Distribution quotes of the week

I think that the general point here is that in projects people need to be able to ask for help, and people must be willing to offer help. Again, in general, good management is about bringing these things together, whereas bad management (as many of us are unfortunately all too aware) often involves someone thinking that their job is merely to tell you what to do, frequently not contributing to the activity in any way other than to indicate that things must be done more quickly, as opposed to helping you get your work done by giving you what you need.

When the totem law of Kbanga declares that displaying any words with two consonant clusters is illegal on Fridays, the rest of the world doesn't suffer. Being able to pop in a DVD and play it is something an average person takes for granted. If oppressive laws in a single country stop a good part of multimedia functionality, why should that functionality be taken away from everyone else?

In talking with visitors to FOSDEM (that I am a co-organizer of, now) and with customers, I has become clear to me over the years that Debian has a reputation of being somewhat oldfashioned and stale. That if you want to run the latest technologies, you should use something else. This reputation may have been deserved when we were having trouble releasing sarge, over half a decade ago, but it's entirely undeserved today, and I think it's well past time that we do something about that.

I've seen that work, had stones thrown at me, didn't mind. I've seen others do it, worked out nicely in the end.

However, this doesn't always work, as this is best done when the discussion can be taken private, to discourage others from throwing yet more fuel onto the fire.

On the other hand, I do not believe in a flame-war-free world, either. We do need heated arguments from time to time, and I see nothing wrong with that, as long as it remains civilised and does not resort to name-calling and an insult duel (unless it's in monkey island style ;).

On the first part of your question --- assuming bad faith --- I think little can be done to avoid that. It's something quite personal: some are more prone to assume bad faith while other are more prone to assume good faith. What we need to encourage on that front is a culture that allow to change your mind once people discover their initial assumptions were wrong and to publicly say so. There is nothing wrong in being wrong. And there is a lot to gain from a community where people state publicly "sorry, I was wrong" and other people do not think bad of them because of that.