RE: [Phpgroupware-users] hobby

[Brian Connolly]

Brian,

I think good points were made by both sides.  In my experience, heat is a
natural consequence of the iterative process and passion is god's little
motivator.

Now one last word on professionalism... after a scrap, pros brush themselves
off and move forward.  I hope that is a reasonable expectation.

For the record, I apologize for any low blows.

Best,

Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Johnson [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 8:16 AM
To: address@hidden
Subject: Re: [Phpgroupware-users] hobby

Can we please end this thread?

Brian:

You asked a question that required a high level of technical knowledge, some
of it
about your system config, a system to which it seems that nobody involved
has access.

The first few posts seem to be people trying to offer a couple of
suggestions and
you asking for more detailed information.  From there it degenerated as more
people
got involved.

This like most open source projects relies upon volunteers.

Please consider a swap of roles with you being the person able to help and
giving
some and then be criticized and name called (what the heck is a faux
developer?)
becuase the person you are trying to help doesn't understand it and doesn't
appear
to even _try_ to understand it.

Please realize that losing patience and attacking the people trying to help
you will
usually result in even less aid the next time you ask for it (I find this
applies to
everything in life)


Everybody else:

Why bother replying with statements like "somebody already told you what you
need".

Sometimes silence is the best response, for it would give him time to think
about
the answer and decide to investigate it further himself and either solve it,
or come
back (in a polite, friendly way) with more information to narrow down the
problem,
or decide to pay someone for support, or decide not to use phpgw (in my
opinion that
would be his loss)

I think those options pretty much sum up support for all open source
projects.

Responding in a preaching manner (ie this is what you SHOULD have done)
seems to
usually degenerate the thread pretty quickly from my observations.


Everybody:

Can we stop this?

Discussions of hobby vs profesional vs hobby & profession (that's what I
strive for
.. to get paid for what I enjoy doing) are irrelevant.  The world (and the
tech
industry in general) are ripe with examples of hobbies turned business.  M$
and
Apple come quickly to mind.

Phpgroupware is a complex set of php scripts that in turn relies upon the
proper
configuration of numerous other complex systems (web server, the php
language,
databases, DNS, firewalls, etc.).  From my observation of irc and the
mailing lists,
it seems as there are AT LEAST as many problems/questions related to these
underlying systems as there are attributed to phpgw itself.

If you don't want to get involved in learning about and troubleshooting your
systems
for these dependant systems, hire someone to do it for you.

It is really that simple.

Now kiss and make up.



Brian Connolly (address@hidden) wrote:
>
>Dan,
>
>If there was a single email that could discredit all the efforts of those
>who've worked tirelessly to make this a business application... Dan you
just
>wrote it.  If you guys cannot take yourself seriously, you cannot expect
>anyone else to.
>
>That's too bad.
>
>Regards,
>
>Brian
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dan Kuykendall [mailto:address@hidden
>Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 10:57 PM
>To: address@hidden; address@hidden
>Subject: Re: [Phpgroupware-users] open_basedir restriction
>
>Brian Connolly wrote:
>
>>Remember, without users, phpgw is only a hobby.
>>
>You say that as a bad thing.
>When jengo and I started phpGW and laid out the entire infastructure we
>did it completely as a hobby.
>Many of the initial development team worked on phpGW as a hobby, since
>none of us were being paid for any phpGW work, and to this day very few
>people involved make any money dev'ing it. In fact alot of the time
>"users" simply get in the way of the fun.
>
>Of  course many involved are in fact focused on the user base, and
>making money working on phpGW, and the project benefits from this group
>as well. But dont go getting all pissy about the ***FREE*** help you are
>offered, and try and insinuate that phpGW is only a hobby without you.
>Because if thats the case, SO WHAT?
>
>Its nice that the world can benefit from what we started as a "hobby".
>
>Dan
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>