[oi-dev] Resignation

[Nikola M.]

On 09/12/14 10:53 AM, Nick Zivkovic wrote:
> Developers are user too, you know. :)
Nobody questioned that :) Thing is, they are not the only one using the 
things they make or change.
If they are the only one, every developer would have it's own distro...
Also there is difference between coders and developers as I see it.
You don't need to expect from coder to be a developer and vice versa. 
E.G. developers are usually users, too. Coders are not. Simple example 
are tons of ex-Sun employees that just lost interest in Opensolaris 
after their payment for contribution has been cut off.
> Your argument seems to imply that the developers 1) don't use their 
> own creations and 2) have no good or original ideas of their own, and 
> are eagerly awaiting the input of sales and users to guide their 
> decisions. Developers aren't children in need of adult guidance.
Difference between coder and developer as i understand it is that coder 
have no interest whatsoever beyond he's contract about platform he uses 
on the project.
Developer have interest in platform and he will tend to do what is 
better for it.
In a sense, developer invest he's work and sweat, coder is payed to code.
There is no successful distribution without big traffic of opinions and 
requests from users to developers. And it goes both ways.
> Why would a developer make something --- in his spare time, for no 
> compensation --- that he himself would never use?
Don't know - maybe you have an answer for that question, since you 
invented it and asked it :)
Maybe someone else need what he made and asked from him to make it work 
and he likes the idea.
> Illumos is a volunteer effort, and developers have a clear idea of 
> what they want the system to do. The majority of Illumos developers 
> are heavily invested in the technology, and aren't in it just for the 
> paycheck (if they're even getting a paycheck for Illumos work). Many 
> of them use and depend on Illumos every day. Naturally feedback from 
> users is welcome, but you don't need full-blown governance for that, 
> just these mailing lists and the bug trackers.
>
illumos is a project payed by several companies that employed fully 
payed employees to develop it.
It is of course possible to send changes upstream and that is true,
but illumos would not exist without those paying companies, so it 
obviously it reflects their interests and of their use cases, and steer 
platform where they like.

If people outside those companies want to make changes, it is obvious 
that it is NOT enough just to send some code upstream and hope it gets 
integrated.
People need to form clusters of users, Admins, Hosting and companies 
using distributions , to , again, employ their people , pay them or 
inspire existing employees or Members to contribute to make their job 
easier.
More people join such clusters, it is better , not to let just a few 
companies move illumos to ,say x86-only , killing SPARC or something else.
> Given the choices between democracy, bureaucracy, autocracy, and 
> adhocracy, I'd say that empirically adhocracy (Illumos)  and autocracy 
> (Linux, Node.js, SmartOS) have worked out best in open source 
> projects. Democracy results in community schisms (Gentoo, the BSDs, 
> all of which got forked permanently and never merged back --- even 
> Debian got forked into Ubuntu, IIRC), and bureaucracy is too rule and 
> process-oriented (we're making software, not mass producing 
> pharmaceutical products). While there are some interesting 
> sociological questions here to be answered, it nevertheless holds that 
> we know what has and hasn't worked well so far, and we should do what 
> has worked well.
>
I would say I can not answer easy to such wood of social arrangements 
and their meanings,
all I can say is that regarding OS Distribution organization,
people that are in contact with end customers, mostly have idea what 
they need.
Nothing can replace real-life problems and inventions are not made out 
of nothing, that just does not happen easy.
> Having said all of that I encourage everyone who is interested in 
> Illumos or in software in general to learn to code. This 1) makes one 
> a better human being, 2) gives one more credibility, 3) give one the 
> ability to solve one's most pressing problems, when the other 
> developers are unavailable due to a crisis in the data center (or in 
> life generally) --- or due their lack of interest in one's specific 
> problem.
That is great idea!
Only problem is, that it is close to mind, that beginners need to have 
stable platforms to work on and start developing something they like.
It is also said that best way to learn to code or develop is to include 
yourself in existing projects or software distributions.
For that goal I also consider mentoring is a great way of inclusion of 
new people