On Wednesday 04 August 2004 3:42 pm, Almut Behrens wrote: > So, what is it that's so attractive for people to want to become a DD? > Sure, there are some psychological aspects (ego boost, or some such), > but it can't be just that. Of course, it feels good to show off to your > geek friends with a shiny @debian.org addy, unquestionably implying > that you managed to be accepted and got the accolade by the Grand Club. > But what else is it? > > Frankly speaking, I personally don't care much about status symbols. > So why should I take the trouble (= time, work and other efforts) to > apply for a DD account and go through the NM process? What would that > give me in return? In other words, if I consider something too much > inconvenience, and there's nothing of sufficient personal value to be > expected in return, I just won't do it. Period. That's basic > motivational psychology. Maybe I'm not representative of geeks in > general, but I'll have to confess my little mind occasionally works by > such simple principles.
I'm sure folks who really know what they are talking about will chime in here. :) One thing that occurs to me is such a process might weed out people who are not able to deliver the level of commitment that's needed. Freshmeat and Sourceforge are chock-full of half-baked and abandoned projects. The world is overfull of poorly-constructed RPMs, thrown together by $random_developer, and released upon an unsuspecting world. From a user/sysadmin perspective, Debian is extremely reliable, more than any other Linux, except maybe Slackware, which is also rock-solid. In my experience, even Sid is more stable and dependable than most other distribution's "mature" releases. What do you get in return? Is being part of a structured system that produces a very good Linux distribution good enough? On a sort of related tangent, the way Debian separates repositories into Free/ non-free is really nice. Let the users decide, and make it easy. What a concept. :) A regular debate at Gentoo is over implementing a similar system, but it does not appear to be close to a resolution. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Carla Schroder this message brought to you by Libranet 2.8 and Kmail ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
