A newbie's contribution?

[Dr Dirk Pilat <dpilat@dirk2.net>]

Hi!

Sorry that I mingle, but some of the comments just have been a bit too 
derogative.

The question is, can a newbie make a valuable contribution or will he 
annoy the whole OpenBSD community by asking a maybe stupid or foolish 
question (even with previously digging through Howto's, Faq's, Google 
and man). Well, I say he (she) can. Maybe not by writing code or 
supplying a new section to a Faq, but just by being enthusiastic about a 
new operating system he (she) found easy to install, easy to use and 
easy to maintain and sharing his (her) enthusiasm. As an example, see

http://lowendpc.com/dp/2002/0524.html

Even though some members of the OpenBSD community see themselves 
uninterested in global recognition and annoyed by clueless newbies who 
shatter their zen-like tranquility I would still give these people a 
forum to air their genuine concerns and where they can ask questions 
without being flamed to death and reverting back to Wintel.

I was devastated after three weeks of not getting my ADSL USB modem to 
work (after reading and re-reading the faq, mailinglist archives and 
howto's), so I got hold of the chap who wrote the driver for OpenBSD on 
IRC and after 5 minutes and some friendly banter he solved the issue for 
me, and I am now the proud owner of a fully functional and connected 
openBSD box, thanks to him. Now that I am a tiny bit wiser I will try to 
help people on that mailinglist with simialr concerns.

So, what's so bad about that?

Always remember, a OpenBSD newbie might be a complete looser when it 
comes to writing code, but he might just have something else to 
contribute.

Dirk



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