Re: Re: Please share your linux experiences....

[Atul Chitnis <achitnis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2000, Mrinal Kalakrishnan wrote:

> I don't understand what you have against the licensing discussions.

I do not have anything against licensing issues - I have something against
the way they are being discussed. Have you seen even one of the people in
those "discussions" give an inch? All we achieved with those discussion is
that Manoj refuses to participate in a discussion that Arun takes part in,
every participant gets down to personal levels, etc.

> The name "linux-india-help" itself suggests that LIH is a forum where
> people can put forward queries, and other considerate people answer
> them, thus promoting Linux in India. If most of the problems are with
> "SiS 6xxx" cards, then there's not a thing anybody can do about it. If
> you say "SiS users go to hell" or other similar remarks, you are
> actually *demoting* the use of Linux in India.

You will find this hard to understand since you have not been part of the
background discussions in the past, but I had suggested resource lists to
be put up on the website, pointing to commeon questions and answers given.
This was deemed as "unnecessary" because such resources already exist
(which is untrue - they do not address even half of what people are
asking). Unless such resources are created, people will keep asking the
same questions!

> Tell me, what is your ideal picture of the LIH
> mailing list?

Thank you for asking. My ideal picture of the LIH list is one of a
*source* of information that is then culled and indexed in a user-friendly
way (not "refer the archives") so that people can *use* this knowledge.

One factor that troubles me is the quality of answers - many times, people
give different answers, but only one or two are actually the correct ones.
A person going through the archive has no way of knowing *which* is the
correct one.

My ideal picture of the list is that it is part of a community, rather
than an end within itself (which it is definitely now).

> 
> > If it isn't Linux, I am not here. 
> 
> If queries regarding hardware which is not supported under Linux, are
> not `Linux' then what is? 

I did not say such queries are non-Linux. How did you get that impression?

> LIG, is linux-india-general, which is for topics which are in some way
> related to Linux. If licensing issues are not Linux (general), then
> what is?

Licensing issues may be part of Linux, but discussions which come to no
conclusion and confuse the hell out people (as they are meant to) are
definitely not Linux.

> A large percentage of your messages in the recent past have been pure
> cribs about the mailing lists, about the quality of messages, about
> not sticking to Linux.. whatever. Your quitting LI (now LIH) just
> because of ``such discussions'' itself shows that you don't care too
> much for the Linux India community - as in helping out people on the
> mailing list who have genuine problems. If you don't like those
> dicussions, junk them to /dev/null! Don't send a ton of messages just
> to crib about `certain people' carrying on `certain discussions' which
> you don't particularly care for.

Should I leave that one unpunished....?

Nope. You asked for it.

Understand something. I would like to see results. The way the lists are
operating today, they are unmanaged chaos and virtually no one takes part.
Want proof? Ask Thaths for the member count on all the lists (per list).
How many of these people participate? How many lurk? And how many drop
out?

I dropped out of LIH because my presence there was causing grief to people
- because of my connection to PCQ and other factors. It was causing me
grief as well, because instead of creating the resources that people
actually needed, LIH depends on a few people to continuously give the same
answers to the same questions. That is not knowledge or resource building
- that is insanity.

As Arun said when I dropped out of LIH - "If you don't enjoy it anymore,
then it doesn't make sense to stick around" (don't have his actual message
here, but it was something to that effect).

I haven't dropped out of LIG yet. I said "If it isn't Linux, I am not
here". But like many others, I see nothing useful happening here vis a vis
Linux - and if this state continues, then why on earth should I waste my
time here?

> Don't mistake me here - my interests are not trollish, if you feel it
> is, feel free to ignore this post.

You didn't post your message to have it ignored by me. So why this
cop-out?

Understand something - all of you. Thanks to the attention Linux is
getting worldwide, and especially here in India, you are all actors on a
stage, and you have a huge audience watching you. Your behaviour (i.e.
ability to discuss something and come to a conclusion) reflects on Linux
and the Linux community as a whole. Now go back and read the discussions
over the past month or two. Try doing it with an open mind (not with a
biased one that is set in "I am right, so Atul must be wrong" mode) - what
do you learn?

Atul

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