[haiku-development] Re: Haiku, Inc. in Contempt of Its Community

  • From: Pete Goodeve <pete.goodeve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 12:43:06 -0800

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 11:51:57AM +0100, Stephan A?mus wrote:
> 
> Am 15.02.2015 um 23:50 schrieb pete.goodeve@xxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >I've been keeping quiet through all this, because last time I spoke up a 
> >few months ago I just got dumped on.  (:-/)
> 
> You considered that "getting dumped on"?! I presume you mean responses 
> like this:
> 
> https://www.freelists.org/post/haiku-development/Package-Management-was-Re-Whats-the-status-of-Haiku
> 
> or
> 
> https://www.freelists.org/post/haiku-development/Package-Management-was-Re-Whats-the-status-of-Haiku,8
> 
> ? I might think twice before taking the time and engaging in any 
> discussion with you again, if you have no problem summarizing my output 
> and that of others as "getting dumped on". It just fits perfectly in 
> this "we versus them" picture that some people like to keep painting, no?
> 
Well, that remark was intended to be slightly flippant -- hence the emoticon --
but yes, I did feel rather dumped on.  Maybe it was not what you intended,
but the general tone I read was "This has all been decided.  No point in
objecting now."  It seemed that no-one was actually listening to me.
The fact that I hadn't known about any prior discussion was deemed
to be my fault.

[I keep thinking of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the
"Hyperspatial Bypass"...  "It's been on display in your local  office in
Alpha Centauri for fifty years.  You've had plenty of time to lodge
a complaint"  (:-)]

At the time I seemed a lone voice, so I just ended up completely discouraged.
Now I see that there are others who were as blindsided as I was, and who
also think things could be done much more cleanly, and without loss to
any stakeholders.  It's a shame this thread was started by a troll, with
presumably the intention to polarize, but by now maybe there have been
enough folks speaking up to start a bit of a rethink.

One of the arguments I've kept hearing from those in favour of the current
setup is that nobody has specified what has been broken.  The problem,
I think, is that the breaks are small and diffuse, but overall they add up
to major pain.  They are felt, but are hard to detail.

One headache is for those of us who have been using BeOS/Haiku for
a long time, and have built up an extensive, comfortable, personal
environment.  As I just mentioned yesterday, I've been putting stuff
in ~/config/bin etc for years (and more lately in /boot/common) so
I can't just update my working system to PM.

If ~/config had been left alone, and a packaged version introduced
alongside it, there would be no disruption, and packages could be
smoothly introduced as they become available.  It is a really silly
argument to say that maintained stuff 'should' be packaged.  Yes,
presumably it will be, eventually.  Meanwhile there is distress.
Not everyone has the time or motivation to jump in and immediately
update their old stuff.

For similar reasons I think /boot/common should be restored.  It
needn't actually have anything in it in a default system, but the
search paths  should be there for access if needed.

OK, sorry, another rant.  I'll shut up now.

        -- Pete --

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