On Thu, 18 Sep 2008, Jo Rhett wrote:
And my e-mails have always discussed ways to get more resources.
Recently we even had a group of people trying to arrange for more
explicit corporate support for testing and release process. For
some reason unclear to me, not a single developer has stepped up
and said "Great. Here's how we could use you..." The entire
concept of getting *more resources* is the elephant in the room
that everyone seems intent to avoid considering.
On Sep 18, 2008, at 12:22 PM, Robert Watson wrote:
No, we're just waiting for you to go ahead and do it.
Um, how? I suspect you're being sarcastic, but I'll take this at
straight value. I have repeatedly said "I could commit X resources,
and I know others who are likewise willing to make a proposal for the
same with their employer, if our efforts could help improve Y problem."
Not a single person, *not one*, has ever taken the proposal seriously
enough to sit down and discuss with me what kind of resources are
necessary to solve this problem. Seriously, go back and read every
reply to me on this or the other thread. Every one says "We aren't
going to do it."
No, we'd love it if more people were paid to work on things like
this, but there are two practical problems: (1) finding people, and
(2) paying them.
At the moment I will only speak for myself, so let's start there. I
write code. I do integration and testing for a living. I currently
maintain a number of ports, including cfengine -- which I personally
added the PKGMGR code to for FreeBSD support. My employer is paying
my salary, and is willing to dedicate some of my time to the FreeBSD
project as a whole. (already does in fact, on the table is to
increase that amount)
(1) you've found me and (2) I'm already being paid.
There are others in the same situation.
All of us are busy people -- we have jobs, we have houses with
mortgages, etc, and those of us who are already spending a lot of
time on FreeBSD are probably pretty maxed out without adding more to
our plates. You seem to have a lot of energy to burn sending e-mail
about how to improve the world, and I think what the rest of us
would like to see is that energy get turned to the more practical
part of the problem.
As would I. If we could focus on how to improve the situation which
has been very well described, we'd be doing something. I don't think
you have any idea how frustrating it has been -- I'm here. I'm ready
to help. We need to determine how to do this... and nobody will even
discuss the problems with me.
(if this was a port or a single component then I'd just go run away
and do it myself. But the release process is obviously much more
complex and I couldn't possibly replicate it or extend it in any
fashion from the outside)
If you are literally standing there with money that you can't figure
out how to spend, contact the FreeBSD Foundation Board with a
specific proposal regarding the amount of money and what you're
trying to accomplish. Perhaps we can help you identify people who
would take the money, companies that might want to be involved, help
provide some matching funding, etc. However, it needs to be at
least a strawman concrete proposal, because waving hands only gets
you so far. And it has to be something worth taking time away from
all the other things busy people get up to in life, such as
optimizing network stacks, fixing file system bugs, supporting
releases, etc, or the endeavour has hurt rather than helped.
From our experience, there is a lot more money than there is people's
time to address the problem. (as you note above and in the final
sentence here) I'm trying to offer something -- more people, already
paid, to provide more assistance. But since this involves the release
process, we'd have to be integrated into the effort to be useful.
FYI: this message is the first I've seen that is going somewhere
good. I hope you'll take what I am saying seriously. I'm going to
stop replying to many of the other subthreads because they aren't
going anywhere good, and I'm probably replying too often anyway.
--
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source
and other randomness
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