On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 03:24:54PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Well, I was also being polite. The developer community is not
> exactly friendly to newcomers in general either. some persons are,
> but those people tend to have less to say then the ones who are
> not.
Not to defend some of the more offensive responses made on
debian-devel from time to time, but people can be jerks, and the
Debian development community is made up (mostly) of people. Also,
this community is comprised of individuals from across the globe,
and while English is the designated common language for interaction
on this discussion list, it is quite often not the poster's
primary/first language (leading to frequent, unintended
interpretation of statements in both directions). Further, Debian
embraces freedom above all else, and one of the commonly-recognized
freedoms observed is the freedom to speak one's mind; thus
potentially abrasive conversation becomes not only possible, but
somewhat protected (if productive and on-topic, at least).
Interestingly, it has been tradition within the computing community
that direct, forward, even harsh communication is often more
effective when it comes to getting things accomplished quickly
(though opinions certainly exist to the contrary as well), not to
mention it's an all-too-typical personality trait that computer
enthusuasts tend to lack some of the more common social graces (I
include myself in this stereotype).
> You don't give a toddler a steak, you give him something he can
> swallow. Taking a look at all of the abandoned packages there are
> a lot of developers needed here. I believe a lot of people like me
> would assist if they could get a little more direction instead of
> derisiveness.
And the best place to find this is on the debian-mentors list, where
first-time package maintainers are expected. The debian-devel list
is targeted at (primarily technical) discussion around development
of Debian's software distribution as a whole, and many involved in
discussions herein expect that participants are well-versed in
software development, APT package maintenance, and the like.
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