[Mailman-Users] White flag [Re: Feature Request -- Again]

[David Champion]

On 2000.06.02, in <p04310101b55dfc7b2fa5@[209.239.169.197]>,
	"Chuq Von Rospach" <chuqui at plaidworks.com> wrote:
> 
> Two comments:
> 
> first, a basic reality is that priorities are going to have to be 
> set. If we (and Barry) waqit to release 2.0 until everything 
> wanted/needed by everyone is done, it'll never ship. So there are 

I don't mean to say that I think this must be done now.  I do
understand the development process, and it's fine for some things to
wait.  I only burst in where it seems that people are declaring that
the current state is all that's needed, and completely practical.  The
message I replied to here said "[t]o clear up a misconception" -- I
wanted to make it clear that there is no misconception, but that the
current code has actual problems in practice.

Fixing them later is fine.  I want 2.0 out the door, too.

> Jumping on people for disagreeing with them isn't productive, either. 
> And neither is belittling someone's opinion just because you disagree 
> with them.

I don't think that was belittling anyone.  Jumping on them: maybe.
Someone wrote in response to a more helpful message that a simple "no"
is better.  It was my read that the whole point of that message was
that to be blunt and unhelpful is a better approach, and my estimation
of it is that it's discouraging for a user to hear, and not a very
practical approach.  Where I work, this does not fly, as nice as that
would be.  In context, it seems to say: "... and the software features
that make this dichotomy disappear should never be implemented,
either."

I apologize if that was not the intent.

Rereading myself, though, I'm definitely going over the edge on this
topic, and I'm going to clam up after this and take some breath.

All I'll say beyond this is that in my circumstances, the observations
I've made, software-wise, are repeatably evident.  I really don't have
the resources for supporting some of this stuff, yet there's
(currently) no room in Mailman for delegation of authority.  It's OK if
Mailman intends to mend these, but cannot spare time yet.  This is how
open software development is.  I'm not complaining about Barry's or
anyone else's work.  But you can't *talk* these problems away.  I'm
only troubled when I hear it said that the problems I experience don't
really exist.

-- 
 -D.	dgc at uchicago.edu	NSIT	University of Chicago