Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 23:03:28 -0400 From: Will Andrews <andrews@technologist.com> To: "Forrest W. Christian" <forrestc@iMach.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD/Opensource is not free Message-ID: <20000404230328.B13887@argon.blackdawn.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004041821470.23759-100000@workhorse.iMach.com>; from forrestc@iMach.com on Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 07:45:06PM -0600 References: <20000404203411.B23851@speedy.gsinet> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0004041821470.23759-100000@workhorse.iMach.com>
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On Tue, Apr 04, 2000 at 07:45:06PM -0600, Forrest W. Christian wrote: > Let me explain. The core FreeBSD team is "responsible for deciding the > project's overall goals and direction as well as managing specific areas > of the FreeBSD project landscape". These 16 or so people are supplemented > by approximatley 150 additional committers. In all, around 170 or so > people are responsible for the 6.6 MILLION plus lines in /usr/src are > stable. The number of committers is closer to 200 these days. Also, (I trust you counted the lines correctly) you should be aware that src/ isn't the only thing these 200 people maintain. There's also ports, doc, www.. > I think there is an unfortunate feeling that you have to write code to > help with FreeBSD. At this point, I would ALMOST say that if you want to > help with FreeBSD DO ANYTHING BUT WRITE CODE. For Instance: > > * Submit pr's: Document bugs you find and submit the info. > > * Fix lacking/outdated documentation. > > * Help newbies on the appropriate list(s). > > * Find a developer who hates writing documentation and write documentation > for them. > > * Help track down developmental documentation for a piece of hardware > and/or purchase said hardware for development purposes. > > etc. etc. etc. > > I'm sure if someone dropped Jordan or one of the core committers a note > that said "Hey, I have some spare time and I would like to do x" where x > is about anything not already well (or over) covered, they could FIND > something useful for about anyone to do. > > I think that maybe the best summarization of this whole thing is this: > > FreeBSD costs both time and money to develop. Although FreeBSD doesn't > officially "cost" us anything (in the fiscal sense), each of us should > find a way to contribute to the project as much as we can justify and in > whatever way we can. Thank you for this well-written piece of mail. I would love it if more people donated time to FreeBSD. I would just like to point out that there are many more (several thousand if not tens of thousands) people who contribute to FreeBSD, but are not committers. We're talking about, say, 25,000 people * avg 0.5 hour each * avg $35/hr * 365 days/yr = $160 million. Let's just say the number of hours committers spend is a lot more than 57,750. Now, that's a labor of love. -- Will Andrews <andrews@technologist.com> GCS/E/S @d- s+:+>+:- a--->+++ C++ UB++++ P+ L- E--- W+++ !N !o ?K w--- ?O M+ V-- PS+ PE++ Y+ PGP+>+++ t++ 5 X++ R+ tv+ b++>++++ DI+++ D+ G++>+++ e->++++ h! r-->+++ y? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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