[ale] Fedora grousing

[Scott McBrien]

> On Oct 23, 2013, at 10:59 AM, James Sumners <james.sumners at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 10:46 AM, Scott McBrien <smcbrien at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's all well and good that you grouse to someone.  You get that great "Well now they've heard it." feeling.  If you don't write it down, you run the risk of it being forgotten.  Additionally, it has been my experience that telling someone about your problem or suggestion is usually not a very effective way to promote change.  Conversely, if you tell then about a problem and a solution, it's better.  Ultimately, if you tell them about the problem and present them a working, completed solution, you'll get a lot more traction.
>> 
>> I've found that if someone is passionate about something, they find the time.  I used to be a lot more involved in Fedora than I am now.  My life changed, I lost some passion for the work, and I moved to another position where I can contribute, but it requires less time.  Having been in the Fedora community for some time I can say the more you contribute, the louder your voice, but they really are true to the do what you want/can approach.  If you don't have much time, there are things you can do if you still want to contribute to the community.  For example, I take care of ordering most of the swag that goes with ambassadors to shows and events.  All in all, I spend about 4-6 hours a month on it, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Is it writing code?  No.  Can I go off and tell Spot what needs to happen with the distro?  Yes, but he probably won't take me that seriously.  However, in doing work that needs to be done, and if I wasn't doing it it either wouldn't get done, or !
> wo!
>> uld fall onto someone else's shoulders.
> 
> 
> This is exactly the problem illustrated in the Linus thread I linked
> earlier this morning. Yes, contributing the solution is likely to get
> the problem solved quicker. This is known. But when a user points out
> a problem, he isn't doing it because he hates your product. He's doing
> it because he would like to see it be better; he just might not have
> the skill set and/or time to do it himself. Ignoring that user because
> he didn't fix the damn thing himself is NOT the answer.

The problem is that opinions are free and cost nothing to espouse.  People do it All. The. Time.  So if you have three people for a proposed feature and three people against, how do you choose?  You have to weight the votes or it's all just noise.  Someone has to make a decision, someone is going to be unhappy with that decision, but things move forward.  Open Source prides itself on being open to all, but that's also why we have eleventy-billion forks of everything!  I don't like what you're doing, so I'm going to take what you have and 'do it right'.  At some point, you have to have a benevolent overlord who makes the call.

Am I happy with all of the decisions if Fedora Engineering?  No.  Am I unhappy enough to quit or stop contributing?  Also no.

-Scott