From owner-freebsd-chat Thu May 13 11:19:36 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from picnic.mat.net (picnic.mat.net [206.246.122.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8668150FE for ; Thu, 13 May 1999 11:19:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from chuckr@picnic.mat.net) Received: from localhost (chuckr@localhost) by picnic.mat.net (8.9.3/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA01576; Thu, 13 May 1999 14:16:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 14:16:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey To: David Schwartz Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: cvs commit: src/sys/pci pcisupport.c In-Reply-To: <000a01be9d6c$b4dffec0$021d85d1@whenever.youwant.to> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 13 May 1999, David Schwartz wrote: > > > OK. Much of what I'm going to say here is pure opinion, understand; I > > don't hold it forth as fact (like I did the top paragraph). The > > situation that I *think* you want, where the users do the controlling, > > doesn't now and never did exist. I've worked for enough companies to > > know that you code for your boss, not the public, and what the boss > > wants very often has nearly nothing at all to do with that which the > > public is clamoring for. There are isolated cases where the connection > > between want and need is closer, but it's not the rule. > > > > My, that sound cynical. > > No, it sounds silly. In an organized project, someone makes > the decision about which ideas turn into code and which don't. The > extent to which that decision is or is not distributed varies. > Almost always some such capacity remains with the programmers. > > There are many ways and reasons a project can fail. Code > dictates that have little to do with 'customer' demand is a common > one. But it's just as possible to fail because programmers code > things that customers don't demand. > > The big issue is, when you are dealing with a non-commercial > project, what is your definition of 'fail'? You've had different experience than I. In the places I worked, the boss said what to code, not the programmer. > > DS > > ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@picnic.mat.net | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run picnic (FreeBSD-current) (301) 220-2114 | and jaunt (Solaris7). ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message