Contributing to the Hurd

[Rian Hunter]

Doug Jones wrote:
> Alfred, I basically agree with everything you said below.  I do see 
> messages like mine regularly, and I see criticisms of those messages as 
> well, and I think they are reasonable criticisms.

[ ... ]

> the Hurd could consider this mostly noise, and justifiably so  --  and 
> for that reason I would prefer not to continue this branch of the thread.

Alfred is right, everyone has this mentality of being told what to do 
when it comes to the HURD. Most other projects just receive patches 
daily. Why?

When it comes to the HURD there is too much idealism involved (not that 
this is a bad thing). People think it is their duty to contribute 
something so that the HURD prevails and becomes as popular of a system 
as GNU/Linux. The reality?

The HURD isn't anyone duty except its maintainers, just like any other 
Free Software project. You can't contribute? That's okay, the HURD isn't 
going to die without you. Stop treating the maintainers like they are 
your supervisors at work, and just hack *if you want to*.

Stop looking to make a "meaningful" contribution. People only ask that 
when they don't want their work to be wasted. Code is always going to be 
wasted, and if the maintainers don't like your patch. Tough. The same 
thing applies here, if you don't want to hack don't do it! the HURD 
isn't forcing you and like I said before it isn't going to die without 
your help. Most people hack for fun and when they have free time, if you 
don't see the fun or have the time or have the skill then don't worry 
about it, its not your problem.

The people who send in patches to Free Software Projects don't worry 
about whether or not their work is going to be meaningful or if it even 
is going to be incorporated, they just do it. And if its good then it 
will be incorporated, if its bad then the maintainers will most likely 
tell you why and then you can re-implement or whatever. That's what 
maintainers are there for, not to babysit you.

Stop making complaints like "the learning curve is too high so i can't 
contribute anything" okay that's fine, no one is going to arrest you but 
don't make it like its the maintainers fault. If you REALLY want to 
contribute code, then do what EVERYBODY ELSE WOULD DO, find time, read, 
read, read, digest the code to where you are comfortable, then do what 
needs to be done. Even I did this, you can't honestly think that 
everyone who hacks the HURD was just born with this knowledge or they've 
been learning this for countless years. No! They have the time, they 
read the docs and they get messy with the code, no different from you. 
Again, if you don't have time to do this do not worry about it the HURD 
isn't going to die without you.

Contribute what you _can_, any contribution is good, documentation is 
good, web pages are good, it doesn't matter, any little thing, 
everything is important seriously, not just the code.

One last note, how can you even ask what to contribute (code-wise) if 
you haven't even looked at the code? How contradictory is that? Because 
I can guarantee that once you have you will see that there is _PLENTY_ 
to do.
-rian