On 2/28/12 12:27 PM, Everton Vieira wrote: > I'm always looking for ways of more participation and, please, believe > me, today is not clear. If you work on a company, by example, > embarcadero, is very clear the way the work is done. There's a very > well knew structure of how that happens. Here, i'm on a small company > making software and the work is also very clear. What is supposed to > be done, who is in charge of what, who is in the project with who and > who. And so on. Today, in the open source enviroment, we dont have > this info, and without this info how can we join and partipate. > There's some anuncoments about but very little info about the > development. Please undarstand me, i'm not talking about myself, i'm > talking about of ways of public show that kind of info, for the people > can acknowledge what is happen and naturaly see how they can help. > People in general has a natural reciprocity. And i include myself for > sure. > 2012/2/28 William Oliveira Ferreira <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > > That's just the way i understand the meaning of community and > opensource projects: Everyone helping with what they can (if they > want), not just a little group... > > Today, i simply can't get the lazarus' source and solve a bug > because i have a limted knowledge of how it works internally but i > can submit bugs on mantis, that's a way that i can help. On my > environment, with my friends, i can promove lazarus and help them > to write some applications, write tutorials, etcs... > ________________________________ > William de Oliveira Ferreira > Bacharel em Sistemas de Informação > > > 2012/2/28 Sven Barth <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > > Am 28.02.2012 17:25, schrieb William Oliveira Ferreira: > > sometimes all lazarus' users wanna see core team do > something that > themselves can > > > Thank you for speaking that out aloud :) >
This simple statement speaks volumes. I agree with it completely. Most people DO want to help out but the way to do that is not at all clear. There is no clear way to start out small and progress. That's because no one wants to make a contribution from a position of weakness. I do not want to document something unless I am sure what I write is correct. But I cannot learn enough to have confidence in what I write without more documentation. (or extraordinary effort which is exactly what we are lamenting is scarce). There is a very good reason why people keep asking for stuff and do not contribute it themselves. The FPC and Lazarus projects are just not organized well enough for this to happen - especially in ways that welcome new participants. When I see people trying to contribute and then responses from the team that are curt and unyielding and downright unfriendly I just discouraged from joining in. Now I can hear the current contributors saying "You haven't seen all that we do to help newcomers!" and "You only see the troublemaker's side of it!" and so on. Perhaps that is true but that very situation MAKES MY POINT. This is exactly what is seen publicly. So the team has a big public relations problem. When I read between the lines I also think I hear "We slogged through this stuff and you will just have to as well!" In other words, "We earned our right to be here. You must also!" Unfortunately, that is just the perfect message if you want to keep people away. What I think we need is one or two people who are fully accepted into the core team whose task is mainly, if not solely, to mentor newcomers and manage the process of getting new contributions accepted. These people would handle the sometimes tricky problems of language translation. The would interpret and explain when misunderstandings occur. They would generally provide the friendly face of the project which has been missing.
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