From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 86996BB81 for ; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:09:55 +0100 (CET) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id iAKN9saU002858 for ; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:09:55 +0100 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA03089 for ; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:09:54 +0100 (MET) Received: from comtv.ru (mail.comtv.ru [217.10.32.17]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id iAKN9rVL016442 for ; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:09:54 +0100 Received: from av1474.oops ([10.0.66.9] verified) by comtv.ru (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.1.8) with ESMTP id 45786063; Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:09:53 +0300 Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:10:26 +0300 (MSK) From: malc X-X-Sender: malc@home.oyster.ru To: Vincenzo Ciancia Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] The madness of ignoring people In-Reply-To: <200411202343.22273.vincenzo_mlRE.MOVE@yahoo.it> Message-ID: References: <419F92C0.4010200@barettadeit.com> <200411202343.22273.vincenzo_mlRE.MOVE@yahoo.it> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 419FCEC3.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 419FCEC1.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; malc:01 malc:01 pulsesoft:01 caml-list:01 wrote:01 wrote:01 ocaml:01 alas:01 ocaml:01 vitaly:01 compilers:01 gcc:01 non-trivial:01 translated:01 pulsesoft:01 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.0 (2004-09-13) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=FORGED_RCVD_HELO autolearn=disabled version=3.0.0 X-Spam-Level: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote: > On Saturday 20 November 2004 20:17, malc wrote: >> I had hoped that this will >> result in some reaction, if not from Inria developers then from OCaml >> users, alas this was not the case. > > I don't understand why academic environments producing free software > often tend to deliberately ignore people contributions. Maybe it is > normal that your feature has no users (yet), and so there is no people > interested, but it's absolutely NOT normal that people at inria just > ignore it - just like it's not normal that they sometimes don't answer > at all nontrivial technical questions about ocaml that _only them_ can > answer. Maybe i wasn't clear enough. While working on the patch i (obviously) asked questions (and was given quite comprehensive answers) from Xavier Leroy for instance. I also learned his position on the subject. I think there were maybe 5 people who contacted me personally, 2 of them had some feature request, one actually reported bugs (thank you Vitaly) There was/is one/two groups of people really interested in functionality provided by the patch, one of them offered help, when it became clear i can not provide enough resources to bring the patch uptodate w.r.t 3.0.8 But in general, most of the people fall into 'wouldn't it be cool to have native dynamic loading/linking' category. And - yeah it probably would have... > > I know, compilers and mailing lists are for free, but there is not a > wide support network for ocaml, as there is, for example, for many > software projects such as gcc, or the GNU operating system and so on, > so the only place where somebody can ask for help about ocaml is here. > > And to get back on your issue about the patch, I see it's frustrating to > be just ignored, and it's a pity to force people, who might have worked > hard, and for free, in _their_ free time, to stop contributing, because > they get frustrated by being ignored, without at least explaining the > reason. I've seen this on other mailing lists in the past, and in case > someone is going to ask, no, it's not about contributions I made (there > is no such thing :) ) - but of course I asked unanswered non-trivial > technical question which I think is the other side of the same coin > (wondering if this phrase makes sense in english, translated in italian > it does). I wasn't ignored by Inria, i expressed my opinion, asked theirs, got it. What's a little bit disappointing that nobody (after all those years) presented any alternative. Sincerely, malc -- mailto:malc@pulsesoft.com