[Asterisk-Users] Re: Why Asterisk documentation is so poor...

Richard Cook asterisk-list at voctel.com
Thu Oct 20 10:23:54 MST 2005


I'm not mocking anyone.  I'm merely illustrating why contributors get
frustrated and stop.

The biggest challenge I see for Open Source is the lack of documentation.

Would it really have been difficult for the marshalls to change the one
sentence?  At the very least, it would have potentially kept a contributor,
if in fact his intent was to contribute more.  I'm not saying marshalls
should be changing 50 or more lines of code.  This was a sentence.

I would rather pick better battles (such as focus) and keep contributors
happy.

--
R


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of BJ Weschke
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 1:05 PM
To: richard at voctel.com; Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial
Discussion
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Re: Why Asterisk documentation is so poor...

 Richard,

 I'm sorry you and others feel the way you do. Businesses though don't want
an open source project that is a free for all when it comes to contributions
and discipline both in the code itself and documentation.

 Olle has contributed hundreds of hours of his own time over the time he's
been involved with Asterisk. It's a disappointment that you've taken to
mocking his efforts instead of taking the suggestion and making a
contribution that works for everyone. We all agree readily that the existing
documentation could use the enhancement.


On 10/20/05, Richard Cook <asterisk-list at voctel.com> wrote:
>
> A great stance.  Another contributor most likely lost.  Nice job.
>
> --
> R
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Olle E.
> Johansson
> Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 12:01 PM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Re: Why Asterisk documentation is so poor...
>
> Doug Meredith wrote:
> > "Olle E. Johansson" <oej at edvina.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Sergey,
> >>I am sorry if you took our comments that badly. I proposed a 
> >>worthing and you did not accept that and refused to update according 
> >>to our suggestions. Tilghman therefor decided to close the bug.
> >>
> >>I suggest you try again, re-open the bug, fix the problem and 
> >>continue to add more documentation. We do need more documentation! 
> >>It has to be correct though, and that's why we are giving feedback.
> >
> >
> > I believe I understand and share Sergey's confusion.  Maybe it is 
> > something we just don't understand about how Asterisk development 
> > works.  If he has made a useful contribution with the exception of 
> > one sentence, why don't you just change that sentence and apply it?  
> > Will you only accept suggestions in the form of directly appliable
patches?
> >
> Well, as Corydon76 said in the bug report - neither he or I can commit 
> patches. Neither of us are paid by anyone to spend our time fixing 
> other people's patches or bugs or even giving input... So please don't 
> suppose that we have time or require us to fix other peoples additions.
>
> And with the pressure on the committers and developers that we have 
> now, while trying to stabilize 1.2, we do rely on the reporter to try 
> to take the patch all the way, considering input. It was an easy 
> change to make, and should not have caused this discussion.
>
> I do not necessarily agree that the bug should have been closed, I 
> would personally have kept it open until someone bothered with doing 
> the necessary changes and moved it forward.
>
> We do need more people that are interested in writing docs and fixing 
> bugs, not just developers that add new features. Very few spend time 
> fixing other people's patches, testing other people's patches, giving 
> input and assisting in moving stuff forward. Very few people outside 
> Digium fix bugs reported in the bug tracker, many more contribute new 
> code for new functionality.
>
> Feel free to join the larger development group, helping all of us to 
> move forward. Try to balance being a user that gets something for free 
> with contributing back :-)
>
> If you want to fix this particular document, just find someone in the 
> #asterisk-bugs channel on IRC and we'll happily re-open the bug report 
> for you.
>
> /Olle
>
> ...who has had to fix many documentation contributions several times 
> before they where accepted...
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