Re: Co-Maintainer

[Kenneth Adam Miller]

Hey, I just said I'm not the volunteer and there's nothing at all hard to
understand about what I just said.

A volunteer came in and said they had a bachelor's degree. No one pointed
to them anything helpful at all about how they could help. They probably
don't know how your organization is structured, and are just imagining you
being helped after they find out what they can do for the organization. I
doubt they really want or understand what power and responsibility is in
order to take it, but then no one is thinking along those lines in order
for there to be a revision of their volunteer effort.

If you carefully read what both of you just said, I'm sure anyone can see
it appears to be a pridefully contemptuous and unhelpful dismissal. What do
you know about that person's background in order to be a judge of whether
they will be good and helpful? Did they provide a resume? No, so then what
do you know in order to be telling other people who is and isn't qualified
or will be qualified?

My point is - and we don't need to fluctuate to any extremal vicissitudes
of judgement about anything - people are not likely to be acquainted with
your project when they come in. But if you want to be helped, and you care
about the community, you could mentor them with something really small each
day and some conversation on the channel and point them on the track to
become what it is you need, or at least be bothered to *ask* that people if
they qualify for what it is you want. It's not as though they can't learn
what it is that is needed in order for the organization to continue - and
it usually takes an insider to *efficiently* learn this stuff to begin with
anyway. They need you to guide them, and you need their time and hours in
order for the open source community to improve.

Your competitors - businesses - pay people a living wage to execute on a
project. Software engineer labor hours are *not* cheap. Those guys have
stressful days full of tinkering with other people's problems on software
they may not be enthusiastic about. When someone comes here to offer their
time, they likely ideate what it will be like to have something like that
finished. Not that they have to work unfit or otherwise even unpleasant
people in their free time to begin with.

For that matter, you don't even know their motivations for coming in to
begin with. They may have looked up to other maintainers before coming in -
you don't know.

If we had this to do over, when he came in the response would first be to
ask if he's read and understood what those roles are. Then ask what is
background is in order to know where he is suited to help. Then, to offer
some different project suggestions on where they could get started that are
suited to their skills - whatever they may be.


On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 12:46 PM Laura Morales <address@hidden> wrote:

> I still don't understand what you are writing and where you want to go
> with this.
> Anyway if you, as you stated, have no background whatsoever on the
> software that you are offering to maintain, and if you are not even willing
> to join the bug tracker, then I'm afraid you have zero qualifications to be
> a decent maintainer. You are very welcome however to use your precious time
> to contribute anything that you are capable to contribute.
>
> PS: I don't speak for other maintainers. I'm only a user.
>
>
>
> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2018 at 9:28 PM
> From: "Kenneth Adam Miller" <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Co-Maintainer
>
> Hey, I didn't volunteer, just that I bet that the volunteer doesn't even
> see or know about the difference.
>
> In any case, that looked like a possible penetration test event. No one
> just should just give permissions away without authentication - I didn't
> know he was asking for that. I just thought it was help - the first thing I
> thought was, ok, let's start giving suggestions and guiding feedback on how
> to move forward.
>
> On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 12:24 PM Laura Morales <address@hidden:
> address@hidden> wrote:I think you are confusing the roles of
> "contributor" and "maintainer".
>
>
>
> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2018 at 8:49 PM
> From: "Kenneth Adam Miller" <address@hidden:
> address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden:address@hidden
> Cc: address@hidden:address@hidden, address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden, address@hidden:
> address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Co-Maintainer
>
> I know that's what I thought. Some volunteer just came in with their
> valuable time and got turned away. GNU is a free software organization -
> part of their life blood is volunteers. Just because someone doesn't have a
> background in that particular thing doesn't mean they should be dismissed.
>
> On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 7:22 AM Laura Morales <address@hidden:
> address@hidden:address@hidden:address@hidden>
> wrote:Is this sarcastic? Is this a passive-aggressive way to say something?
> I don't really understand the message.
>
>
>
> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2018 at 9:01 AM
> From: "Kenneth Adam Miller" <address@hidden:
> address@hidden:address@hidden:
> address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden:address@hidden:
> address@hidden:address@hidden
> Cc: address@hidden:address@hidden:
> address@hidden:address@hidden, address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden:address@hidden:
> address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Co-Maintainer
> Yeah, we just have too much of that 50$ an hour labor here lying around. No
> need to just adopt someone else's free hours and enthusiasm, no matter how
> small the favor is.
>
> I have some thing like 20 different research ideas and small helpful tasks
> that I could just write about in the space of 15 minutes each day!
>
> How experienced are you? Do you have a resume? How much time do you have
> that's free? Does it have to be bison or can it be a subject of another
> interest, provided it suits your fascination?
>
> On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 9:41 PM Akim Demaille <address@hidden:
> address@hidden:address@hidden:address@hidden>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > > Le 17 août 2017 à 12:47, James Kay <address@hidden:
> address@hidden:address@hidden:
> address@hidden> a écrit :
> > >
> > > Kia ora,
> > >
> > > I saw that this package was looking for co-maintainers.
> > > I’m happy to help, I'm a CS student in my final year at University.
> >
> > Hi James,
> >
> > Sorry we did not answer before.
> >
> > Help might still be needed, but before being a potential maintainer,
> > you have to show some activity around bison. For instance, come and
> > answer questions on the mailing lists, handle bug reports, submit
> > patches, etc.
> >
> > Cheers!
> > _______________________________________________
> > address@hidden:address@hidden:address@hidden
> [mailto:address@hidden
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