Hi .... Christopher Mahan wrote: > --- Jim Grisanzio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> Of course we've been rude. We cut up marketing. We tare down >> lawyers. We >> laugh at executives. We attack other communities and ourselves. >> This is >> all accepted behavior in the OpenSolaris community. I've even been >> told >> privately that this is healthy. It's not. I reject it. Now, for >> every >> foolish thing we say, I can find equally foolish things other >> communities (and companies) have said as well. > > Jim, I respectfully disagree with you: It's messy, it's disorganized, > it's confusing and it's not summarized in an executive statement, but > all the wrangling is completely healthy.
Yep. We surely disagree. :) >> But what I do find fascinating is that for all the attacks on >> marketing, >> the marketing list is generally flame-less. And so is the user >> group >> community list. That's one of the reasons I suggested merging those >> >> communities. I felt that there was a lot of overlap in those >> communities >> in terms of people and in terms of issues, so why not combine >> forces and >> expand our voice? Imagine a community where attacks are /not/ >> acceptable >> and outside the norm. That's my vision for the Advocacy CG. > > This is not The Stepford Wives, or rather, The Stepford Programmers. > Marketing and Legal do not a working distro make. In product development I believe that marketing, engineering, sales, service, community, project management, legal, and whatever else should all have a role to play. And each will lead in different areas at different times. It's not all about the geeks. If it were, then I'd have no role in this community because I don't touch code. But I can assure you I'm not going anywhere. Every time we talk about this issue I feel more and more strongly about it. I realize I'm in the distinct minority on it, but that's ok. I'm not backing down one inch. No civility = no credibility. Period. I don't know what "The Stepford Wives" references is supposed to mean. > That takes geeks > who stay up late worrying about arcane, wizardish, fiendishly complex > issues and who, out of their love for mankind and the semi-weekly > paycheck, work hard at solving these unsurmountable problems. That > these same people don't have the polish and gentle demeanor of > ivy-league graduates should not surprise you. What do you mean by ivy-league graduates? Look, I know many scary-smart developers who are as strange as anything you can describe. However, I only have relationships with and respect those who treat me and others with respect. It's that simple, really. All the too-cool open source rhetoric is meaningless to me if it means that it's cool to be offensive. It's not. Now, I'd say that the vast majority of people around here are professional, but I'm concerned that the good guys in this community are far too accommodating to the flamers. I also see very, very little work getting done by the flamers, too. All chat, no action. In fact, after more than three years on the project, it's clear to me that there is an inverse relationship between those who flame and those who work. I'll go further: it seems to me that the guys who produce the most work and highest quality work are actually the most quiet, civil, and respectful. That's the model I'm going to work toward in this new (fiscal) year for myself. When I was at the Ruby conference in Tokyo recently, I specifically asked about this issue, and I got the overwhelming impression (from the Japanese, Americans, and Europeans there) that my view was quite welcome. In fact, the closing keynote from Dave Thomas was basically an entire hour on community values, and he got a long and loud standing ovation at the end from hundreds of developers! > These people were > outcasts in general society, preferring the dank dungeons of solitude > to pep rallies and after-parties. And if they can't at least be civil to others they can go right back into those dank dungeons of solitude you describe. All I'm asking for is some basic human civility, that's all. > You get them talking about their trade, and the uninitiated will be > greeted by unseemly grunts and scratching of beards, and will not > understand that the jabbing and eye-poking and name-calling is the > way these cave-dwellers communicate most effectively. That may be fine for them, but these characteristics are not universal. People are different in different fields and different regions of the world. The guys you describe here don't get to set the standards for everyone. > Of course, the sophisticated society would love to never have to > encounter much less discuss anything with these programmers, but then > they'd have to settle for no software being written. > > Maybe now you'll understand the saying that managing people is like > herding cats: it's messy, and there's a lot of yelling involved, and > an occasional boot in the back of the pants. > > Welcome to open-source software development. If that's open source development, I'm not impressed and I'm not interested. I no longer accept definitions like this for open source. What you describe may be one element of the meta open source community in a certain area of the world, sure, but it's not the only one, and it's certainly not the standard for behavior that everyone is mandated to follow. But what's cool about the community dynamic generally is that I get to evaluate and reject things I don't like. Which I do. That's much harder to do in a company or a government or an army or something. Jim -- Jim Grisanzio http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
