On Fri, Jul 19, 2019 at 1:24 AM Kenneth Knowles <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Consciously or not, *_*we_ recruit new people and new projects to ASF. We > are not (just) the cool stuff on the other side of the fence. We are the > fence designers and the fence itself (ditto stadium). And we can choose to > try to be the boxes, or at least try to notice where they could make things > better. > I am really tired of the fence analogy. Why is there a fence to start with? Because someone is running a business, to provide entertainment that some people are willing to pay for. Why are we even discussing the people who wants the product without paying for it? ASF is not a business that is producing a product with a price that excludes users (for many more reasons that unable to pay). The analogy of the cartoon is therefor complete nonsense; 1. There are no paying customers, no fence for the users. Anyone can be a viewer and although you need a computer to consume our product, I don't think anyone is arguing that the really unfortunate, really disadvantaged (not just "I don't feel good") people, should be assisted. 2. Baseball is a game with players, and this D&I effort is about "who is welcome to play". And again, baseball can't let everyone play at the same time at the same level. We, on the other hand, have no systemic (baseball rules) issues of whether to allow someone to play or not, OTHER THAN the willingness to be charitable, eagerness to help out and/or the mental capacity to handle/tackle the complexity of software (even rudimentary software is somewhat challenging for many people). The fact that the analogy applies to businesses (who get to play (employed) or who get to view (customer)) doesn't mean that has the same relevance to the ASF. So please, find a better analogy, rather than harping this broken one. The potluck dinner is much better, except that the food in each contribution is unlimited, so not only can the one's bringing the food eat, but anyone else can just walk in and fill their bellies (and millions of people!!!!) literally does that. Niclas
