On 11/10/2014 02:13 AM, Raphael Hertzog wrote: > On Sun, 09 Nov 2014, John Goerzen wrote: >> Debian is a making-the-world-better project, a caring for people >> project, a freedom-spreading project. Free Software is our tool. > [...] >> My plea is that we each may get angry at what matters, and let go of the >> smaller frustrations in life; that we may each find something more >> important than init/systemd to derive enjoyment and meaning from. [5] > Thank you for your message. > > It might not be what I was thinking when I joined Debian but over time > it has became clear to me that there's more than just having fun building > the best operating system, though this is still a core motivation > and we should be very cautious to not destroy the fun others are having, > even when when we don't share their opinions. Thanks, Raphael.
This is a really important point that is easy to lose. I probably am guilty of that from time to time myself. Sometimes there is a cost to being right, or to convincing others to follow what you want - the risk of taking the fun out of a volunteer project, of alienating people that feel otherwise. It is hard to judge, especially with a project made up of people that rarely see each other in person. When a bunch of technical people get together as volunteers to build something, it takes both technical and social skill to complete the job. We put the former on a high pedestal with good reason, but sometimes neglect the latter. We clearly have a lot of work to do, but we have also come a long way. Some of us remember the days before an elected DPL, or before we took a strong stance against poisonous people on our mailing lists, and I can assure everyone that this project has made a lot of social changes that we should be proud of. And we have a lot more that needs to be done, too. John > > To all the persons who are going to be disappointed, please follow John's > advice or find a better way to channel your anger into something positive > (either in Debian or somewhere else, it's not a big deal). Don't use it > against other Debian contributors, because you would only contribute > to destroy what we have built together. > > Cheers, -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/54613bf0.7000...@complete.org
