Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 11:47:40PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: Pollywog wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 03:47, Kent West wrote: ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. It's nothing the Debian developers can't fix ;) ... In time for all us users to file many many bug reports against the human package, which will be deemed unfixable by the package maintainer and become Orphaned forever with only the critical bugs fixed (hopefully) before each release. That is, of course, if we can even find a DD who's brave enough to do an ITP on the package after someone files a Wishlist bug to have it built. And it's highly likely due to the complexity of the Author's upstream source for creating the human software, that there's some hidden problems deeply rooted in the fact that even though human is relatively easy to dissect, it's difficult to understand what the code is doing and/or going to do, which makes the Security team's job very difficult... And there's likely to be debates over which license the human is operating under... commonly known as religions in end-user terms. Once all this came to light, Debian would likely have to pull human from the main branch and either carry human only in contrib or not at all, depending on the licensing used and whether or not there were enough developers that believe that our DNA is all the source code needed to consider human DSFG-Free. Of course there's always the possibility that the non-Free aspects of human could be removed and the package, while mostly crippled and unusable, and with a new stupid(er) name would be allowed to remain in main. :-) :-) :-) Nate Buahahaha :))) Regards, Andrei -- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 04:32:10PM -0600, Mike McCarty wrote: You haven't asked why you can't simply do a Reply because the list server doesn't automatically put in a Reply-to: field for the list :-) In case you don't understand this posting, this is an issue which surfaces frequently, has been definitively answered, and causes some of the long flamefests. -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
cothrige wrote:
* ChadDavis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've
recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent
and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around
here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering.
Hello Chad,
Like you I am new, and so I thought I would make a quick comment.
After finally making the leap and installing Debian I decided, as I
usually do, to find a mailing list so that I can get an idea of the
community and stay ahead of troubles. And I did so with a bit of
trepidation. I had heard a lot of complaining in other fora about the
arrogance of Debian folk and really expected a flamefest here. That
couldn't have been farther from the truth, at least as I have seen it.
You haven't asked why you can't simply do a Reply because the
list server doesn't automatically put in a Reply-to: field
for the list :-)
Mike
--
p=p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);};main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
You have found the bank of Larn.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!
--
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Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 16:32:10 -0600, Mike McCarty wrote: cothrige wrote: * ChadDavis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Hello Chad, Like you I am new, and so I thought I would make a quick comment. After finally making the leap and installing Debian I decided, as I usually do, to find a mailing list so that I can get an idea of the community and stay ahead of troubles. And I did so with a bit of trepidation. I had heard a lot of complaining in other fora about the arrogance of Debian folk and really expected a flamefest here. That couldn't have been farther from the truth, at least as I have seen it. You haven't asked why you can't simply do a Reply because the list server doesn't automatically put in a Reply-to: field for the list :-) Maybe we should first discuss some issues for which it is easier to reach a general consensus, such as politics, religion or self-service gas stations. -- Regards, Florian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 10:10:34 -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... just my 2 cents raju Your 2 cents would go a lot further if you actually provided a patch for the documentation -- since you are a user, and presumably know better than the developers what is actually understandable, the problem is more likely to get fixed. May we depend on your contribution to make the documentation better? manoj -- There is brutality and there is honesty. There is no such thing as brutal honesty. Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.golden-gryphon.com/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Wednesday 08 November 2006 17:19, Manoj Srivastava wrote: On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 10:10:34 -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... just my 2 cents raju Your 2 cents would go a lot further if you actually provided a patch for the documentation -- since you are a user, and presumably know better than the developers what is actually understandable, the problem is more likely to get fixed. May we depend on your contribution to make the documentation better? Yes, indeed. What is the point of preaching others if I dont do it myself? If I am using a software package and if I feel that newbies are having trouble with the documentation, I will definitely try to make it better in whatever way I can ... For example, sometime back this list used to be flooded with which distribution should I install - stable, testing, unstable? and other similar questions. I asked those questions to be included in some sort of FAQ. Upon receiving no official response, I tried to put whatever I know in http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/debian_choosing_distribution.html etc., I do not normally send patches because there is no guarantee that they will be accepted after you put in all the effort. Instead I try to update corresponding entries in wiki.debian.net etc., raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Monday 06 November 2006 21:25, Douglas Tutty wrote: Then factor in: Two correspondants who have different first languages, possibly neither english yet now emailing in english. Different cultural ways of interpreting the same written phrase. It takes great skill to communicate effectivly using written language, especially across ethno/cultural/linguistic barriers. No one has this skill to perfection yet everyone has something to offer. And then there are the days when we are just in a grumpy mood and inclined to take anything at all in the wrong way. -- Bud Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] KD5SZ
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Hans du Plooy wrote: On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 12:33 -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: serious money, serious effort, serious uptime -- similar to the Dilbert Unix cartoon where the guy with the white hair, suspenders, and a smug expression says, Here's a nickel kid, get yourself a better computer., and tosses Dilbert a nickel. Mainframe guys and gals are both cool, and at the same time, somewhat odd. :-) You wouldn't have a link to this one, by any chance? A quick google search found it in this thread on whatever web-based forum this is: http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?t=8929sid=b496236d7f4016f7a56a56e6ebb9892f See about two or three pages down, the classic Dilbert Unix cartoon posting... great cartoon! Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* Zoran Kolic ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Don't think I would be up for that one. I did try installing FreeBSD right before moving to Debian (I was in one of those experimental 'let's try a new OS' moods) and I did what I usually did and started lurking in lists getting prepared to ask questions. Very intense bunch, sort of like Linux concentrate. Never got the chance to ask one of my patented newbie questions, and I may be better off for having not. :-) Lol. You should first read excelent book in /usr/share/doc. All unices are documented enough. Just none wants to waste time for that. I am not sure about /usr/share/doc but I did download and read the very fine handbook. However, a lot of stuff wasn't covered and so I had to turn to the community. Didn't do so on the mailing list, though BSDForums was a pretty good place to start. But, it really is a very intimidating crowd over there. Makes Debian look like the girl scouts in some ways. BTW, way off topic, but I actually really liked FreeBSD. But not being able to find any way to upgrade packages installed from binaries without having to compile them from ports pretty much killed it for me. I don't need bleeding edge, but I do like security fixes and the like, and I don't have twenty hours to compile Java, OOo or kdelibs. If, of course, I end up running that stuff. Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 06:04:33PM -0600, Bud Rogers wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 16:51, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:10:34AM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... Many of the first reply messages by Tom Eastep on the shorewall-users mailing list are a URL and little else. After having seen this for while I see that it is a good approach. In fact, many of the second reply messages from the users are something like oh, I didn't see that or I did not read closely enough. I don't think much of those who swing RTFM around like a club. I don't think that's ever helpful. You don't need to hit things with a stick. You can also point the way with it. I started Linux with Slackware 0.99. It's not likely that I would have even got to the point of a bootable system, and almost certain that I never would have become a convert, if it hadn't been for the patient help of a very capable teacher. jjohn was system administrator at a local ISP. He introduced me to Linux in general and Slackware in particular. He held my hand when I needed it, and answered a lot of stupid newbie questions. Invariably, he would give me a short answer first. Oh, you just need to do X. or You might have a problem with Y. Here's what I would do. Then he would add, If you want to know why, this HOWTO/webpage/manpage will tell you all about it. And pointing the way is exactly what he did. In most cases, his first suggestion, X or Y, fixed my immediate problem and got me past another hurdle. My confidence bolstered by a quick fix, I was all the more interested in reading the recommended documentaion to find out why and how it worked.In fairly short order, looking back on it now, I went from the original clueless newbie to a fairly confident Slack user. I owe a debt I can never repay to jjohn. I've been trying to pay it forward ever since. -- Bud Rogers[EMAIL PROTECTED] KD5SZ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Tuesday 07 November 2006 08:45, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't think much of those who swing RTFM around like a club. I don't think that's ever helpful. You don't need to hit things with a stick. You can also point the way with it. I agree, but too often people use RTFM for no other purpose than to punish. RTFM and come back when you've done your home work. Worse than useless. RTFM this HOWTO. Better. Sounds like you might have a problem with /etc/foo.conf. RTFM this HOWTO to get some ideas what to look for. My preferred answer. It's not always possible to be so specific, but many of us stumbled over the same things when we started. And the confidence gained from a fairly quick solution makes it more likely that a newbie will RT their own FM when the next problem comes up. I know it did for me. -- Bud Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] KD5SZ
Re: what's up with all the attitude
I am not sure about /usr/share/doc but I did download and read the very fine handbook. That's the one. However, a lot of stuff wasn't covered and so I had to turn to the community. Didn't do so on the mailing list, though BSDForums was a pretty good place to start. But, it really is a very intimidating crowd over there. Makes Debian look like the girl scouts in some ways. Not, in my opinion. Try stable, security and mobility (if you have laptop). No-one on open/freebsd lists will learn newbie first steps. Lot of people are pros and have no time for pleasure. It is business for them (believe it or not). BTW, way off topic, but I actually really liked FreeBSD. But not being able to find any way to upgrade packages installed from binaries without having to compile them from ports pretty much killed it for me. I don't need bleeding edge, but I do like security fixes and the like, and I don't have twenty hours to compile Java, OOo or kdelibs. If, of course, I end up running that stuff. Could be tricky, if you don't want to jump from trapeze all day. :-) You may try freebsd-update for instance. Works for binary updates thanks to Colin Percival. Not a real woodoo, but makes you happy, if you like to be happy. Btw, woodoo folks never use X. They live in console and go out from the box once in a year. (To take a bath, if necessary.) Zoran -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* Zoran Kolic ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: a very intimidating crowd over there. Makes Debian look like the girl scouts in some ways. Not, in my opinion. Try stable, security and mobility (if you have laptop). No-one on open/freebsd lists will learn newbie first steps. Lot of people are pros and have no time for pleasure. It is business for them (believe it or not). No, easy to believe. And, people didn't seem rude really, but there was a sense of intolerance towards newbies and so I was not posting. I am sure there are good reasons for this, but I wouldn't say I liked it better, if you know what I mean. You may try freebsd-update for instance. Works for binary updates thanks to Colin Percival. Not a real woodoo, but makes you happy, if you like to be happy. Sounds interesting. I still have a partition on my main box with FreeBSD and I will look into this and see how I like it. I looked and looked and never could find a good answer for that question. Most people just couldn't believe that I a) could ever have wanted kdelibs, or b) wouldn't want to compile them from source. Just a different bunch with a different style and I am sure it takes some getting used to. Thanks for the info, Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
...Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Well, some people like synaptic or pure apt-get, others worship aptitude.. it's all about what attitude you have.. Oh - attitude... I read aptitude! :P I've been a debian-user 1.5 year now and my impression is that the comunity is big and lot's of competent and experienced people - mostly friendly too. BUT.. There is some sour itchy feelings regarding some plicy/political stuff and diffrences in opinion. I've also felt debian morale going down. But my impression is that the huge bulk, the big momentum of Debian keeps on turning and monving in the right direction. No medium size conflicts risk jepordizing the big projekt. /da. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 00:32 -0800, David A. wrote: Oh - attitude... I read aptitude! :P I've been a debian-user 1.5 year now and my impression is that the comunity is big and lot's of competent and experienced people - mostly friendly too. Remember that you have thousands and thousands of people conversing over a delayed medium without the benefit of tone of voice or facial expression. That in and of itself could create a civil war in a buddhist temple. BUT.. There is some sour itchy feelings regarding some plicy/political stuff and diffrences in opinion. I've also felt debian morale going down. But my impression is that the huge bulk, the big momentum of Debian keeps on turning and monving in the right direction. No medium size conflicts risk jepordizing the big projekt. I'm not saying Debian will become a victim of its own success as a free community driven OS, but the more who use it, the more ego and personality you introduce into the community. The fact that dynamics continue on the lists, forums (and what have you) indicates its success as a community driven OS. Given the number of people on those lists / forums (and what have you's) vs the number of spats , I'd say its an enormous success. If you ever feel Debian is tripping over its own shoe laces, compare it to congress .. you'll feel much better :) /da. Best, -Tim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Kent West wrote: ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. Correction: most people seem to be imperfect. (Need to be accurate here ;-) ) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Sun, 2006-11-05 at 19:57 -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. First off, if you'll notice how much traffic is on Debian-User. Debian is ALL VOLUNTEER. There is no commercial version underlying the support infrastructure. Some of us are subscribed to many e-mail lists for Debian, not just Debian User. I for one also have e-mail subscriptions to many other e-mail lists outside of Debian. Setting this background... comes the next paragraph It is not that we have an attitude, just that better than 90% of the questions asked on Debian-User have been asked before and have solutions already in the archive. Nearly everyone asking questions says I search the archives or I've Googled for this. This then also leads us to be suspicious as to the sincereity, nee laziness. You might get a ton of Read The Fine Manual with pointers to the proper location. But understand, it is not to dis you. Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. -- greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The technology that is Stronger, better, faster: Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... just my 2 cents raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 08:09 -0600, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: Kent West wrote: ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. Correction: most people seem to be imperfect. (Need to be accurate here ;-) ) Actually, correct is : People exist, a limited sampling of the Internet suggests some of them to be imperfect. Reminds me of a joke.. A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician are driving in a car in the country. They pass a pasture of cows, one of them purple. The mathematician says Wow, 1/16 of the cows here are purple. The statistician says Cows here have a .06 % chance of being born purple The physicist says There are cows here, and at least 1/2 of one of them is purple While not inordinately funny, the joke points out .. there's lots of ways of being correct, but only one that doesn't depend on a limited perspective :) Best, -Tim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:10:34AM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... Perhaps just that the information is hard to find, drowned in the flood of other information. This suggests that the stuff needs to be better indexed -- better than Google does. Hard to see how to get enough people together to to a manual index, though. Any ideas? Any ideas on how to organise an index, too? -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: what's up with all the attitude
If it wasn't for a little attitude we wouldn't get along so well. From: Roberto C. Sanchez [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sun 11/5/2006 11:40 PM To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: what's up with all the attitude On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 07:57:16PM -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Oftentimes, the discussions on this list concern highly subjective matters. For instance, which is the best databse to use, the best text editor, the best desktop environment, the best mail client and so on. Other times, the discussions turn political or religious (just look at some of the longest threads on this list). Those sorts of discussions tend to involve at least a small element of personal beliefs. This can come out as attitude and create conflict. I am of the opinion that these sorts of discussions have a net benefit, even if the occasional harsh word is exchanged. Regards, -Rberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com http://www.connexer.com/
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 08:09:50AM -0600, Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: Kent West wrote: ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. Correction: most people seem to be imperfect. (Need to be accurate here ;-) ) And those few of us who *are* perfect have the graciousness, being perfect, to feign imperfection so as not to make the rest of us jealous. -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:10:34AM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... There's something that's always bothered me -- how many developers write usable documentation? And how many technical writers are capable of digging through code and descussions on -devel mailing lists to extract the information that needs to be written? I suspect the answer is few. If so, how cen we ever hope to get the documentation both up-to-date and useful? -- hendrik just my 2 cents raju -- Kamaraju S Kusumanchi http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/kk288/ http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 10:21 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:10:34AM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... There's something that's always bothered me -- how many developers write usable documentation? And how many technical writers are capable of digging through code and descussions on -devel mailing lists to extract the information that needs to be written? I suspect the answer is few. If so, how cen we ever hope to get the documentation both up-to-date and useful? I specifically point to spec.txt for Exim the MTA. http://www.exim.org/docs.html -- greg, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The technology that is Stronger, better, faster: Linux signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 11:40:27PM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 07:57:16PM -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Oftentimes, the discussions on this list concern highly subjective matters. For instance, which is the best databse to use, the best text editor, the best desktop environment, the best mail client and so on. Other times, the discussions turn political or religious (just look at some of the longest threads on this list). Those sorts of discussions tend to involve at least a small element of personal beliefs. This can come out as attitude and create conflict. I am of the opinion that these sorts of discussions have a net benefit, even if the occasional harsh word is exchanged. just as any kind of meeting (staff meeting, post-work cocktails, family reunion, christmas @ grandma's etc) has its moments of strife and dissent, so it is with a community like Debian. We all (I) accept it as a natural part of life and recognise it as a sign of vigor in the community. So long as the bickering continues at a low level I figure everything is okay. When the arguing dies, so will the community as a whole. I guess. A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Greg Folkert wrote: It is not that we have an attitude, just that better than 90% of the questions asked on Debian-User have been asked before and have solutions already in the archive. Nearly everyone asking questions says I search the archives or I've Googled for this. This then also leads us to be suspicious as to the sincereity, nee laziness. You might get a ton of Read The Fine Manual with pointers to the proper location. But understand, it is not to dis you. Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. As far as Linux is concerned, that's often the best kind of answer, and many people recognise this and ask 'where can I find document X?' rather than 'how do I do Y?' Certainly, documentation is a bit random. Nobody gets very far with any brand of Linux without a willingness to read documents, not always well-written, and it is no kindness to try to hide this from anyone. Not to forget that while you want to do Y today, you may well need to do Z with the same application tomorrow, and a link to a really good, well- hidden (sorry, poorly-indexed) document can be worth much more than a do-this-then-this answer. Other times, what you really need is a step- by-step answer, because you've already covered the developer's web site three times, and cannot make the slightest sense of the documents there. You may be missing a new and important concept, and a helpful word can be the key to unlock the document. What tends to get peoples' backs up is PhD research questions: 'Can you tell me the pros and cons of N as an encryption technique?', crossposted to numerous groups and having nothing specific to do with Debian, or wherever else they are posted. Then you'll see attitude. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Hi, On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 07:57:16PM -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] It has been atypical lately. It seems to ebb and flow, wax and wane, must be the moon or something. Hang in there, it gets better. Chuck -- The Moon is Waning Gibbous (98% of Full) Only 10 kinds of people: those who do binary, and those who do not. But you can get a few downloads from http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
David A. wrote: BUT.. There is some sour itchy feelings regarding some plicy/political stuff and diffrences in opinion. I've also felt debian morale going down. But my impression is that the huge bulk, the big momentum of Debian keeps on turning and monving in the right direction. No medium size conflicts risk jepordizing the big projekt. I guess I'll get sucked into this, 'cause I see something here that piques my interest now. I don't think it's just Debian's morale that's low -- the hype surrounding Linux overall is down, the real world problems of operating Linux in business have cooled the general hub-bub about Linux and desktop users are finding that an OS that's built to just work suits most people's needs better than an OS or desktop that you have to hack on to get it to do what you want. Even mutltiple millions of dollars thrown at the problem (Mark Shuttleworth/Ubuntu) still hasn't really addressed the underlying hardware/driver support issues from manufacturers, and the other licensing problems inherent in the system. Linux still has (and mostly seems to want to keep) that hacker feel (the traditional sense of the term hacker, of course) and that makes it wholly inappropriate for some environments. Always will. There are a chosen few who work on really professional level Linux development, including the majority of the kernel coders these days -- most of the core people are paid to work on it. But the Linux desktop is still quite a joke, really -- compared with the benefits companies have from sticking to Windows environments or even Macs. I love my Linux machines and all their fun desktop options, but the damn things just aren't even close to the standardization and usability of the commercially available alternatives, really. Would I recommend Linux desktops for certain business uses, heck yeah... but being a Unix geek for work means that my pidgeon-hole is at the servers in the back room, and my influence on desktop decisions at my organization (and virtually every organization I've worked for) realistically is nil. The Windows kids will always get their way as the desktop experts around here. And I find that okay, I have plenty of work to do keeping the back-room (where the real money is made) running. Debian does a great job sticking to their guns about things being DSFG-Free or they won't be in main... but people don't understand it and don't like when their shiny new hardware does not work. Hell even their three or four year old hardware doesn't work (802.11 cards, anyone?). Not right out of the box anyway. Debian also does a great job releasing a real STABLE distro that really is STABLE, but people want shiny new software toys there too, and get frustrated at the release cycle. But explaining this to newbies isn't something I feel like doing anymore. I did it for years... now I just hand them an Ubuntu disc and say, If that loads up correctly on your hardware, you'll probably find that fun. Holler if it doesn't, I'll see if I can help. And leave it at that. I used to do it with Debian CD's, but that's far more painful. I love Debian for my servers, but I'll stick with my Mac for a desktop for the time being. That may be helping some evil empire somewhere in California instead of Washington State, but the thing just works when I open the lid. Sure, I also have a Linux laptop that took many weeks of hacking to get it to a similar place, and it still crashes on resume from suspend once in a while. It's just not there yet, and I'm of the belief that as long as Linux remains a hacker OS, it never will be. Things will keep changing, great new ideas will form and dissolve, and the desktop on that machine will always be morphing, doing neat things, and generally not stable. Lots of Linux folk push the Linux desktop dream and various other things, and/or are highly involved in their own self-interests. It's both what makes Linux great and also what makes it annoying to some extent. And it leads to some VERY heated and/or silly discussions on mailing lists. Every topic brought up in this thread dates back to when I started using Linux in 1994 or 1995, and not a single one of them has changed over the years... but people still ask why the attitude type questions about once every six months on almost all Linux mailing lists I'm on. The Linux attitude just is. Over time we oldsters accept it and learn to ignore it, trying not to proliferate it too much so we can keep using our favorite distro or tools and stay out of the flamefests. The newbies wander in from time to time and wonder what the HELL is going on, and then slowly assimilate it and figure it out. Just like in real life, if you avoid the annoying people, you get more done and you're happier about 99% of the time. So that's my thoughts on the matter. Not that they amount to a hill of beans, as I said, oldsters usually don't even
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... Feel free. Remember it's all volunteer. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's something that's always bothered me -- how many developers write usable documentation? And how many technical writers are capable of digging through code and descussions on -devel mailing lists to extract the information that needs to be written? I suspect the answer is few. If so, how cen we ever hope to get the documentation both up-to-date and useful? Unless your goal is not to scratch your own itch to create software -- you'll never get good documentation out of the developer. It's not what they're motivated to do, and they get no benefit from writing docs for themselves on things they already know about their own software. Basic economics at play here. If someone had a selfish reason to write better docs and share them, they would. Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Monday 06 November 2006 19:40, Nate Duehr wrote: Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... Feel free. Remember it's all volunteer. That was the problem I had as a newbie, that the manuals were written for more experienced users. I have been using Linux since 1997 and I still feel like a newbie, but there is much more good documentation now than there was then. 8) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 11:40:27PM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 07:57:16PM -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Oftentimes, the discussions on this list concern highly subjective matters. For instance, which is the best databse to use, the best text editor, the best desktop environment, the best mail client and so on. Other times, the discussions turn political or religious (just look at some of the longest threads on this list). And dont forget the odd bit of broccolli! Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 12:33:40PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: David A. wrote: I don't think it's just Debian's morale that's low -- the hype surrounding Linux overall is down, the real world problems of operating Linux in business have cooled the general hub-bub about Linux and desktop users are finding that an OS that's built to just work suits most people's needs better than an OS or desktop that you have to hack on to get it to do what you want. I think that you're right the general linux hype is down a bit. Part of that stems from its growing popularity -- I actually run into people who know what it is and aren't that fased by me mentioning that I use it for all my computing. That sort of takes the geek-cred fun out of it... i have to differ with you on the just works thing. The reason windows (and to some extent I suppose, Mac) just works is because it is what people have come to expect. In the window world something usually either just works or can't be done and so it is outside of peoples understanding of what a computer can do. A great example is the simple scripting thread thats running parallel to this. A windows user would generally be stuck with two options: 1) try to use the search and replace functions, or scripting, in their word processor suite to solve the problem, or 2) do it manually. A lot of these folks don't realise that in the linux world there are so many tools to do so many different jobs that we can have an on-going thread discussing the various ways to parse a file for certain words. This job is essnetially undoable in windows unless one goes out and finds the right combination of stuff for purchase or wades through the myriad freeware/shareware sites trying to find the right stuff. In our world we've got bash, gnu utils, sed, awk, perl, python etc most likely already installed on our machines and we can hack the thing together in a heartbeat. I know that particular task doesn't really seem like a desktop task, but in my world, I come across all sorts of little tasks that are better done on a computer than manually and the tools available in linux make it EASY. What this means, to me, is that for many things linux DOES just work, it just requires a different mindset to see how it does. People who aren't used to it, don't have that mindset, just don't see it. and of course, the fact that we CAN hack on it to get it to do what we want is vastly superior to accepting what it does as the way it is and living with it. but that's preaching to the choir no doubt ;-) Even mutltiple millions of dollars thrown at the problem (Mark Shuttleworth/Ubuntu) still hasn't really addressed the underlying hardware/driver support issues from manufacturers, and the other licensing problems inherent in the system. I agree that the hardware support is a problem, but i think its getting better and gaining momentum. And, I don't really think its an issue anymore onmost commodity hardware. ymmv. [snip] But the Linux desktop is still quite a joke, really -- compared with the benefits companies have from sticking to Windows environments or even Macs. I don't know. it depends on what you do i guess. I love my Linux machines and all their fun desktop options, but the damn things just aren't even close to the standardization and usability of the commercially available alternatives, really. To a certain extent I think you're right, but I personally don't like the cookie-cutter situation, where if you don't fit in the cookie-cutter, it cuts off the extra parts to make you fit :( [more snippage] In the end: None of the attitude matters. Either the computer does what you need it to do or it doesn't with a particular software package loaded, or it doesn't. It's a machine. you are totally right. A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* Nate Duehr ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: [snip] Want REAL attitude? Try OpenBSD. Now THAT's an attitude. (And we'll leave it up to you to decide if it's good or bad... that's a judgement call I'm not prepared to discuss on a Linux list! GRIN...) Don't think I would be up for that one. I did try installing FreeBSD right before moving to Debian (I was in one of those experimental 'let's try a new OS' moods) and I did what I usually did and started lurking in lists getting prepared to ask questions. Very intense bunch, sort of like Linux concentrate. Never got the chance to ask one of my patented newbie questions, and I may be better off for having not. :-) Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On 11/6/06, Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David A. wrote: BUT.. There is some sour itchy feelings regarding some plicy/political stuff and diffrences in opinion. I've also felt debian morale going down. But my impression is that the huge bulk, the big momentum of Debian keeps on turning and monving in the right direction. No medium size conflicts risk jepordizing the big projekt. I guess I'll get sucked into this, 'cause I see something here that piques my interest now. I don't think it's just Debian's morale that's low -- the hype surrounding Linux overall is down, the real world problems of operating Linux in business have cooled the general hub-bub about Linux and desktop users are finding that an OS that's built to just work suits most people's needs better than an OS or desktop that you have to hack on to get it to do what you want. Even mutltiple millions of dollars thrown at the problem (Mark Shuttleworth/Ubuntu) still hasn't really addressed the underlying hardware/driver support issues from manufacturers, and the other licensing problems inherent in the system. Linux still has (and mostly seems to want to keep) that hacker feel (the traditional sense of the term hacker, of course) and that makes it wholly inappropriate for some environments. Always will. There are a chosen few who work on really professional level Linux development, including the majority of the kernel coders these days -- most of the core people are paid to work on it. But the Linux desktop is still quite a joke, really -- compared with the benefits companies have from sticking to Windows environments or even Macs. I love my Linux machines and all their fun desktop options, but the damn things just aren't even close to the standardization and usability of the commercially available alternatives, really. Would I recommend Linux desktops for certain business uses, heck yeah... but being a Unix geek for work means that my pidgeon-hole is at the servers in the back room, and my influence on desktop decisions at my organization (and virtually every organization I've worked for) realistically is nil. The Windows kids will always get their way as the desktop experts around here. And I find that okay, I have plenty of work to do keeping the back-room (where the real money is made) running. Debian does a great job sticking to their guns about things being DSFG-Free or they won't be in main... but people don't understand it and don't like when their shiny new hardware does not work. Hell even their three or four year old hardware doesn't work (802.11 cards, anyone?). Not right out of the box anyway. Debian also does a great job releasing a real STABLE distro that really is STABLE, but people want shiny new software toys there too, and get frustrated at the release cycle. But explaining this to newbies isn't something I feel like doing anymore. I did it for years... now I just hand them an Ubuntu disc and say, If that loads up correctly on your hardware, you'll probably find that fun. Holler if it doesn't, I'll see if I can help. And leave it at that. I used to do it with Debian CD's, but that's far more painful. I love Debian for my servers, but I'll stick with my Mac for a desktop for the time being. That may be helping some evil empire somewhere in California instead of Washington State, but the thing just works when I open the lid. Sure, I also have a Linux laptop that took many weeks of hacking to get it to a similar place, and it still crashes on resume from suspend once in a while. It's just not there yet, and I'm of the belief that as long as Linux remains a hacker OS, it never will be. Things will keep changing, great new ideas will form and dissolve, and the desktop on that machine will always be morphing, doing neat things, and generally not stable. Lots of Linux folk push the Linux desktop dream and various other things, and/or are highly involved in their own self-interests. It's both what makes Linux great and also what makes it annoying to some extent. And it leads to some VERY heated and/or silly discussions on mailing lists. Every topic brought up in this thread dates back to when I started using Linux in 1994 or 1995, and not a single one of them has changed over the years... but people still ask why the attitude type questions about once every six months on almost all Linux mailing lists I'm on. The Linux attitude just is. Over time we oldsters accept it and learn to ignore it, trying not to proliferate it too much so we can keep using our favorite distro or tools and stay out of the flamefests. The newbies wander in from time to time and wonder what the HELL is going on, and then slowly assimilate it and figure it out. Just like in real life, if you avoid the annoying people, you get more done and you're happier about 99% of the time. So that's my thoughts on the matter. Not that they amount to a hill of beans, as I said, oldsters usually don't even bother to jump into
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 03:23:27PM -0500, celejar wrote: One of the most intelligent soliloquies I've seen in a while. I'm glad you liked it. I wish you'd trimmed it from your reply so we didn't have to read it twice. Steve -- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On 11/6/06, Steve Kemp [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 03:23:27PM -0500, celejar wrote: One of the most intelligent soliloquies I've seen in a while. I'm glad you liked it. I wish you'd trimmed it from your reply so we didn't have to read it twice. Steve Sorry. Celejar -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
It is not that we have an attitude, just that better than 90% of the questions asked on Debian-User have been asked before and have solutions already in the archive. Nearly everyone asking questions says I search the archives or I've Googled for this. This then also leads us to be suspicious as to the sincereity, nee laziness. You might get a ton of Read The Fine Manual with pointers to the proper location. But understand, it is not to dis you. Hi Greg, I read a blog post which I think can enlighten the 'I googled and found nothing' issue. The post pointed out that two people google differently because not all of us have the same 'skill' at it. Thus if you google and get the answer, it is because you may have more 'googling skills'. This skill may be proportional to your Debian skill and thus the more you use Debian, the better your ability to find the answer and the better you can use Debian. It may be useful to show folks what query was used by you and compare it to the one the confused party used, in the same way you should ask for the output of a command like 'route' for comparison with a network problem. Cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System| go to counter.li.org and | | `-http://www.debian.org/ |be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 07:17:00PM +0800, Tim Post wrote: On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 00:32 -0800, David A. wrote: Oh - attitude... I read aptitude! :P I've been a debian-user 1.5 year now and my impression is that the comunity is big and lot's of competent and experienced people - mostly friendly too. Remember that you have thousands and thousands of people conversing over a delayed medium without the benefit of tone of voice or facial expression. That in and of itself could create a civil war in a buddhist temple. That reminds me of a study which I read about (maybe on Slashdot). Basically, they had people pair off with someone woh they personally knew. They had the pairs exchange email messages. They had the sender guess how the receipient would perceive the tone of the messages. The senders basically guessed a 90% correct rate, while the actual rate for the recipients was about 50% for guessing the tone of the message. That is, the senders only felt that 10% of the messages would be misperceived, but obviously it was more than that. So, while we may think that it is obvious that the tone of our messages are light, funny or joking, they may not come across that way. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 12:33:40PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: David A. wrote: BUT.. There is some sour itchy feelings regarding some plicy/political stuff and diffrences in opinion. I've also felt debian morale going down. But my impression is that the huge bulk, the big momentum of Debian keeps on turning and monving in the right direction. No medium size conflicts risk jepordizing the big projekt. I guess I'll get sucked into this, 'cause I see something here that piques my interest now. I don't think it's just Debian's morale that's low -- the hype surrounding Linux overall is down, the real world problems of operating Linux in business have cooled the general hub-bub about Linux and desktop users are finding that an OS that's built to just work suits most people's needs better than an OS or desktop that you have to hack on to get it to do what you want. I see where you are going with this, but I don't think that the fact that Linux now just works out of the box and that you need to hack on Windows to get it into a semi-usable state is the source of low morale. I think it has more to do with the constant FUD spread by MS. Even mutltiple millions of dollars thrown at the problem (Mark Shuttleworth/Ubuntu) still hasn't really addressed the underlying hardware/driver support issues from manufacturers, and the other licensing problems inherent in the system. Because the millions being dumped into Linux are not meant to solve the problems you point out. Hardware/driver support and licensing are social problems. To fix the hardware/driver support problem, you really need to start getting people to only buy hardware which has in-tree (or open source) drivers. When they find a piece of hardware which they want but does not meet the criteria, they need to let the company know. To solve the licensing problem, we need to look at how we have solved the problem of political dogmatism (hint, we have not). Linux still has (and mostly seems to want to keep) that hacker feel (the traditional sense of the term hacker, of course) and that makes it wholly inappropriate for some environments. Always will. Really? I feel that Linux has been losing that hacker feel ever since I started using it. Try using something like SUSE or Red Hat Enterprise. They feel very institutional. There are a chosen few who work on really professional level Linux development, including the majority of the kernel coders these days -- most of the core people are paid to work on it. But the Linux desktop is still quite a joke, really -- compared with the benefits companies have from sticking to Windows environments or even Macs. I have personally deployed a network with 12 workstations at my church. The users are all not tech savvy individuals. I recently started a new job where the users I support work on a network with 200+ Linux workstations/servers. There are only two Windows machines (workstations) on this entire network. Again, none of these folks are hackers and the problems we have are the same as on a windows network, less the problems related to crappy OS stability. Basically, people forget their passwords and accidentally lockout their accounts. That is about as serious as it gets, along with the occasional hardware failure. I love my Linux machines and all their fun desktop options, but the damn things just aren't even close to the standardization and usability of the commercially available alternatives, really. Haha! Standardization in windows? Please. Go and look at how many different (and custom) widget sets MS uses *in their own* apps. Referring again to the 200+ machine network above, everything is standardized to the extent possible because the admins set it up that way. Users can change their defaults and there are some apps which use different toolkits, but nothing crazy. In this respect, Linux is at least on par with windows. Would I recommend Linux desktops for certain business uses, heck yeah... but being a Unix geek for work means that my pidgeon-hole is at the servers in the back room, and my influence on desktop decisions at my organization (and virtually every organization I've worked for) realistically is nil. The Windows kids will always get their way as the desktop experts around here. And I find that okay, I have plenty of work to do keeping the back-room (where the real money is made) running. That, however, does not change the fact that the desktop is where the real money is lost. Think of lost productivity when the version of MS Office is upgraded. Or what about when a virus gets in and the whole division has to be shut down for a day while the systems are cleaned up? Debian does a great job sticking to their guns about things being DSFG-Free or they won't be in main... but people don't understand it and don't like when their shiny new hardware does not work. Hell even their three or four year old
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:10:34AM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... Many of the first reply messages by Tom Eastep on the shorewall-users mailing list are a URL and little else. After having seen this for while I see that it is a good approach. In fact, many of the second reply messages from the users are something like oh, I didn't see that or I did not read closely enough. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* ChadDavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006 Nov 05 21:02 -0600]: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. I'll admit to not following every thread closely, in fact, many I delete without reading at all. A mail agent like Mutt helps a lot in this regard as I can quickly delete those threads that are uninteresting to me. As others have alluded to already, this list is subscribed to by many people from many different walks of life who hold many differing viewpoints. A great many of these subscribers live in the USA and with another election cycle in progress a number of people have their dander up. Fortunately, the incidents of that is low, even here, and in a few weeks it will hopefully subside. Sometimes people are having a bad day and send a message only to (probably) later regret it. And there is the problem that this being a text medium sarcasm or humor are often poorly conveyed. This is just one of those parts of life where the best advice is to just roll with it and glean the knowledge you need and ignore everything else. It's hard to do, but a worthy goal. - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:21:25AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There's something that's always bothered me -- how many developers write usable documentation? And how many technical writers are capable of digging through code and descussions on -devel mailing lists to extract the information that needs to be written? I suspect the answer is few. If so, how cen we ever hope to get the documentation both up-to-date and useful? If you want some examples of excellent and detailed documentation, then take look at Shorewall, PostgreSQL and PHP. I'm not sure if their approaches will scale to the size of Debian, but they are good examples. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Kevin Mark wrote: Hi Greg, I read a blog post which I think can enlighten the 'I googled and found nothing' issue. The post pointed out that two people google differently because not all of us have the same 'skill' at it. Thus if you google and get the answer, it is because you may have more 'googling skills'. This skill may be proportional to your Debian skill and thus the more you use Debian, the better your ability to find the answer and the better you can use Debian. It may be useful to show folks what query was used by you and compare it to the one the confused party used, in the same way you should ask for the output of a command like 'route' for comparison with a network problem. Cheers, Kev Should we let people in on one of the big Google-Fu secrets? The super-secret + character can raise your Google-Fu by many skill levels. :-) There's also the ultra-big-secret (LOL!) http://google.com/linux URL set up by the deep-cover Linux/Google gurus. (Ha, yes... I'm joking about the secret part.) Nate (The + is a modifier for Google that allows you to give Google TWO terms to search for together, usually a better result than just a few words and a single topic. topic 1 + topic 2 type of thing. rsync + Debian Sarge, you know... that sort of thing. Try it out, you'll get addicted to it quickly.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Nate Bargmann wrote: As others have alluded to already, this list is subscribed to by many people from many different walks of life who hold many differing viewpoints. A great many of these subscribers live in the USA and with another election cycle in progress a number of people have their dander up. Fortunately, the incidents of that is low, even here, and in a few weeks it will hopefully subside. Because we all know elections fix everything, if everyone votes. The TV told me so, really! :-) Nate (the OTHER Nate!) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Monday 06 November 2006 16:51, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 10:10:34AM -0500, Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 10:02, Greg Folkert wrote: Couple of lists I am on, the matter of factly answers are all RTFM with exact locations and nothing else. If that is the case, the developers need to rewrite the manual in a way which is understood by others. The content is probably OK but may need reorganization. Getting RTFM questions does not always mean that the reader is/was lazy to search for answers... Many of the first reply messages by Tom Eastep on the shorewall-users mailing list are a URL and little else. After having seen this for while I see that it is a good approach. In fact, many of the second reply messages from the users are something like oh, I didn't see that or I did not read closely enough. I don't think much of those who swing RTFM around like a club. I don't think that's ever helpful. I started Linux with Slackware 0.99. It's not likely that I would have even got to the point of a bootable system, and almost certain that I never would have become a convert, if it hadn't been for the patient help of a very capable teacher. jjohn was system administrator at a local ISP. He introduced me to Linux in general and Slackware in particular. He held my hand when I needed it, and answered a lot of stupid newbie questions. Invariably, he would give me a short answer first. Oh, you just need to do X. or You might have a problem with Y. Here's what I would do. Then he would add, If you want to know why, this HOWTO/webpage/manpage will tell you all about it. In most cases, his first suggestion, X or Y, fixed my immediate problem and got me past another hurdle. My confidence bolstered by a quick fix, I was all the more interested in reading the recommended documentaion to find out why and how it worked.In fairly short order, looking back on it now, I went from the original clueless newbie to a fairly confident Slack user. I owe a debt I can never repay to jjohn. I've been trying to pay it forward ever since. -- Bud Rogers [EMAIL PROTECTED] KD5SZ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* Nate Duehr [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006 Nov 06 17:26 -0600]: Nate Bargmann wrote: As others have alluded to already, this list is subscribed to by many people from many different walks of life who hold many differing viewpoints. A great many of these subscribers live in the USA and with another election cycle in progress a number of people have their dander up. Fortunately, the incidents of that is low, even here, and in a few weeks it will hopefully subside. Because we all know elections fix everything, if everyone votes. The TV told me so, really! :-) That's why I like Speed Channel or ESPN this time of year--no campaign ads. Nate (the OTHER Nate!) WY0X de N0NB - Nate -- Wireless | Amateur Radio Station N0NB | Successfully Microsoft Amateur radio exams; ham radio; Linux info @ | free since January 1998. http://www.qsl.net/n0nb/ | Debian, the choice of My Kawasaki KZ-650 SR @| a GNU generation! http://www.networksplus.net/n0nb/ | http://www.debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* Nate Bargmann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: That's why I like Speed Channel or ESPN this time of year--no campaign ads. You've got to be kidding. What would TV be without campaign ads? I wish they would have a political ad channel so I can watch them all day throughout the year. Of course, there probably is just such a channel. Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 05:25:37PM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 07:17:00PM +0800, Tim Post wrote: On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 00:32 -0800, David A. wrote: Oh - attitude... I read aptitude! :P I've been a debian-user 1.5 year now and my impression is that the comunity is big and lot's of competent and experienced people - mostly friendly too. Remember that you have thousands and thousands of people conversing over a delayed medium without the benefit of tone of voice or facial expression. That in and of itself could create a civil war in a buddhist temple. That reminds me of a study which I read about (maybe on Slashdot). Basically, they had people pair off with someone woh they personally knew. They had the pairs exchange email messages. They had the sender guess how the receipient would perceive the tone of the messages. The senders basically guessed a 90% correct rate, while the actual rate for the recipients was about 50% for guessing the tone of the message. That is, the senders only felt that 10% of the messages would be misperceived, but obviously it was more than that. So, while we may think that it is obvious that the tone of our messages are light, funny or joking, they may not come across that way. Then factor in: Two correspondants who have different first languages, possibly neither english yet now emailing in english. Different cultural ways of interpreting the same written phrase. It takes great skill to communicate effectivly using written language, especially across ethno/cultural/linguistic barriers. No one has this skill to perfection yet everyone has something to offer. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Want REAL attitude? Try OpenBSD. Now THAT's an attitude. (And we'll leave it up to you to decide if it's good or bad... that's a judgement call I'm not prepared to discuss on a Linux list! GRIN...) Openbsd is not for newbies. Faq is must_to_read for it. Don't think I would be up for that one. I did try installing FreeBSD right before moving to Debian (I was in one of those experimental 'let's try a new OS' moods) and I did what I usually did and started lurking in lists getting prepared to ask questions. Very intense bunch, sort of like Linux concentrate. Never got the chance to ask one of my patented newbie questions, and I may be better off for having not. :-) Lol. You should first read excelent book in /usr/share/doc. All unices are documented enough. Just none wants to waste time for that. Zoran -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 12:33 -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: serious money, serious effort, serious uptime -- similar to the Dilbert Unix cartoon where the guy with the white hair, suspenders, and a smug expression says, Here's a nickel kid, get yourself a better computer., and tosses Dilbert a nickel. Mainframe guys and gals are both cool, and at the same time, somewhat odd. :-) You wouldn't have a link to this one, by any chance? Thanks Hans -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Welcome to Debian :/ Anytime I've asked similar questions I get told to 'install windows', or something along those lines. It's easy trade-off for such a great Distro. Plus there /are/ a lot of helpful Debian users out there. ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 19:57:16 -0700 ChadDavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Hi Chand, how R u this evening ? :) I have been a member of the debian community for over 4 years, I'm a former RH user, and although they have pretty good support, their list is nowhere near as good as this one, I do agree with you that some arguments get a little bit out of control here... but It's part of the fun :) Debian is a great distro, and from what I've seen tends to attract highly skilled guys, usually with more experience than other distros, and for sure with _strong_ points of view, that mix is not always very stable, sometimes sparks fly we exchange some paint... but in the end everything turns out ok ;) []'s rodrigo -- = \ .-. +++ Rodrigo Paes +++ \ / /v\CCIE #14054 (RS and SP)/ \// \\ LPIC2 #19753\ / /( )\ Linux User #324449 / \^^-^^ \ / jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / \ gtalk : [EMAIL PROTECTED]\ == -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. -- Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
* ChadDavis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Hello Chad, Like you I am new, and so I thought I would make a quick comment. After finally making the leap and installing Debian I decided, as I usually do, to find a mailing list so that I can get an idea of the community and stay ahead of troubles. And I did so with a bit of trepidation. I had heard a lot of complaining in other fora about the arrogance of Debian folk and really expected a flamefest here. That couldn't have been farther from the truth, at least as I have seen it. While I suppose there have been arguments, and what would a Linux mailing list be without them ;-), I have not seen anything really rude yet, though I may have missed something as I don't read every single thread. What I have seen has been a lot of solid technical help offered out to newbies like me without any condescension. Having seen a lot of fora surrounding Linux I can say without hesitation that this is the best and least obnoxious I have ever spent time around. Like I said, I am a newbie, and so cannot even begin to comment for this community. But, I would like to say that maybe you just read a few unusual threads in a row. I am confident that, like myself, given a very brief time you will find that this list is actually quite exceptional for its lack of vitriol, and in these circles that is worth experiencing. I think I commented elsewhere here that if the debian-users list is indicative of the style or personality of the Debian community overall then they have nothing to worry about. Just my two cents worth, and with inflation being what it is... Patrick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 07:57:16PM -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Oftentimes, the discussions on this list concern highly subjective matters. For instance, which is the best databse to use, the best text editor, the best desktop environment, the best mail client and so on. Other times, the discussions turn political or religious (just look at some of the longest threads on this list). Those sorts of discussions tend to involve at least a small element of personal beliefs. This can come out as attitude and create conflict. I am of the opinion that these sorts of discussions have a net benefit, even if the occasional harsh word is exchanged. Regards, -Rberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://people.connexer.com/~roberto http://www.connexer.com signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: what's up with all the attitude
On Monday 06 November 2006 03:47, Kent West wrote: ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. It's nothing the Debian developers can't fix ;) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Pollywog wrote: On Monday 06 November 2006 03:47, Kent West wrote: ChadDavis wrote: But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. We're people; people are imperfect. It's nothing the Debian developers can't fix ;) ... In time for all us users to file many many bug reports against the human package, which will be deemed unfixable by the package maintainer and become Orphaned forever with only the critical bugs fixed (hopefully) before each release. That is, of course, if we can even find a DD who's brave enough to do an ITP on the package after someone files a Wishlist bug to have it built. And it's highly likely due to the complexity of the Author's upstream source for creating the human software, that there's some hidden problems deeply rooted in the fact that even though human is relatively easy to dissect, it's difficult to understand what the code is doing and/or going to do, which makes the Security team's job very difficult... And there's likely to be debates over which license the human is operating under... commonly known as religions in end-user terms. Once all this came to light, Debian would likely have to pull human from the main branch and either carry human only in contrib or not at all, depending on the licensing used and whether or not there were enough developers that believe that our DNA is all the source code needed to consider human DSFG-Free. Of course there's always the possibility that the non-Free aspects of human could be removed and the package, while mostly crippled and unusable, and with a new stupid(er) name would be allowed to remain in main. :-) :-) :-) Nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: what's up with all the attitude
Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: On Sun, Nov 05, 2006 at 07:57:16PM -0700, ChadDavis wrote: I've recently started using this list. You might say that I've recently joined the debian community. Its great. Very intelligent and helpful. But what's with all the attitude people flash around here. Have the threads I read end up in some petty bickering. Oftentimes, the discussions on this list concern highly subjective matters. For instance, which is the best databse to use, the best text editor, the best desktop environment, the best mail client and so on. Other times, the discussions turn political or religious (just look at some of the longest threads on this list). Those sorts of discussions tend to involve at least a small element of personal beliefs. This can come out as attitude and create conflict. I am of the opinion that these sorts of discussions have a net benefit, even if the occasional harsh word is exchanged. Regards, -Rberto agreed, regards, steef -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
