Where is FreeBSD going?

[Paul Robinson]

Munden, Randall J wrote:

>Right, I typed that wrong.  This conversation certainly isn't mud
>slinging -- open, honest discussion can do nothing but good [no 
>matter the outcome].
>

The cleverness of the "troll" was:

1. It was written by somebody who at the least had read these lists for 
at least the last two years
2. It aired the real frustrations of those of us without commit bits
3. It was on the whole, apart from the personal attacks, reasonably correct.

>Which leads me to query, given limited time an resources, what can 
>I do?  I've moved many a production server to fBSD over the 
>last 10 or so years -- some of them literally -- by blathering 
>nonstop about the virtues of the OS.  So what else is there?  Do I 
>need to start writing documentation or publishing and pimping more 
>Howtos on the intarweb?  Should I brush up on my C and start patching?
>

And therein lies a problem. The only thing any of the committers cares 
about is what they think. Got a problem? Submit a patch. Don't like the 
way things are done? Submit a patch. Don't like how such-and-such a util 
works? Submit a patch.

Except, when Matt Dillon did submit, he was told to back out his changes 
and then lost his commit bit. This was because there was an "imminent 
commit" due from somebody working on SMP, which still isn't finished 
really. As for users, sysadmins, people who through advocacy go about 
sourcing funding, sponsorship, support? They "don't matter". It's the 
first time I've seen a software project where users are almost actively 
despised. Sometimes I get confused and think I must be reading an 
OpenBSD list instead - that's how they do it over there, and that's why 
I haven't run OBSD for 4 years.

In short, you can put all the effort you want in, but -core and many 
with a commit bit will resent you for it, because you're just a user. 
Who cares about users? This is their project after all.

And yeah, people will think I'm trolling, but I'm not. I'm just not 
happy with the way non-programmers are treated. My perogative, but as 
the project is defined as being a group of developers, it's not my 
project and therefore my opinion is worthless. Ask yourself this: What 
is the core goal of the FreeBSD project? To produce the "best" in it's 
class? Best for who? Developers? Are you a developer? Maybe it's not the 
OS for you then unfortunately.

Personally, unless the madness around SMP, the 5- branch and various 
other bits are ironed out, I can see my next server deployment making 
use of DragonFly. At least they listen to people who don't submit 
patches due to the limitations of time/skill/whatever. No, I'm not a 
Matt fan - I like and respect most on -core and others. I just think 5- 
has got... well, it's all a bit out of hand really, isn't it?

All they had to do was ask a few sysadmins and end users what they 
thought. All of this could have been avoided nearly 2 years ago.

Just my tuppence worth, which few are interested in, but ho-hum.

-- 
Paul Robinson