Re: Org Community

[James Harkins < jamshark70@gmail.com>]

Scott Randby <srandby <at> gmail.com> writes:

> However, I am concerned about the future of org. There is one
> individual who is poisoning the atmosphere by engaging in unfair and
> unfounded name calling that simply should not be included in messages
> to this list. Now this person wants to take some of their
> contributions out of org. The developer of the talk I attended called
> this tactic "hostage taking" and said that it is better for the
> community to let hostage takers go their own way. The project and
> community are more important than the code. The code can be written by
> others, or the community can decide to go in a different
> direction. Giving in to hostage takers leads to more hostage taking
> and the decline of the project.

I'm inclined to agree with this.

I don't feel like hesitating to name names. Jambunathan: Whatever offense was 
done to you, it remains true that ego-validation often (perhaps even usually) 
does not go along with accomplishing goals. I would like to be sympathetic to 
the injustice you feel. This is difficult when your approach to the problem 
is to hold your ego to be more important than the goal.

So what is the point here? If the point is to have well-functioning HTML, ODT 
and freemind exporters (and, secondarily, to enjoy knowing that you made, or 
helped to make, that happen), I think that's a worthy goal which the org 
community should support. If this is your goal, surely it can't be lost on 
you that your actions are impeding that goal.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to prove that you are an Important Person 
(and secondarily to contribute to org), then your actions are consistent with 
that goal. However, I think the org community would not be well-served by 
catering to your ego demands.

I contribute code and documentation to SuperCollider (an audio programming 
language). When I check in new content, I consider it a way to thank other 
developers who wrote code that I'm glad I didn't have to write myself. I 
don't expect credit and I don't expect my contributions to be inviolable 
entities that nobody should touch. It's not about ownership. It's about 
making a software environment that works better for people. The org community 
functions on the same principle, and I think it's correct that this community 
should not cave in to a diva's temper tantrums.

hjh