Re: List intolerance VS advocacy

["Peter" <peter@easynix.com>]

I can already hear the smashing noice from Theo's Monitor flying out of the
window...... :-)


> At 4:14 AM -0600 6/13/02, Scott Sandeman-Allen (RSCorp) wrote:
> >It is detrimental to everyone if we discourage people from
> >asking questions and when we offend users of any experience
> >level. Think of it this way, in a hypothetical example:
> >
> >     John B. or Jane Q. Newbie is looking for an alternative OS
> >     for personal use. They find out about a cool project called
> >     OpenBSD and investigate it. Then, months later, they are in
> >     a board meeting when it is discussed that their server got
> >     hacked or some other IT related problem where OBSD would fit.
> >
> >How do they respond in this situation?
> >
> >If they had a good experience using OBSD they could say "Why not
> >use OpenBSD..."  Then, as a community, we would have just won.
>
> You misunderstand the point of the OpenBSD community.  It's a
> group of people with a reasonably-common vision, who want to
> work together on what they want to work on.  It is not trying
> to "win" any new converts.
>
> Think of it this way:
>
>     Theo buys a large-screen TV.  He likes to watch basketball
>     (actually, I have no idea what he likes to watch...).  He
>     invites all the neighbors over, saying "Hey, for *Anyone*
>     who likes to watch basketball, come on over as I've got
>     the best TV!".  It's one entire wall of his spacious
>     living room.  It's got split-screen capability, and you
>     can even watch multiple basketball games at the same time.
>     He's buying the beer and pretzels, and watching basketball
>     around the clock.
>
>     Next door, someone grumbles.  "Hey, if you would just let
>     me watch soap operas, then you would get more use out of
>     that TV!".  So what?  Theo isn't watching soap operas, he
>     didn't ask about soap operas, and the person next door did
>     not contribute to the TV in the first place.
>
>     The soap operas fan goes away talking about how Theo is rude.
>     But in my opinion, it's the soap operas fan who just doesn't
>     get it.  If you want to watch basketball, then you're more
>     than welcome, but don't give him crap when he bought a TV
>     to watch basketball, and you want to use it for something
>     else.  And you want him to supply the beer and pretzels
>     while you're watching the programs he didn't want to watch.
>
> In this case, part of the criteria for getting in is that you
> are willing to at put in at least some of the effort in learning
> the system.  Being a "newbie" is not the issue.  One of the guys
> in our computer center picked up on openbsd because he wanted it,
> and he had pretty much zero knowledge of administering *any*
> unix system when he started.  He got up and running, without
> irritating a single person on this mailing list, by simply
> reading and rebooting and reinstalling and reading some more.
>
> Yes, openbsd could win more converts if it had a friendly
> welcoming committee.  If you want to volunteer to be that
> friendly welcoming committee, we can arrange to forward
> all of the mindless newbie questions to you.  You will find
> it gets pretty tiring after awhile -- particularly when you
> realize that you are simply copy&pasting a paragraph out of
> already-written documentation to answer someone's question.
>
> Note that I do understand your thinking.  Some of my time is
> spent working on freebsd.  In freebsd, we *do* like the idea
> of drawing in more users.  That's part of the challenge.  But
> openbsd isn't trying to win converts, it's just some people
> who all like working together on the same things.
>
> --
> Garance Alistair Drosehn            =   gad@gilead.netel.rpi.edu
> Senior Systems Programmer           or  gad@freebsd.org
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute    or  drosih@rpi.edu