6 ms·

It's kind of off-putting, to be honest. This quintessential open-source abrasiveness is fine and dandy until you start asking for cold hard cash.

by doktrin 13y ago

Fomite 13y ago
This. Don't be a dick to people giving you money - customers or donors. If you can't turn it off, don't be donor facing.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  Sure, they should totally just get their PR person on it. Oh look, now they're asking for $40,000
  - Fomite 13y ago
    Is there no one at OpenBSD who can't not be a dick? The situation is more dire than I thought.
  - jethro_tell 13y ago
    From what I can tell the current mentality is: We don't need to accept feature requests or patches to get donors, we could just get more users and sell CDs "oh Look here's a poor idiot in the Mailing list that didn't become a UNIX expert before asking a question, let's flame the shit out of him." Alright Let's collect some money. Wanna know why? fuck you it! It just needs to be this way. Wanna help or suggest a solution? fuck you unless it's a check. How is this system not working?
    - vinceguidry 13y ago
      I'm sure they have their reasons and they've already carefully thought through all of the most common suggestions. The project's been around for awhile.
      - doktrin 13y ago
        Frankly, that sounds a lot like an appeal to authority. "They probably are doing the right thing because they are who they are" isn't really a valid argument.
        vinceguidry 13y ago
        You must be a hoot at parties.
      - jethro_tell 13y ago
        That's probably true, a simple, polite answer or even a no comment would be far less abrasive. Here's his answer to 'maybe we should evaluate the scope of the project and see if we still need to support VAX': >Now, If you don't realize this is the reason we try to run on the older platforms, I am sorry but you have really not tried to stay in the loop of what makes OpenBSD a vibrant ecosystem. If you aren't in the loop regarding this, then your mail comes off pretty darn preachy. >I really love how we keep getting advice. >Anyone want to suggest we hold a bake sale? A simple no answer would do. Or maybe just the actual reason he runs the VAX.
  - coolnow 13y ago
    You don't need a PR person; you just need someone who's not a dick.
    - vinceguidry 13y ago
      I daresay any of their developers would quickly turn into dicks having to deal with that kind of public exposure.
      - jethro_tell 13y ago
        And that's where disenfranchising non dev types is a real problem. Theo talks about pulling devs to make shirts and stickers and how that's a waste of time, but there are people out there that aren't kernel hackers that love to contribute to something bigger than themselves. No one's good at everything and the OpenBSD persona of being for and including only experts has made them a very lopsided organization with loads of talent but no diversity of skills. Being nice to stupid people is as much of a skill as hacking up some kernel code.
        keithpeter 13y ago
        "Being nice to stupid people is as much of a skill as hacking up some kernel code." I'd rephrase that as 'finding simple tasks peripheral to the main effort that would allow non-expert people to contribute time to the project without detracting from the main work'.
        vinceguidry 13y ago
        I'm not saying you're wrong. But we have to get realistic here, OpenBSD is not going to turn into Canonical, not overnight, maybe not ever. I'm sure we would all love for it to suddenly sprout a bedside manner, but it probably won't, and you or me sitting around saying it needs one isn't helpful. What we can rely on it being is technologically awesome. What else can you say that about? If you try to change the culture of OpenBSD, assuming that's even possible, the quality will inevitably suffer. Could you honestly say you'd prefer OpenBSD to be more like Ubuntu?
  - transitionality 13y ago
    We need PR people to devote their time and expertise to open source projects, just as developers do. We wouldn't even need a very good one. I bet some kid still in school, studying PR, would do a better job than Theo.

It's kind of off-putting, to be honest. This quintessential open-source abrasiveness is fine and dandy until you start asking for cold hard cash.

by doktrin 13y ago

It's kind of off-putting, to be honest. This quintessential open-source abrasiveness is fine and dandy until you start asking for cold hard cash.

Fomite 13y ago

This. Don't be a dick to people giving you money - customers or donors. If you can't turn it off, don't be donor facing.

vinceguidry 13y ago
Sure, they should totally just get their PR person on it. Oh look, now they're asking for $40,000
- Fomite 13y ago
  Is there no one at OpenBSD who can't not be a dick? The situation is more dire than I thought.
- jethro_tell 13y ago
  From what I can tell the current mentality is: We don't need to accept feature requests or patches to get donors, we could just get more users and sell CDs "oh Look here's a poor idiot in the Mailing list that didn't become a UNIX expert before asking a question, let's flame the shit out of him." Alright Let's collect some money. Wanna know why? fuck you it! It just needs to be this way. Wanna help or suggest a solution? fuck you unless it's a check. How is this system not working?
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    I'm sure they have their reasons and they've already carefully thought through all of the most common suggestions. The project's been around for awhile.
    - doktrin 13y ago
      Frankly, that sounds a lot like an appeal to authority. "They probably are doing the right thing because they are who they are" isn't really a valid argument.
      - vinceguidry 13y ago
        You must be a hoot at parties.
    - jethro_tell 13y ago
      That's probably true, a simple, polite answer or even a no comment would be far less abrasive. Here's his answer to 'maybe we should evaluate the scope of the project and see if we still need to support VAX': >Now, If you don't realize this is the reason we try to run on the older platforms, I am sorry but you have really not tried to stay in the loop of what makes OpenBSD a vibrant ecosystem. If you aren't in the loop regarding this, then your mail comes off pretty darn preachy. >I really love how we keep getting advice. >Anyone want to suggest we hold a bake sale? A simple no answer would do. Or maybe just the actual reason he runs the VAX.
- coolnow 13y ago
  You don't need a PR person; you just need someone who's not a dick.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    I daresay any of their developers would quickly turn into dicks having to deal with that kind of public exposure.
    - jethro_tell 13y ago
      And that's where disenfranchising non dev types is a real problem. Theo talks about pulling devs to make shirts and stickers and how that's a waste of time, but there are people out there that aren't kernel hackers that love to contribute to something bigger than themselves. No one's good at everything and the OpenBSD persona of being for and including only experts has made them a very lopsided organization with loads of talent but no diversity of skills. Being nice to stupid people is as much of a skill as hacking up some kernel code.
      - keithpeter 13y ago
        "Being nice to stupid people is as much of a skill as hacking up some kernel code." I'd rephrase that as 'finding simple tasks peripheral to the main effort that would allow non-expert people to contribute time to the project without detracting from the main work'.
      - vinceguidry 13y ago
        I'm not saying you're wrong. But we have to get realistic here, OpenBSD is not going to turn into Canonical, not overnight, maybe not ever. I'm sure we would all love for it to suddenly sprout a bedside manner, but it probably won't, and you or me sitting around saying it needs one isn't helpful. What we can rely on it being is technologically awesome. What else can you say that about? If you try to change the culture of OpenBSD, assuming that's even possible, the quality will inevitably suffer. Could you honestly say you'd prefer OpenBSD to be more like Ubuntu?
- transitionality 13y ago
  We need PR people to devote their time and expertise to open source projects, just as developers do. We wouldn't even need a very good one. I bet some kid still in school, studying PR, would do a better job than Theo.