[Ilugc] How to make ILUGC list user friendly?
- From: ashwin.chn@xxxxxxxxx (ashwin kesavan)
- Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:32:04 +0530
On 12 July 2011 13:22, Shrinivasan T <tshrinivasan at gmail.com> wrote:
Friends.
I am seeing a lot of people FEAR to shoot a mail to the list.
It seems that the newbies should have thick skin to write to our list.
Did anyone hear the same from the silent members of the list?
Please check with your friends why they are not posting
or asking any questions to our list.
Hi Shrini,
I think the results you see in the list and the resulting fear you
precive are b'cos you misunderstood/mis-interpreted the results. And
if i am correct we will continue to see decline in mailing list
traffic and newbie postings. So this is the best time to take the list
to next level by creating more discussion between long timers in the
list and linux expert gurus in the list. We dont necessarily need to
have to get novice level doubts. instead we can start discussions on
our experinces and get best practices. Start discussion on newer/less
discussed technologes in linux. the one that comes to mind immediately
is configuration management system. (not content management system)
like pupet or cfengine, etc. Open source app development for desktop
application (not OSS web app). I mean something like GUI app in python
with gtk+ bindings or qt bindings or wxwidget. One application which i
am trying to look into porting to linux is this
http://keepfocused.codeplex.com/ . Currently it is alpha but stable ;.
Code review by the peers of the app in ilugc seniors would be great.
that way we get to know differernt coding techniques. Now don't limit
your self to code. There is a world in IT filed out there that doesnt
do code as primarly but yet do wonders. Like sys ops. Try to involve
them in discussion by posting information related to them thereby
pulling them to the discuss in the list. I mean when faced by sys ops
problem andsolvedf by another sys ops. I don't mean usual stuff like
db, web server, app server, mail , etc problems. But problems on
lesser discussed items like cfengine maybe.
So Shrini the reason why you are seeing less traffic esp., from
newbies is that linux has become old enough that most of the common
problems are already discussed in length in lot of places online in
world. And this resulted in google able to pick the most problems and
their best solution. So when newbie face a problem he searched in the
internet and finds the answer , thereby never needing to post to list.
Second reason, most products have become mature enough after gaining
limelight by being under linux. For example , mysql, postgresql,
httpd, sendmail, samba, etc. And so most critical bugs are already
fixed. And company employees are officially asked to work in OSS
projects as a part of their part of pushing their commercial product
into the market by using the OSS product. For example, you may be
providing email service like mail.com. So they might be using sendmail
in place of exchange to serve its users., thereby saving the money
spend on software and support. So when there is critical bug in
sendmail then it is definetly going to affect our mail.com vendor. So
this vendor would deploy people in his payroll to fix that bug and
give them back to OSS b'cos he got the original s/w as free OSS so it
makes sense that he give back to community in what the community has
given him. That way the bugs are also getting fixed, atleast so for
the long time famous products. New products have the tough challenge
of getting large users mindshare. If they prove he worth they will
surive and get corporate hornors like our sendmail example got.
So the moral of the story: Linux has become old, since linux is in
existance for nearly 20 years. So here the waterhole has dried up.
Move to the other emerging field where the pasture are still green. i
stick on to it b'cos, it maybe old, but it is not going to be dead
anywhere near. In fact it has gained ground so much that it is going
to live for another few decades before something close to that
happens. That time i will move out . infact most people will move out.
But during this phase it will lead a life without much happenings. Its
grandpa(unix) is still relavent today and that shows some of the
strengths of linux and strong lineage it holds for the future.
This is how it is going to be . Accept and move on...
with regards,
ashwin
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