<rant> Another thing to keep in mind is support. Start charging money and people assume they deserve support. Doesn't matter if it's just the cost of the CD and shipping, there will be some who will expect to some major hand holding for not only installing the software but for using any of it.
Quite often there is some confusion of where to get support for "using" a program, like the Gimp or Gnumeric. Some of this confusion is created by referring to the developers as the maintainers of the port, which almost sounds like they're the authors of the software. People who don't know anything about this stuff have no reason to believe otherwise. Simply put, providing the port for installing should not imply providing support for use, but the line hasn't been clearly drawn. I guess my point is, we really need a lot more "disclaimers" and "finger pointing" texts. Something which says "We didn't make the Gimp, XWindows, esound, etc. These other people made this stuff, go there for support." This is certainly implied on the web page and in other documents, but it really isn't spelt out for those who don't know the difference between authoring software and porting software. It seems like a good way to provide support is to not reinvent the answers to people's questions, but instead let them know where to find all-encompassing answers. Any of us can certainly give a quick answer based on our personal experiences, however, there are several websites which have already collected these answers and more. Hasn't there been times when a simple answer wasn't enough, and the problem kept getting more complicated? Until Fink has some references like that, people are going to make similar mistakes about Fink as they do about thinking the Gimp isn't free and has to be bought from OpenOSX or MacGimp (as mentioned previously about the article in MacWorld). IMHO I don't believe Fink has done much more about educating the public about this than those two, and would quickly fall into the same category as OpenOSX and MacGimp. We say they aren't providing enough info, and yet neither are we, and the major difference is they are getting bad publicity because they charge money. As soon as Fink does the same, the developers faults are going to be made public and then we'll realize too late that Fink isn't much different. More disclaimers. More referencing. It's not enough to just make the program's website available in the "fink info" command. What about better labeling, and more easily gotten to by a simple command such as "fink help gimp" which would list sites for support and also clearly separate the maintainer of the port from the responsibility of support for use. Also, several web pages of referencing could be made for pointing people in the right direction, i.e. elsewhere. Fink just isn't clearly defined to the public, and the short descriptions out there are already misleading enough to put Fink in the same undesirable class as OpenOSX. </rant> It seems like there's a lot of writing ahead to clarify Fink. Whether or not a CD is made for easy install or backup, the references need to be in place. The references might help in alleviating pressure from developers in providing support for use, and it might help reduce some traffic on the mailing lists or at least ensure it's more relevant. And, we could actually say "OpenOSX isn't doing the right thing" with more conviction. Honestly, maybe we're not acting the same way as they are, but we're not providing a great example either. As long as the topic of documentation is on the table, how about some guidelines about what makes a port stable? It's likely feedback isn't coming in because people don't know what to say. What tests should be done to determine if a port in unstable is actually stable? Is compiling successfully enough, or relevant? Is the program starting up enough, or relevant? If the program displays a known bug does that necessarily keep it unstable, or is it stable since it's known? How about a checklist for this? Just some observations, with an idea or two... It might seem like I'm poking and prodding, but I don't mean any harm. :-) I'm sure I'm not the first to have notice these issues. _______________________________________________ Fink-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fink-devel
