Time has come to stop with /usr/local path pollution!

[Andrew Diederich]

On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 08:44:52AM -0400, Ken Murchison wrote:
> Quoting Andrew Diederich <andrew at NETdelivery.com>:
> 
> > There are three things to do when a bug is found.  1) fix it, 2) document
> > the bug and the workaround, or 3) hope people don't find it again.  #3 is
> > terribly expensive in support costs, like this string of emails.
> 
> Its seems that people are missing a very important point here.  Cyrus was 
> developed for internal use at CMU.  CMU has been kind enough to allow the 
> source code to be distributed for use by anybody, commercial or otherwise.
 
CMU scratched its itch, and released to code.  No complaint here.

> Some may argue that CMU has a responsibility to fix all bugs, write good 
> documentation, hand-hold ignorant/illiterate admins, make coffee, and clean 
> windows.  In most cases, they do all of the above, and more.
 
Since there is no contract between CMU, Cyrus developers, and folks who
download Cyrus, it's absolutely not CMU's responsibility to do anything.

> I wish people would keep this in mind, when they claim that the build process 
> is broken.  It is broken for _you_, because I can assure you that it built for
> the intended user (CMU).  The developers first responsibilty is to their 
> employers, not to a small, whiny part of the user community with an edge-case 
> problem.
 
Sure, Cyrus is there to scratch your itch.  It happens to work for some others,
too.  I'd have to argue that installing the Berkeley DB in its default location
is a little far from an "edge-case problem," though.

> If people spend the same amount of time trying to fix the problem instead of 
> bitching about it, this would've been a dead issue a long time ago.  It don't 
> think that the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" principal is necessarily going 
> to work.
 
Yup.  And some of that is taking what feedback you get from users, and 
deciding what to do with it.  There really are only the three things you can
do with a bug.  Remember that its really hard to get user feedback.  Even
if a bug report doesn't include a patch, its usually better than not getting
it at all.  For every one guy that says "it surprised me when this happened"
there are nine that were surprised and didn't say anything.  And there are
even fewer that tell you _why_ they were surprised, and what really happened.

> The next time somebody is frustrated by the software and wants to rant about 
> how much of their time the developers wasted, take a step back and remember how 
> much time and money they actually _saved_ you.
> 
> Another $.02
 
Open source software does tend to save money.  And a good, helpful user 
community like this one, and sunmanagers, all adds to the value of a 
product.   Thanks for the time to read this.

-- 
    Andrew Diederich