[asterisk-dev] Asterisk 1.6 Realtime Database must use ', ' not '|'

[Lee Howard]

On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:33:03AM -0500, Tilghman Lesher wrote:
>> This is an open source ecosystem.  If you have a problem with one of these
>> advancements, then it's incumbent upon you to point it out, and, if the change
>> is seen to be justified by the developers, then you can either propose
>> alternate code or accept what was changed.  Remember, meritocracy, not
>> democracy.  The quality of the code that you contribute is what has the vote,
>> not how big of a bully pulpit you can manage.

Yeah, this kind of comment, along with the philosophy behind it, is 
counter-productive (i.e. it's toxic) to software development.

Users' opinions should be heard, accepted, and valued without 
necessarily being followed-up by code patches from the user.

In software development (and I don't care whether it's closed or open 
source) there are users and there are developers.  Developers must rely 
on and respect feedback from users or the pride of the developers sours 
the soup and directs the development in a direction that is not in 
harmony with the user base.

It doesn't need to be democratic... in fact it shouldn't be... but 
neither should it be a meritocracy.  You've got to come together and 
agree on something that makes you both happy, and if you can't, then 
you're at an impasse and the developer is only going to damage the 
relationship with the user... hindering further feedback and fouling the 
atmosphere.

If you're so quick to throw down the gauntlet and say "this is open 
source", as if the availability of the source code had any relevancy to 
the merit of a user's feedback, then you're poisoning the community with 
that veiled challenge to do it themselves (i.e. fork).  If you really 
valued the best interests of the software development you'd knock it off.

Thanks,

Lee.