I haven't been someone who tried to "contribute to fvwm". I'm just a user. I have to say I haven't had any problems with Thomas Adam or anyone else at fvwm who helped me.
I had one issue (trying to find out if I could do something with fvwm) about a year ago and I pestered Thomas and others (mainly off list, if I recall correctly) with all kinds of tedious stuff and was never told off. I was given help and frank opinions. It might well be the case that some people might have problems with him- no one is liked by everyone else, but I REALLY don't see him as "problematic". -----Original Message----- From: Bert Geens [mailto:marelo...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 9:20 AM To: Harry portobello Cc: fvwm@fvwm.org Subject: Re: FVWM: FAO: Thomas Adam - list attitudes and unveiling the person behind email On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 1:17 AM, Harry portobello <harryportobe...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > *snip* > > Some people prefer not to waste time with added fluff while communicating, hackers are quite known for this (see also RMS, Linus, Theo, etc.). These people are often very busy and will not waste time with superfluous niceties. I know I spend way too much time when writing mails (like this one *cough*) or blog posts or whatever trying to be as neutral as possible and trying to definitely not offend anyone (unless my intention is exactly that, of course ;-)). People like Thomas just gets the message across. No bullshit. I can understand that for some these very short and to the point answers can feel "rude" but they certainly aren't meant that way. If Thomas says "not an Fvwm problem" then he has looked into it, you can't really expect him to go fix $RANDOM_APPLICATION for you (though he has been known to actually do just that as well). If he says "I won't do this" you at least know where you're at, it's his time, he gets to decide what to spend it on. Most people would just have ignored the question entirely, if you think of it this way, which one is the rude response? So while I wouldn't recommend Thomas for a PR position (I'm sure he doesn't really have any ambitions in that direction, many apologies if I'm wrong though) I don't find his way of communicating offensive. It is just way more direct than most people are used to and the latter imho is the important part: people just aren't used to it. I hope this e-mail has helped at least some people reading this list to see things in a different light. Kind regards, Bert Geens
