Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 11:41:21 -0800 (PST) From: "Scott I. Remick" <scott@sremick.net> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Daemon's Advocate article Message-ID: <20040301194121.97837.qmail@web41108.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <200403011109.33238.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com>
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--- Johnson David <DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> wrote: > I'm a desktop user. I have noticed more than once some active disdain > towards the desktop by FreeBSD developers. Why is this? Did I miss the > sign out front saying "servers only"? You don't have to be a > dumb-downed system like Lindows to be suitable for the desktop. I have to concur. For some reason, there seems to be a common attitude that if you use FreeBSD to any extent, you must be a C++ programmer with the ability to write drivers and patch applications. While I fully respect the fact that this is a volunteer effort, the above can come off as rather harsh and deterring for a new user. We FreeBSD users often scold the Linux community for their attitude problems... why must we replace one bad attitude with another in our own community? The people who volunteer their free time for the good of the FreeBSD community can do a lot of things in their sleep which are beyond the abilities of the common desktop user. Perhaps some have some free time, perhaps others find a request simple enough that they can balance their time to handle something that would help someone else. But to make a polite request and get back "Why don't you port it yourself if you want it?" or "patch/driver submissions welcome" conveys an impression that FreeBSD is for developers only... if you can't code, your input isn't desired. I know it's all volunteer, and I volunteer my time and efforts in the ways I can despite not being a C++ coder. Nor have I graduated to the point where I can port applications (although I will be willing to attempt it once I can have an additional test PC environment where I can risk experimenting with apps not in the ports tree). But I field a lot of new-user questions, have gotten several people up and going who turn to me first with questions, I run an advocacy/news/help site, and so on. We all help as we can. I'm sorry to see Greg leave. I own his book and found it very useful.
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