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Date:      Sun, 3 Aug 1997 15:21:11 -0700 (MST)
From:      Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
To:        msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith)
Cc:        ade@demon.net, jkh@time.cdrom.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ports-current/packages-current discontinued
Message-ID:  <199708032221.PAA02484@phaeton.artisoft.com>
In-Reply-To: <199708030822.RAA13370@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Aug 3, 97 05:52:10 pm

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> > >That option's already been discussed to death. ;-)
> > 
> > *smile*  I'm sure it has.. dontcha just love the cyclic nature of
> > project management concepts? :)
> 
> A cycle that can be comfortably avoided if the participants had the
> common courtesy to read up on the issues at hand before inserting
> their feet in their mouths.
> 
> This entire issue has been _resolved_, publically, at _least_ twice.
> 
> The common resolutions were :
>  
>  - maintain the status quo for now.

This is basically arguing it into a cmoa, rather than arguing it to
death.  It's an unsatisfactory soloution, since the patient eventually
wakes up.

This is, I think, the real cause of the cycles, and not a lack of
reading up on the issues.


>  - work on developing an improved structure concept and management 
>    tools for properly handling the variant components of the system.
> 
> It seems that people find it much easier to puff up their egoes by
> _arguing_ about the terrible state of current affairs than actually
> _do_ anything about them.

I think it's deeper than that.  I personally will dedicate huge
amounts of effort -- and money, in the form of materials, equipment,
etc. -- pursuing a soloution my way.  If it's generally agreed that
"my way" is not "the right way", then I won't expend the effort; I'll
let whoever "won" expend the effort doing it "their way".

It could be the real problem that the people "winning" are not
following up on the commitment implicit in the "winning" to put
out the "their way" code.


And hence, it gets argued into a coma, once again.  8-(.


> > Until the decision is made about the way forward, however, then
> > much of the talk here is moot.
> 
> The decisions have been made.  What is notable is the absence of any
> initiative on the part of the plaintiffs with regard to anything
> beyond their narrow, kneejerk agendas.

It seems to me that the simple soloution would be to let whoever
was willing to put forth the effort coding "win".

The old adage is "steer, push, or get the hell out of the way"; the
problem with a volunteer project is that everyone wants to steer,
and they are too busy pushing their own stuff to help push yours.
Would that they were too busy to "help" steer, as well... 8-(.


This is probably a bad discussion for me to try to put in my bid
for the position of "the guy who steers"; I'd be willing to push,
but the direction I'd steer is toward SCO compatability, since
package tools are part of the IBCS2 standard, and that probably
would not make anyone very happy, it being a decade out of date
and all...


Maybe there is someone out there who wants to get their JAVA or TCL
or whatever feet wet, and a package installation application is just
the grunt-type-work to get a good working knowledge of whatever tool(s)
it is that they want to learn about?


					Regards,
					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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