FAQ DRAFT RANTS

Robert Collins robert.collins@itdomain.com.au
Wed May 23 15:44:00 GMT 2001


Ok, if the rants have started..  my turn for a rant. This is an
interleaved rant, possibly a  nearly extinct animal.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold Hunt" <huntharo@msu.edu>
To: "'cygx'" <cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 7:26 AM
Subject: RE: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Cygwin/XFree86 DocBook-based FAQ Draft 2


> > Are you going to provide two different FAQ on our Cygwin/XFree86
URL?
> >
> > Your FAQ is no where to complete.  MOTIF and a lots of other issues
which
> > are already discussed in present FAQ  are being omitted. In its
> > present form
> > it is insufficeinet to put at Cygwin/Xfree86.
>
> That sure is awfully accusative.  I would think that everyone
understands
> the meaning of the word 'draft'.

We do. And Suhaib and I both asked you directly to
a) do a minor update that you had volunteered to do on FAQ, but
b) leave any major changes until the User Guide had been updated to be
inline with the current Binaries (ie including new tarball names and the
like).

Now you may have completed b), but I don't recall an announcement.

WE ONLY know what YOU tell us.

> <rant>
> You know, I work awfully hard on this project and I put a lot of time
into
> it.  I'd really appreciate it some people would stop trying to fight
me and
> instead start trying to work with me.

Who's trying to fight you? I'm trying to make sure you spend the minimum
time needed to produce a good FAQ doc system for the project.. by
raising all issues I see as soon as possible - to reduce any wasted
time/effort.

> Have I ever carried out a rash decision that hurt the project?  No, I
always
> discuss things, even unpopular things before committing to them.

Has anyone suggested that your are doing this now? No. Why are you
raising this concern?

> Does everyone here understand that I like to work on drafts before
> committing to a new thing?  Yes, that should be fairly obvious, as I
have
> done that with the overlay test server, the offscreen framebuffer test
> server, the User's Guide, the shadow framebuffer test server, the new
> project homepage, and now with the FAQ.

Good. That's exactly the way we have worked before, and there is _no_
issue there. Understand that you have _two_ drafts in _one_ document: a
draft build system, and a draft content.

Suhaib above has pointed out that your content is missing a lot of
things that _we have been asked recently_. If you started the new FAQ
from scratch, then this _is expected_. If you started by deleting
without asking.... well we don't know which you did. Either you haven't
copied very closely from the current (less than perfect) FAQ, or you
have deleted content that is important. Either way I'm not concerned
about that _yet_. Because I'm still not sold on the SGML FAQ. I think it
will be good if we can meet some basic criteria.

> I see two options here, I can continue doing things as I have been,
sans the
> negative comments from the peanut gallery, or we can have a
communication
> breakdown and resort to a CVS commit war.  I might note that all
recent
> evidence indicates that I'll win any such CVS commit war, as I have
the
> majority of CVS commits :)
> </rant>

Harold, we seem to already have a comms problem. You've felt the need to
explain to me that you code and doc rather than waste time talking.
Well, you are now reaping the result of not talking first.

Talking to layout what happens does _not_ waste time.

When did you _ask_ what criteria the current FAQ maintainer felt there
was if a change in the authoring system was to occur?

When did you _ask_ what content was felt to be obsolete (or conversely,
state that you think point foo, bar and johnny were obsolete and were
there objections to removing them) ?

I'm doing my best to be supportive of you efforts, and you are being
helpful with my problems getting to the point where I can _test_ what
you have done.

> I have to confess that this email is partly joking, yet partly serious
:)

I'm serious. No joke.

> Harold "Just let me work in peace and I'll be happy" Hunt

Yeah. Well, this is a project, with team members. A big part of working
in such environments is dicussion and talking.

I hope I haven't been to inflammatory above: but I'm feeling a similar
frustration to what you have expressed. (Without the "I work hard on
cygwin/Xfree86" bit :] )


Rob



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