Re: [9fans] Is IBM ThinkPad R60e notebook compatible with Plan9?

["Tom Lieber" <alltom@gmail.com>]

I'm new here, so I may be off-base due to inexperience. I just don't
see why there is any problem with, every once in a while, copying
works-in-progress to sources with a README like:

"This is NOT DONE. This is for those who are curious about the status
of the project. I'm not looking for contributors." or, if you're
feeling adventurous, "This is NOT DONE. This is for those who are
curious about the status of the project. If you want to contribute,
contact me and we can exchange patches. If there's community interest
in adding to the code, we can see about setting up an RCS."

The whole problem with uploading code seems to be an issue with trusting others.

[Per Nerenberg's remarks.] Even if the code isn't 'ready,' with README
files as above, people shouldn't harbor much resentment when
incomplete code breaks their computer, and they shouldn't laugh at you
for embarrassing coding errors. If you say "don't contact me!" and
someone contacts you, it's because they didn't read the notes, or they
aren't very good at following protocol. I haven't noticed many people
that seem that way on the mailing list. Am I wrong? Can we not trust
others here? Were your bad experiences with the Plan 9 community, or
with the open source community at large?

Uploading your source is as good a way to "hoist a flag" as any I can
think of, and it has side-benefits for the curious or needy. I don't
expect anyone should feel required to make their code available (which
I feel is different from "releasing" the code), just that it would
make life easier for some if this were the exception instead of the
rule. Everyone always has the choice.

[Per Lalonde's remarks.] The point isn't always to make collaboration
possible. If someone wants to see the status of the code, or modify it
locally to solve a problem, then if the code is somewhere they can
access, this is possible. When it is hidden, nobody can benefit from
it in the slightest. If you publish the code and solicit patches, and
patches become hard to keep track of, that's a really good indicator
that the project is too important to not have a public RCS somewhere,
or that you should ask people to stop sending patches because it
doesn't suit your development style.

If you can't trust the community to even respect requests in your
README, what can you rely on?

I don't know about "saving Plan 9" because I have only a few dozen
hours reading the papers and using it myself. All I know is that when
I become familiar enough with the system to want to modify or improve
it, the more nearly-complete code there is available, the better
training wheels I'll have. The more broken, incomplete, and
horribly-styled code I can look at, the more lessons I can learn.

Sincerely,

Tom Lieber
http://AllTom.com/
http://GadgetLife.org/