Am 30.03.2009 04:45 schrieb Alberto Passalacqua:
People at Novell is overloaded, and the community as we know it today is very demanding, but gives back quite a limited number of contributions in my opinion.
That is a very revealing comment. It shows the big discrepancy between how you and I see bug reports. I see it as a contribution, while you, like many developers, apparently see it as a demand. Which is exactly the point: I am trying to help, and would be perfectly content with being told: "Thanks for your report. Unfortunately we have more serious problems right now."
Well, what Andreas asked is normal. And btw, all the provided examples except one affect obsolete products. Probably it's not worth to spend time on them. Don't you agree?
Andreas didn't ask about problems that need to be fixed, but about "concrete examples" for "remarks that seemed to imply what I reported was "my problem"", and that's what I provided. Of course they are not worth spending time on reopening and fixing them. That was never the intention. But I'm not so sure it's not worth spending time on looking at them to see where the communication between reporter and developer went wrong.
The delay is easily explained: no time, lot of work, limited community help...
The problem is that offered help is being rejected, thereby exacerbating the situation.
I don't think a solution coming entirely from inside Novell is what we want. Ideally it should be a decision of both Novell and the community, but first we need to build a wider community, and the process becomes iterative: the more you improve "work conditions" and ease of contribution, the more you active contributors grow.
The basic policy-setting must be Novell's. Are offers for help like mine welcomed, or are they treated as a nuisance? That has nothing to do with overload; it's just a question of attitude. HTH T. -- Tilman Schmidt E-Mail: tilman@imap.cc Bonn, Germany Diese Nachricht besteht zu 100% aus wiederverwerteten Bits. Ungeöffnet mindestens haltbar bis: (siehe Rückseite)