Re: 8.2 features status - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From andrew@dunslane.net
Subject Re: 8.2 features status
Date
Msg-id 2198.24.211.165.134.1154739865.squirrel@www.dunslane.net
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: 8.2 features status  (Gregory Stark <gsstark@mit.edu>)
Responses Re: 8.2 features status
Re: 8.2 features status
List pgsql-hackers
> There seems to be a lack of recognition here of how free software
> development
> works. When people are contributing their time scratching an itch for
> their
> own edification the LAST thing they want is to have a manager to report
> to.
>

I am sick of hearing lectures on this. It is simply NOT true that free
software follows a single model of development. There are many projects
and all have their own methods, some formal and some not very formal. But
the idea that there is ONE method is simply nonsense. You really ought to
know better.


>> > As far as the "problem in need of solving," it's what Andrew Dunstan
>> > referred to as "splendid isolation," which is another way of saying,
>> > "letting the thing you've taken on gather dust while people think
>> > you're working on it."
>
> Really you guys are talking as if the developers that are working for the
> most
> part on an entirely volunteer basis have some sort of responsibility to
> you.
> They do not. If they don't feel like tell you where they're at then feel
> free
> to ask for your money back.
>
> Now if you think you have some tool that will make it easier for
> developers to
> do something they honestly want to do then feel free to suggest it and
> make it
> available. But if you want to dictate how programmers work for the gain of
> others you're going to have a hard time swimming against the current.
>
> Now not all the developers working on Postgres are unpaid volunteers. But
> the
> ones that aren't have their own managers to report to already and their
> own
> timelines and other responsibilities to deal with. They're not being paid
> to
> meet yours.
>


Really, you are suggesting that a volunteer coimmunity is incapable of
actually organising itself in any coherent fashion, and that only money
will motivate people to act with any sense of responsibility to others.
FYI I have never got a penny for the work I have done on Postgres. I would
not object to an occasional query about items I had undertaken to
implement.

Greg, you are on an utterly wrong track here. Try to look about a bit more
broadly.

cheers

andrew



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