Subject: Re: volunteers gratefully accepted
From: Christopher Faylor <[email-masked]>
To: "Stephen C. Biggs" <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 22:38:16 -0500

On Tue, Dec 26, 2000 at 11:02:30AM -0800, Stephen C. Biggs wrote:
>I am a systems programmer of >25 years experience... I am very 
>hot on the idea of Cygwin, so I am already doing some things such 
>as porting already written applications (BIND, RPM, etc...)  I am still 
>waiting for my "porters" directory on franken.de which hasn't either 
>been granted or denied.
>
>Contact me privately and let me know what the priorities are...  In 
>this instance, I would need "marching orders" because I don't want 
>to be in conflict with what is already in place...

Let me get this straight.  I sent email which essentially said that I
was looking for self-motivated people and that I didn't want to be
giving people "marching orders" and asked that people use the public
mailing list to come to a consensus.

And so, you sent me private email specifically asking for the thing
I didn't want to do.

I don't know why "this instance" would be any different from anyone else
who was willing to volunteer.  Using your logic, I should now expect a
host of other people to be contacting me privately using exactly this
reasoning.  This was exactly what I was trying to forestall with the
email message that you quoted.

Anyway, I appreciate the willingness to help but I would again ask that
you use the cygwin and cygwin-apps mailing lists to figure out what other
people are doing.  You can also look at the cygwin to-do.

If you need a hint, it seems to me that the current hot spot in the
cygwin mailing list is people who want to download only "what they need"
using the setup program.  setup.exe needs some way of categorizing the
various packages so that people can download only what they need.  So,
I would envision a "base package" that included cygwin, and ash, a
"shell package" that included "bash", "fileutils", "textutils", etc.

If you find this interesting, please discuss it in the public mailing
lists.  I want any discussion to be public.

cgf

>On 25 Dec 2000, at 22:31, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> I appreciate everyone who has contacted me after this email but I was
>> kind of hoping that people would peruse the project and try to figure
>> out where they could make a difference.
>> 
>> If you are a C programmer, then maybe you might want to think about
>> becoming a package maintainer or augmenting some of the cygwin
>> utilties.
>> 
>> If you understand web stuff then look at the web pages and think about
>> how you'd like to contribute.
>> 
>> If you are a documentation expert then maybe the cygwin docs will
>> entice you.
>> 
>> I'd rather avoid being a manager as much as I can.  I already do that
>> in my real job and I'd rather not have to spend time giving people
>> assignments externally, too.  I'd rather have self-motivated
>> volunteers.
>> 
>> An excellent example of this is David Starks-Browning.  I asked for
>> volunteers, he stepped up and said "I'd like to do the FAQ" and he's
>> been doing an excellent job ever since.
>> 
>> That's what I'm looking for.
>> 
>> I have no objections to someone who is looking to volunteer asking the
>> rest of the list for ideas, given their skill set.  Maybe I'll even
>> join in with ideas.  I just don't want to be giving marching orders if
>> I can help it.
>> 
>> cgf
>> 
>> On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 09:05:58AM -0800, Reid Thompson wrote:
>> >I would be willing to spend some free time trying to help.
>> >Unfortunately, I have little experience coding at the OS level.  Most
>> >of my work has been business level applications.  90%+ in C.  If
>> >there is a portion of a project that you feel that I may be of help
>> >on let me know.
>> >
>> >reid
>> >
>> >--- Christopher Faylor <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> >>From time to time I do a google search for "cygwin" to see what kind
>> >>of links are out there referring to the project.
>> >>
>> >>I'm always somewhat shocked by the number of pages which reference
>> >>cygwin.  I'm almost equally shocked to see that some of the pages
>> >>are actually maintained by frequent posters here.
>> >>
>> >>Given the number of times that we've asked for volunteers, I wonder
>> >>if we've made it clear that we'll accept volunteers for any part of
>> >>the project.
>> >>
>> >>For instance, if you are a whiz in web design, we'll gladly accept
>> >>input on the web pages.
>> >>
>> >>If you are a world class author, we'd love to put you to work on the
>> >>documentation.
>> >>
>> >>If you think that you can explain things better than the FAQ or that
>> >>there deserves to be more focused explanations given on some topics,
>> >>we can easily give you access to our web pages to collaborate with
>> >>the current FAQ, documentation, and web people.
>> >>
>> >>I guess what I'm saying is that I certainly understand the desire to
>> >>put your name up in lights on your own web page.  And, it is
>> >>gratifying for me to see links to cygwin all over the place.  But,
>> >>I'd like people to consider possibly also donating their time and
>> >>skill to the project itself.
>> >>
>> >>It won't be as glamorous.  It won't be as easy.  You won't be able
>> >>to say *anything* that you want or make any changes that you want. 
>> >>I, and other people, will probably have opinions on what you do and
>> >>will occasionally veto stuff or suggest changes.
>> >>
>> >>But, if you do contribute, your work will benefit a lot of people;
>> >>arguably more than will benefit from your personal web page.  And, I
>> >>pledge that I'll add your name to the "Who are we" part of the
>> >>Cygwin web page.
>> >>
>> >>If the idea of contributing directly to the cygwin project still
>> >>doesn't thrill you, then at least consider adding your web page to
>> >>the "post new news" section of http://cygwin.com/ so that we can
>> >>start adding links to helpful sites.
>> >>
>> >>Anyway, don't get me wrong.  I appreciate any work that anyone does
>> >>towards helping this project.  However, I hope that people will
>> >>consider the somewhat thankless task of working directly towards
>> >>improving the project itself by working on some of the parts of its
>> >>infrastructure whether that is the web page, the source code, or the
>> >>documentation.
>> >>
>> >>Christopher Faylor
>> >>Cygwin Engineering Manager

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