Re: newbie shell-users howto, guide, cheatsheet, or reference?

["Karsten M. Self" <kmself at ix dot netcom dot com>]

on Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 12:15:12PM -0600, Robert Mecklenburg (mecklen@cimsoft.com) wrote:
> 
> GRVS> Let's get this straight.  Your intent was clear.  You were yet
> GRVS> again trying to be a jerk when it was completely and utterly
> GRVS> unwarranted, and completely contrary to convincing anybody of
> GRVS> doing anything for the Cygwin project.
> 
> I've been using cygwin since the '80s and reading this list daily for
> many years.  I must say that I don't believe Chris is wrong.  Many
> people mistakenly believe that any effort put in toward an open source
> project is good.  At some statistical level that may be true, but at a
> practical engineering level it is false.  By placing documentation and
> tools outside the cygwin distribution (and distribution mechanism) you
> create confusion, fragment management, increase likelihood of
> incorrect or out of date data, and generally waste energy.  By failing
> to acknowledge this situation you further degrade your position.

"The right to fork" is seen by many as a key attribute of free software
development.  It's practiced in Linux kernel development, as in other
projects.  So long as the products of the effort are released under
compatible terms, and an effort is made to provide the results to the
core project (which may or may not chose to incorporate them), there's a
net benefit.  I've specifically aimed at content licensing terms at
TWikIWeThey which should be globally acceptable (it's effectively a
BSD-style documentation license).

Putting a finer point on it, neither Chris nor anyone here has any
business telling me or anyone else here whether or not we should pursue
an independent documentation effort -- it's as sensical as saying that
KDE or GNOME, or XPde, is a wasted effort.  Look:  if someone wants to
put the energy into a project, that's a matter for them to decide.  If
Chris (or anyone else here) cares to specify how to approach integrating
the results of an outside effort with Cygwin, I'm receptive.  His
specific comments were argumentative, indicated a lack of comprehension,
and were out of order.

The issue here is:  I asked whether a documentation resource fitting a
specific need existed, I received general assurances that it did not,
and I began the process of developing same myself, which I'd pretty much
expected I'd have to do anyway.  I'm doing so in a manner that will
allow the material to be used by others, rather than merely as an
in-house documentation project.

I'm done comparing member sizes.  Anyone who wants to continue the
strut is free to do so.

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    Ceterum censeo, Caldera delenda est.
		        SCO vs IBM Linux lawsuit info:  http://sco.iwethey.org

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