but it would be a lot easier if people paid > attention to the deprecation notices and resolved them. The whole > point of deprecating methods is to allow people a transitional period > in which they stop using said method and move to its replacement. > > > This seems a whole lot like the attitude of proprietary vendors when > > they don't want to support a feature that is outside the scope of what > > they want to maintain. I thought this was an open source project that > > would allow participants to have a voice in what is or isn't included in > > a new release. Even an non developing end user provides valuable benefit > > to the project in QA and bug information to improve the project as a > > whole. Most (With exceptions) projects have a bit more interest in what > > the user community wants or needs in a package. The attitude of this > > project seems to be " If you want it code it yourself, however if it > > something that doesn't map to the ideas of what Digium wants then it > > will never make it into the official release. > > Digium is a company; it does not "want" anything. The developers of > the project, of which Digium has sponsored a great many, most of whom > were developers prior to being employed by Digium, get to make those > types of calls. Do you see the distinction? One of the nice things about > working for Digium is that I maintain my individual perspective as a > developer; we do not engage in groupthink. > > > I don't understand why so much community support is placed into the > > project considering that the typical end user is treated like a second > > class citizen. > > I can't think of a single software project where the typical end user is > anything but. Every open source project is not a democracy; they are > meritocracies. That is, the degree to which your opinion matters is the > degree to which you are able to contribute. And this isn't just code writers, > either. People who put forth the effort to document the code also get a > kudos and karma, as do people who report bugs, suggest fixes, and give > feedback on candidate patches. To a lesser extent, knowledgable users > who help on the various forums and business leaders who sponsor > developers to work on Asterisk also have a greater voice than the typical > end user. > > And that's true for closed source, as well. When was the last time that an > end user asked for and received a new feature from Microsoft? > > > So Digium, (I address the company since Tilghman now works for you) do > > you have any plans to query the user community and determine what a > > typical end user of the product needs? With the knowledge and skill that > > exists in your organization it would seem trivial to put something in > > place to allow user feedback not only developer feedback for release > > direction. > > It is extremely insulting for you to try to address my employer, when we're > discussing code practice. For one thing, the company (though legally a > person) does not generally respond on these lists. And secondly, as I > mentioned before, all developers maintain their individual perspective, so > when I make points on here, I do so as an individual contributor. If you have > an issue with the way that I have approached something, then please talk to > me. Trying to go over my head is rude and unlikely to produce better results. > > As far as user feedback, there are multiple forums that exist that will > influence individual developers, to a certain extent, which are the -dev > list (please discuss code or policy, NOT user-level assistance; that's what > this list is for), the #asterisk-dev channel on Freenode (same condition > applies; use #asterisk for user-level questions), and the bugtracker (which > is for reporting bugs, inconsistencies, and other things that relate to > execution, not policy, which should be discussed on the mailing lists). > > Of course, if you want your voice heard more loudly, then contribute some > of your efforts towards furthering the project. Complaints are always heard > more critically when they come from somebody who has made the effort to > give back in some way. >
_______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
