[CentOS-devel] Reality V/s Fantasy

[Douglas McClendon]

On 11/26/2010 12:21 PM, Stefan Held wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 26.11.2010, 11:41 +0000 schrieb Karanbir Singh:
>
>> I am not sure where that came from - there is some level of fantasy that
>> some of you guys seem to live with. Lets take for example the request
>> for help with branding and trademark searches in the el6 source base.
>
> Karanbir, as this is a fairly new Process, not documented anywhere, how
> would you expect the masses to help you out?

+1, and to the rest of Stefan's reply.

Specifically, as an observer who has the interest, skillset, and time to 
help, I considered this thread and the best answer I can come up with 
for why I haven't been more motivated to try and help is-

A lack of a progress-bar.  Or number.  Or list in a wiki.  If I thought 
I could 'go do something', and that work would translate in some 
progress-meter jumping from 2345/5000 to 2346/5000, I think I'd be much 
more likely to do it.

Another variant of that which would make the sense of contribution and 
accomplishment be more visceral, might be a publicly visible repository 
of just .el6.srpm's filling up, that theoretically I could build in the 
process that has been documented on this list, but not so much AFAICS on 
a centos6 wiki page (see Stefan's comments below about the still very 
thin centos6 documentation via wiki).

Another element (and I could have missed something - if so the issue is 
then prominence or obviousness -), is a lack of tangible examples for 
the format that such work would be required to be in.  Yes, I can see 
the filing of bugs, but filing of bugs doesn't give the sense of 
satisfaction of the 2345->2346/5000 tick, or a new file appearing in a 
directory, the end of the road of that population or progress-meter 
being a new milestone of completeness of centos6.

Now sure, I could just accept as my motivation, reward, and process 
letting some guru flag-holder, hold my hand, tell me what to do, and 
then pat me on the back.  But that level of reward, especially with the 
STFU attitude I'm seeing from the flag-holder, does not induce me to 
contribute.

Give us a progressbar, and publically visible examples, and maybe 
(seriously, maybe, I could be wrong), you might see more community 
contribution.

I.e, I've wondered, and even looked but can't find, exactly what the 
format of the work is.  I.e. a standard patch to specfile and file-level 
diff of SOURCES I would presume?

I hope that explanation of why I personally haven't helped more is of 
help.  And I admit it may still all be some rationalization where KS's 
vision of reality is still valid, and I may not have really done any 
work even if all those concerns were taken care of.  Dunno...

-dmc

>
>> the intention was to not do
>> that, and to bring in a larger user base who can help cover issues that
>> don't need specific centos resources. Also, the QA effort tends to be
>> exceptionally manic, with things changing on an hourly basis, and some
>> of us pushing for testing, results quite aggressively.
>>
>
> Even if i look at the site you sugested to us, clearly, it states:
>
> <snip>
>
> webapp for people to suggest patches and branding changes : http://url
> ( coming soon : this will visible and usable by anyone, not just the
> QaTeam )
>
> </snip>
>
> So this webapp is now bugs.centos.org? Fine, then please state it there.
> Else maybe some of us where waiting for that webapp to come to glory.
>
>> The original email asking for help on this was posted on the 12th Nov.
>> Its the 26th now. Check https://bugs.centos.org/ to see what level of
>> participation has been forthcoming.
>
> See above.
>
>> And if people don't want to help with that joining-the-dots effort,
>> they are never going to be a part of the process.
>
> Maybe the people are willing to help but do not know how?
>
> How they get the RHEL Beta, where to look in the rpms?
> What must be reported?
>
>> Slightly frustrating ? Absolutely.
>
> Indeed.
>