Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2000 12:21:01 -0700 From: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@winston.osd.bsdi.com> To: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> Cc: Warner Losh <imp@village.org>, "David E. O'Brien" <obrien@freebsd.org>, cvs-committers@freebsd.org, cvs-all@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/boot/common boot.c module.c src/sys/boot/forth loader.conf src/sys/conf Makefile.alpha Makefile.i386 Makefile.pc98 kmod.mk src/share/mk bsd.own.mk Message-ID: <9796.968354461@winston.osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: Message from Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> of "Thu, 07 Sep 2000 19:44:38 BST." <20000907194438.A20005@canyon.nothing-going-on.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> I'm not assuming malice or secrecy. I'm saying that our individual projects > need to be better about promoting themselves. That might be as simple as > a message to -announce, but it would be better if we were more disciplined > about requiring at least a modicum of information about projects we're > hosting before we host them. > > I assume you're not implying that working on the docs implies subscribing to > every single FreeBSD mailing list. Actually yes, I am, and before you squeak in indignation at that idea, let me just say that the "interrupt" method of getting docs done has never worked very well in this project and all the kvetching in the world isn't going to change what amounts to a fundamental physical law of project dynamics. The most successful docs initiatives we've done were "polling" driven, e.g. the documenter went out and actively dragged information out of people at the point of a gun if necessary. He didn't wait for them to volunteer it because if he had, he'd have grown old and died before anything got actually documented. An appropriate analogy would be that of a detective. A good detective doesn't just sit in his or her office waiting for the right people to call them on the phone and solve their cases for them, they go out and wear down some shoe-leather in chasing leads, making phone calls and otherwise PURSUING the information they need because they know it's not just going to drop into their laps. Anybody in the docs project who expects things to go otherwise for them is simply fooling themselves and should be thinking more like the information sleuths that they are. Again, you can complain that developers should treat the docs people better and make a point of keeping them better informed but while you're wishing you might as well buy some lottery tickets too since your chances of winning there are actually higher. The developers aren't going to change their spots and anyone who's spent any time at all managing such folks will back me up on this one. > 'cause no bugger ever tells us anything. To take this back where it > started, I'd love to see a design doc that talks about why the recent Again, to perhaps belabor the point, the chances of this happening are so small as to be almost unworth discussing. The chances of a docs person actively "interviewing" the developers concerned and producing something tangible from the material thus collected are far, far higher. I lived with a tech-writer for over a decade and I know from my many "animated" conversations with her that her greatest successes came from trapping engineers in places like restrooms and not letting them out until they gave her the information she needed. She perfected an impressive football tackle which was capable of bringing down a 300lb engineer in full sprint too, and she was only 5'4". Such are the requirements on a truly successful docs person. > The set of committers with IA-64 machines is not the same as the set of > people who might be able to work on an IA-64 port. IPv6 didn't start > from within the project, for example. I'm afraid that IPv6 is something which could be worked on by anyone with a standard PC and some time and inclination, however. I'm still curious to know how someone without an IA-64 could do much of tangible benefit, and most folks are in that boat whether they're FreeBSD committers or not. Let's not forget that much of the Linux IA-64 port was actually done by Intel engineers. :-( - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?9796.968354461>