Developerfests vs Installfests

[Christopher Browne]

On 6/29/06, Scott Elcomb <psema4-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 6/29/06, Jason Spiro <jasonspiro4-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > On 6/29/06, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > > You guys are missing the point of how free software has come to be in
> > > the first place.  Without people volunteering to write code, there
> > > would be no Linux, no GCC, no GNU tools, no X.org, no PostgreSQL, no
> > > Apache, no Perl.
> > >
> > > There would be no Linux distributions, and there would be no TLUG.
> > >
> > > Admittedly, it all exists, now, and people that are incapable of
> > > imagining working on it "for free" can sponge off the efforts of all
> > > the volunteers.  Indeed, people that are unwilling to do anything
> > > without being paid can use the software without paying the people that
> > > were willing.
> > >
> > Many do non-developers do send bug reports or write documentation
> > (e.g. on webpages or on wikis) though.
>
>
> Coding is overrated IMO.  It's cool, but overrated.
>
> There are so many other aspects to developing products that
> "non-programmers" are needed for.  Media, PR, organization, project
> management - these are all things sucessful projects require, and most
> need help with.

Show me a project that has a good set of non-programmers but no
programmers that has produced useful software, and I'll gladly agree.

At the base, software projects require that code be written.  Without
that, there is no project.

People can help by doing other things.  Submitting good bug reports is
something I'd put high on the list.

But you can only influence free software projects in limited ways if
you aren't writing code.  And I see no reason for apology for that;
far too often, the fact that business-based development operates the
opposite way leads to the many sorts of idiocy recounted in Dilbert
cartoons.

The idiots that couldn't write the software if their lives depended on
it make ludicrous promises about functionality that they aren't
responsible to live up to.

One of the reasons why many of us came to Linux is that it was created
by programmers for programmers, rather than being designed by morons
for morons.  I see no reason to apologize for that; it wasn't a
mistake.
-- 
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`||'s unless you think Gödel's theorem is for sissies'.
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