Re: Discussing issues

["Mike A. Harris" <mharris@www.linux.org.uk>]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Mark Vojkovich wrote:

>> >    I think alot of people are confused.  If this were another
>> > "market" users would vote with dollars and companies selling
>> > products would compete for those dollars.  Users don't vote
>> > with dollars in this community.  Companies like XFree86 don't
>> > have an incentive to give the users things that they demand.
>> > Users seem to have their metaphors mixed and seem to be trying
>> > to find other ways to vote, but at the bottom of it all, there
>> > isn't anything they can vote with.
>> 
>> Yes, they can, with contributed code :)))
>> 
>
>   Yes, that's a way to influence the technical direction of 
>XFree86.  The group I was addressing specificially was the group
>of people who don't do the work, but who think they should have
>a say in what XFree86 should be doing.  Those people don't have
>have any incentive to give to the people who do the work.

I agree with your statements above Mark, but I think there is a 
bit of misunderstanding between various parties, or at least as 
I interpret things from everyone's emails.

Random individuals, random projects, or random vendors should not
have any right to demand that other developers (volunteer or
otherwise) work on implementing code that those random people
would like to have.  Likewise they should not have any right to 
implement code and then demand it gets into the codebase.  I 
think this is what XFree86.org is saying, and I don't disagree 
with it at all.  I don't think anyone does, or at least sane 
people.  ;o)

I also agree with the meritocracy viewpoint, where those who do 
the work basically shape the code.

The miscommunication that seems to be present I think, is more
due to lack of any ongoing major discussion between the various
groups of people and XFree86.org, X.org, etc. who would like to
see certain technologies evolve, get implemented, and get into X.

The actual coding of things I do not see as the problem at all.  
What I see as the main problem above all else, is completely 
communicational, and it isn't a one sided problem either.  All 
involved parties could and should try to communicate things more 
effectively.

The unfortunate part is that due to various problems in the past,
there are hurt feelings and in some cases walls between people,
including personal issues that raise people's defense mechanisms
and quite often lead communication attempts from either side down
a black hole of disagreement and negativity, conspiracy theories,
and other issues.  Again, none of this is one sided, it happens 
from all angles.

What I would like to know, is:  Is there some way that all
concerned people interested in the success of the X Window System
can try to put aside personal differences, and set aside he-said 
she-said items, and bad juju from the past, and try to come 
together and discuss certain specific things with each other in a 
positive minded manner and work together?

In other words, is the communication gap something everyone can
work towards fixing?

Right now people are mostly focussing on the past - bad things 
that have occured in the past, bad decisions certain individuals 
have made, bad decisions certain organizations have made.  All of 
these things are past events and can not change.

We can change the future however, and I think when you brush away 
all of the negative things, everyone has more in common than not.  

I believe the biggest problem facing everyone is purely
communicational.  What suggestions do others have out there that
might help all of us to work together to improving communication
between different groups, and between different individuals?  We
can all be rock headed sometimes.  That is easy to do.  Can
everyone bite their tongues and change that?  That is the hard
part, but I hope everyone can at least try.  ;o)

Take care,
TTYL

-- 
Mike A. Harris


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