Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 17:56:47 -0600 (MDT) From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> To: Wolfgang Helbig <helbig@MX.BA-Stuttgart.De> Cc: brandon@roguetrader.com (Brandon Gillespie), freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: why bother submitting anything (via send-pr) Message-ID: <199708102356.RAA27563@rocky.mt.sri.com> In-Reply-To: <199708101852.UAA27642@helbig.informatik.ba-stuttgart.de> References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970810104350.2884A-100000@roguetrader.com> <199708101852.UAA27642@helbig.informatik.ba-stuttgart.de>
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> The PRs seem to be orphaned since Mike Pritchard left the FreeBSD > project in May 1997. We submitters who are not committers have a > *very* hard time getting any feedback. This is the main problem, and Mike didn't actually leave the project so much as disappeared from the face of the earth. Since no warning was given, and that people often 'go away' on volunteer projects it wasn't considered a bad thing until all attempts to contact him were un-successful. > Jordan mentioned that he's going to hire developers for porting > the OS to another architecture. (He left open which architecture.) > I conclude from this, the desertion of the PRs and the discussion > about current ports versus stable ports that the FreeBSD project > is switching to a commercial company that does not depend on > volunteers any more in the long run. Your conclusions are wrong. Jordan is simply 'paying' for a port to another architecture, instead of relying on someone doing it as a volunteer project. Given that there is money for such a project, it implies that someone is willing to pay for it, so by paying for it one would (hopefully) get a more committed person and the project would happen at a much faster rate, therefore justifying the expense to whomever is willing to pay. I suspect the majority of FreeBSD work will always be 'volunteer', and the lack of a GNATS person has been unfortunate and unforseen, which will hopefully be filled in the near future (~6 months). Nate
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