Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT sources DOT redhat DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT sources DOT redhat DOT com Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 17:50:25 -0600 (MDT) From: Tim Baggett To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: soapbox - was: press for cygwin In-Reply-To: <911C684A29ACD311921800508B7293BA010A8C88@cnmail> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Mark, Good to see the author of the article replying to the list. I went to the Cygwin site and did a search using your name. Good to see that you've been on the list for a year, and answering quite a number of questions regarding SSH and Cygwin. Even better, was the fact that your answers were polite rather than demeaning, which is typical from some arrogant RedHat/Cygwin folks who often prefer to spend more time showing an attitude than actually being helpful. Yes, I actually have a point with this email to the list, and to a very small group of people 'in charge' specifically. I think Cygwin is an awesome package, and is an extremely valuable asset in a windows environment on all levels. In fact, I've been working with RedHat about our company licensing the DLL because the platform is so useful to me. So this is the reason I feel compelled to send this email, as I do not want to see developers pushed away from contributing to this project. There is a serious problem with attitudes among a few people on this list. I have been involved in providing support in programming projects about ten years ago, although not nearly to this level, so I can understand the frustration of answering questions that are easily answered by reading a FAQ or searching an archive. However, this list has NO place for this sort of attitude. I am ashamed that Mark spent a lot of effort and energy to write an article, only to be slammed by this mail list. I'm glad to discover that he's been a contributer to this list. I hope he continues to be a contributer. I see the problem on the list as a potential to kill this great project. Too many well meaning people are flamed on the sight of their emails asking for help when they are first learning about Cygwin. Too many brilliant people who may be interested in starting to contribute their talent to coding for Cygwin, I feel, are pushed away by the attitudes on this list. I know nothing about programming to GNU standards, writing POSIX code, Windows internals, or even Unix internals. I'd love to learn, and I've about wore out my Unix environment programming book by Richard Stevens (best advice I read from this list was to buy this book!), but I have far too many questions to which some of the great programming wizards on the list would prefer to show an attitude - based on past behavior on the list. To the core group as a whole, consider your documentation. Documentation is an essential part of project management, yet I see none of that activity being done here. Check out the following link and see how out dated the User's Guide is: http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/installing-binaries.html How is someone supposed to read through this document and know that the information they obtain is even partially accurate? I haven't seen an update to the User's Guide in well over a year. I am thankful to the volunteer who recently stepped up last month to make some changes to the FAQ. No... Do not tell me I need to get involved and take on a documentation project. I would love to contribute to Cygwin, but I do not know nearly enough to take on such a task, nor am I part of this elite group who prefers not to answer beginning questions. So, I will back down off my soapbox, and return to my lurking and learning so I can continue with finishing my projects the best way I know how (although I'm certain isn't the "proper" way it should be done). I'm just providing some food for thought. Regards, Tim PS: I hope the person taking the Cygwin / WinXP poll will still publish the results, even though some people made it clear they don't care. Others might find interesting. -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/