Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Engaging users: initial results of the survey

On Tue, 12 Nov 2013 15:45:24 -0800 (PST)
Pedro <pedlino@gmail.com> wrote:

> You are missing the voluntary concept. Voluntary doesn't mean that
> you do what you feel like when you feel like. It means that you are
> volunteering your time and/or skills for some project. Someone
> coordinates the tasks no matter how uncomfortable and assigns them.
> Then everybody contributes to do it on the agreed schedule. 
>
> Do you think it is a pleasure to go out at night during the Winter to
> distribute food to the homeless? Yet volunteers do this...

Sigh. You miss the point. Yes, volunteer firefighters go selflessly
into burning buildings without pay, because it is their job. Volunteers
go out at night in winter distributing food to the homeless, without
pay, because they have volunteered. But you are still relying on their
goodwill. If they decide that it is too much effort, they can quit at
any time. The same for the developers. If they become too frustrated
with the bugs they are working on, they can just stop working. For a
couple of days, weeks, months, even years. Or just never come back to
the project. One wants to avoid that. And it also means that one can't
*force* a developer to work on something. If I volunteer as a
firefighter, and get to a burning building, and decide I don't want to
go in, there is nothing stopping me from just taking my firefighter kit
off and leaving. It's bad form, but you're missing the point that you
can't stand there telling me I *have* to go in. We are relying on at
least some goodwill from the developers. Don't spit on that.

And if I volunteer as a firefighter, and get to an apartment complex
that is burning, and the fire chief decides that we need to go into the
top level apartments first, due to structural integrity concerns,
people being in them, etc, you can't, as a member of the crowd gathered
to watch, start insisting that I go into one of the middle floor
apartments to rescue your daughter's doll. I may be a volunteer, but
that doesn't mean you can force me.

Because that is what we are talking about. Hey, it's your analogy.
Well, actually the firefighter analogy was Ken's.

Remember, you are not a developer. The developers fix bugs. When you
fix bugs, you get to choose which ones you work on. The developers fix
the bugs, so they get to choose which ones they work on. And they
*don't* just choose whichever one they want. They have a process for
deciding. One that most people think works pretty well. Maybe it can
stand a few improvements, but on the whole it is pretty good. And you,
as a user, get to jump up and down and make noise about your bug all
you want, and hope they will notice it and prioritise it, but you can't
*force* them to work on it. And you may feel that it is the most
important thing right now, but they have a bigger picture, and if they
say it goes to the back of the queue, it goes to the back of the queue.
Same as any software, commercial or FOSS. Unless you are doing
it yourself (fixing the bugs), or paying for it yourself, you don't get
to decide. The people who make it do. And they decide based on what is
going to sell more.


> Paul-6 wrote
> > > I'm suggesting that a compromise based volunteer model is applied
> > > to all, not just to developers. Then you might start to see a
> > > change and a real community ;)
> > I'm not following; who apart from the developers would you apply
> > this to? To what end?
>
> To anyone contributing to this project. It is quite obvious by your
> comment that anyone who can't code isn't an important part of this
> project. Someone like myself who helps irregularly on AskLO. Someone
> who helps irregularly on Translation. Someone who helps on
> Documentation... all those useless non-developers... 
Don't put words in my mouth!
I have *never* said that only people who can code count. I have *never*
even implied that. And I certainly don't believe it.
And I'll thank you to not slander me in the future.

> If there is a sense of responsibility and commitment so that you can
> actually feel that people are doing whatever is needed within a
> defined schedule (not just " what they want, when they want") then
> you can create a real community and move forward much faster.
I still don't get the relevance. We were talking about the developers
not fixing a few bugs for some years. I was arguing that we can't
force them to fix any specific bugs, and that they are doing a good job
of prioritising bugs. You were arguing that we should force them to
work on whichever bugs you thought they should work on. How does the
rest of the community factor into this?


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