active contributors and supporting distro foo

[Mike McCarty]

Pekka Savola wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Mike McCarty wrote:
> 
>>> Whether or not there is "user base" for FC1 is irrelevant.
>>
>>
>> Of course it's relevant. If nobody used or wanted FC1, it
>> wouldn't be relevant. I suppose you mean that there being
>> people who use it is insufficient to motivate you to continue
>> to support it.
> 
> 
> This isn't directed at you, but as a more generic rant -- as I see a lot 

No offence taken, I'm sure.

> of people asking to support "foo" but not putting in any hours to help 
> in the process.  The project is WAY too understaffed already.

I'm sure it is. My point was that if nobody used FC1, then it 
*certainly* would not be supported. So it is relevant. But
having users may not be sufficient.

> The only thing relevant (IMHO) is whether there are ACTIVE people 
> ACTUALLY putting in work to 'Make It Happen' (tm).
> 
> There is no such thing as free lunch.  If you want updates for "foo", 
> you should participate in creating those updates.  Other folks may or 
> may not do them for you.

I almost agree. I agree TANSTAAFL, but there may be people who use
something but do not have the technical expertise either to maintain
or to test the changes made to it. Even if they do, I don't put
some sort of onus of "should" participate. Those who *do* participate
do so for their own reasons, whatever they may be. If the results
of those efforts are made freely available, then I don't fault anyone
who picks them up and uses them.

> I'll rephrase to be clearer, because the project is way too understaffed 
> already:
> 
>  - 90% of relevance: whether the distro has (enough) active
>    contributors
>  - 10% of relevance: whether there are sufficient number of users to
>    make the effort worth the trouble of the active contributors
>  - Only those who are or would be active contributors have a say in
>    making a decision whether to support "foo" or not.

So, if there are lots of volunteers to support a completely abandoned
version of software, you think it "should" be supported?

The only one of your statements I agree with is the last. Those who
volunteer their services do so for whatever motives they have, and
have the absolute last word in whether they continue to do so,
individually.

You have stated your *own* criteria for continuing to participate.
That does not mean that other contributors will or even should
agree. It all depends on what their motives are. For all I know,
there is a contributor who uses FC1 on a machine, and wishes to
keep it so simply because it was the very first release of the
"core" project. He might continue to make releases to the Legacy
Support for that reason, even 10 years from now.

Mike
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