Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 12:28:47 +1200 From: "Dan Langille" <junkmale@xtra.co.nz> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: if you want something, do it yourself Message-ID: <19990516003100.HKVW7471167.mta1-rme@wocker>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Over the past few months, I've been watching more and more threads go by where people want FreeBSD to go this way or include these features. Or we're not doing it right. We have to do it this way. We need this in order to do that. It reminds me of the politics within a large commercial organisation with people protecting their turf, the status quo, and watching their ass. But nobody actually going out and doing something. They are just trying to stop others from impinging upon their territory. Such tactics not very beneficial to the group. That really isn't what the FreeBSD project is about, IMHO. If I see it correctly, something gets written because it is useful to someone. Perhaps just one person. They write it because they want to. Not because they think it will improve FreeBSD. Or make FreeBSD more popular than Linux. Or put one more nail in the MS coffin. They do it because *they* want to do it. This situation is vastly different from the commercial world where someone up the chain of command decides that we must do X and then those below do what they can to get X implemented. In such an environment, people generally do the work because they get paid to do it. If you are lucky, you also enjoy your work but most people don't often get the luxury of deciding what they will do at their job. [please no counter-examples] The same analogy applies to FreeBSD project work. I had wanted to use someone else as an example, but I felt that was unfair. So I'll use myself. The articles which I write are of concern to me. I assume they will also be of interest to others. For the most part, people appreciate having the articles online. They say they benefit from it. That's great. It's part of my contribution. A few people complain about things which are not the way they want them to be. Well, I'm sorry, but in a perfect world, we'd have everything we want. I do what I do because I like doing it. Anything which involves unpaid volunteers is like that. The work is done because it is interesting work. The volunteer gets something out of it. That's the prime motivation. We are each an individual. We do something not because someone else wants it done, but because we want it done. That's the way the project works. If someone wants the project to head in a different direction, they should start heading in that direction. Perhaps someone will follow. Perhaps not. But you are the person to make that path decision. Nobody else. Stand up, declare what you want to do and ask for volunteers to help you. But saying that you want someone to do it for you isn't the way. If you want something done, do it yourself. -- Dan Langille - DVL Software Limited The FreeBSD Diary - http://www.FreeBSDDiary.org/freebsd/ NZ FreeBSD User Group - http://www.nzfug.nz.freebsd.org/ The Racing System - http://www.racingsystem.com/racingsystem.htm To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19990516003100.HKVW7471167.mta1-rme>