On Tue, Sep 30, 2025 at 12:56 PM Nils Bruin <[email protected]> wrote: > On Monday, 29 September 2025 at 23:17:06 UTC-7 [email protected] wrote: > > Well, yes, you can complain that it's volunteers' dictatorships - but > instead you can tell yourself that it's great that you didn't have to spend > you precious time > on that plumbing assignment. An unpaid volunteer's labour of this sort is > donation to the project (obviously there is no direct benefit to the > volunteer here, as > it's not something interesting from scientific or engineering point of you) > > > I don't dispute that the sagemath build process needed > maintenance/modernisation work because bitrot is a real thing -- and as > Orlitzky points out, it happens by itself. I'm not doubting that your > intent is to make sage really better. > > I think the plumbing analogy can do a little more work here: it may very > well be that the sewage main in your street needs replacement. That's > maintenance that needs to happen every few decades. >
Our "sewer" has been leaking and blocking, for years, has broken all the sanitary standards, etc. Finally someone people got fed up with the stink and stuff coming up the WC now and then, and have fixed it, at a serious personal. Surely in the process a lot of extra stink has been released, but it's temporary. And the "information" and "leaflets" explaining the situation had been there for everyone to see, for years. > But if the trucks show up one morning unannounced and break open the > street and block the driveway, most people will be annoyed at least. Quite > a few would be livid. And that's not how that kind of work generally > happens. Instead, people receive information about what is going to happen, > why it is going to happen, and what they can do to mitigate the impact. > > The exact actions would be different here, but the same principles apply: > if people are informed beforehand about the work, its necessity and the > benefits, it is much easier for them to accept and plan around the > inconveniences of construction. > > > The only real way to get any classical governance is to get some funding, > then one can organise around the grant, like it happened in OpenDreamKit > times. > (then at least some volunteers can get paid and thus be more thorough in > their work). > Otherwise it's, as I explained above, a volunteers' dictatorship. Donate > your labour, and rule with thus earned social capital. > > > Time spent on improving sage can definitely earn "social" capital. It does > require that many in the community *perceive* your contributions as > improving sage, though. So I think it is also in the interest of the > developer/maintainer who wants to earn social capital in order to be able > to influence decisions in sage, to try and get buy-in from many community > members: it will improve trust in their judgement to make changes to sage > that are beneficial. Trust is an important component of social capital. > There is a very small and very vocal minority which views the recent changes negatively. They even go around and throw sand into mechanical part of the equipment used to put finishing touches on the much better sewer. They apparently are missing the old stink and stoppages, and they shout that the new construction had been carried out in a careless way. It's good that we hear voices telling this minority to stop. Yours, Dima, a full-stack plumber > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-devel" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/f4871539-adb8-48a9-83c9-e737c7a7e477n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/f4871539-adb8-48a9-83c9-e737c7a7e477n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/CAAWYfq3%3DgJFgsTCBX%3DfSJyE8jOo1exyH9OYsuFzi03fmfCJxOA%40mail.gmail.com.
