On Tue, 16 Jul 2002, Jos� Fonseca wrote: >> > > As far as development being stuck, no, I don't think so. It's just >> > > that the people who know enough about anything to get things done are >> > > very few. >> > True, but there are reasons for that. >> > >> >> The reason is that this stuff is difficult. We get so many college >> kids that just learned C wanting to help. The help is appreciated, but >> there are few things that they can do beside fix simple bugs and they >> get discouraged. There's not much you can do about this. Changing >> the project's mission statement doesn't make the work any easier. We >> need people with years of experience either in graphics driver development >> or in some other aspect of window system operation and that is hard >> to come by. > >Excuse me!? > >The XFree86 developer page (http://www.xfree86.org/developer) says and I >quote: > > "When requesting to join the XFree86, the most important qualification is >not your experience level but your keeness on contributing to the project >and climbing the uphill road to learning and mastering XFree86." > >And now a core member completely states otherwise!?
I don't interpret what Mark said like that at all. Both statements are true. The developer page indicates that new developers are always welcome, and that developers are welcome to the project based on their keenness for contributing. My interpretation of what Mark is saying above, is that while help from anyone regardless of skill is appreciated, those without a lot of skill do not contribute a lot in practice to the project, and that those who do have a lot of skill in graphics driver development and/or window system development have a lot more to offer to the project. In other words, who is more likely to be a greater asset to the XFree86 project? 1) An experienced developer with years of experience writing graphics drivers and GUI systems. 2) A college student without much skill in the area, but with a willingness to try and learn, and contribute what they can. Obviously, someone with more experience, is going to be able to do more work more quickly, and of general higher quality. There may be exceptions to this generalization, but they are definitely the exceptions, and not the rule. Of course, in either case, contributions from everyone willing to contribute are welcome and encouraged. >> The fact of the matter is that dozens of new developers >> with little or no window system experience are going to do little to >> move the project forward. > >I couldn't disagree more with this. I'll give you my example - not because >it's the best example out there but because it's the one I can better >describe. > >I'm a mechanical engineer - my formation includes just an intro to >Pascal and Fortran programming. My programming skills were self tought >since my 10 years, but have very few things that I can show as programming >experience proof. Not to mention window systems: up to this date I've >still to make one GUI or 3D application. > >Nevertheless, after switching to Linux only on last October, I've study the >OpenGL spec, made a developer's FAQ with all information I could gather >the DRI, got CVS access, and together with another guy (whom background >isn't also computer science but art) brought the Mach64 DRI driver from >barely a draft to the point which is almost ready to inclusion in a >release. This included getting familiar with CVS, linux kernel programming, >the DRI architecture, X, and a almost complete rewrite of the code due >the Mesa 4.0 architectural changes. You're one of the few. Somewhat of an "exception" that is to the general rule. >According to your point of view we should have never given the trust >that the kind DRI folks put on us since we had no experience. The fact is >that we made the experience. And it is this trust on new people that is >exploding in new developers willing to help (and actually doing so) on >the DRI project. I think you are misinterpreting Mark here again. Mark isn't saying at all that only people with years of experience should be allowed to work on the XFree86 project. What he's saying is that everyone is free to contribute, however in order to REALLY push the project forward, it needs to gain more developers who DO have a lot of experience in the area. I agree with that generally. That does not mean that others do not contribute, nor that the project isn't helped by others. It is in the "scale" of what a person can do based on their experience. >Ironically, for a couple of months I've been trying to join the XFree86 >developer team but after all this time this process still didn't >finish... and every now and then one reads threads about how the XFree86 >developers can't cope with the number of patches and feature requests... Well, I'd be surprised if you would be rejected from joining the XFree86 member development team after your current efforts working on DRI with Mach64. How exactly have you been attempting to join? Perhaps something is messed up with that process. >I'm sorry to say that is the kind of attitude that you (and others >like you) have towards potential new developers that is holding the >XFree86 development down. You fail to realize that there is a thin line >between the experienced and not experienced, and that those who do have >the experience also have the power to quickly transform an unexperience >yet motivated soul into an experienced one. Again, I think you've misinterpreted what Mark is trying to say, and have taken it as an insult personally. I'm willing to wager that Mark's intentions are not as you've perceived them. Either way, more developers are needed in order to get a lot more work done. Those developers can be anyone, experienced or not. Someone experienced is likely to be able to contribute more than someone not experienced - at least until the lesser experienced person gains experience. That is just common sense. ><dream> >Give CVS access for more people, open up the development, close >the closed development mailing lists, substitute the central development >model for effective QA, incentivate people to help, and make sure their >involvement is appreciate... ></dream> I'm all for seeing the developmental processes continue to become more open. For the record though, the private mailing lists truely do not contain much content at all. There might be one or two mails a week, and they are generally nothing that important at all. People who think a large amount of discussion goes on in private mailing lists of the XFree86 project are simply wrong. Everything is done right here on xpert list. In fact, any time someone does start a discussion on a private list, Keith or someone else tend to tell them to move the discussion to xpert list. There is little if any discussion I've seen on the private lists that really are private. For all realistic purposes, the lists don't really exist. More people with CVS write access to the trunk is something that I think should be very carefully considered. David et al need to be comfortable that giving someone write access is the right thing to do first. That is something one has to earn by showing they know what they're doing, and that having write access would alleviate core members from having to commit things. I don't see any problems that would be caused however from having branches of CVS available that other developers could use. That would be a good thing IMHO. If there were a larger number of active contributors contributing frequently in a linux-kernel style, that increased the patch submission burden beyond what core developers could handle, and some of those developers obviously showed skill at separating the good stuff from the bad, I've a feeling David would have little objection to adding more people as long as it saved him work and didn't create him work (or other core members). That's my personal opinion though, I can't speak for the core team. -- Mike A. Harris Shipping/mailing address: OS Systems Engineer 190 Pittsburgh Ave., Sault Ste. Marie, XFree86 maintainer Ontario, Canada, P6C 5B3 Red Hat Inc. http://www.redhat.com ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris _______________________________________________ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
