From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 7704 invoked by alias); 18 Nov 2005 22:29:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 7681 invoked by uid 22791); 18 Nov 2005 22:29:42 -0000 Received: from nitzan.inter.net.il (HELO nitzan.inter.net.il) (192.114.186.20) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.30-dev) with ESMTP; Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:29:42 +0000 Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 (IGLD-84-228-164-161.inter.net.il [84.228.164.161]) by nitzan.inter.net.il (MOS 3.6.5-GR) with ESMTP id BYZ61736 (AUTH halo1); Sat, 19 Nov 2005 00:29:37 +0200 (IST) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:29:00 -0000 Message-Id: From: Eli Zaretskii To: Jim Blandy CC: gdb@sourceware.org In-reply-to: <8f2776cb0511181351k6aba28f7m5223956e4f84f46@mail.gmail.com> (message from Jim Blandy on Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:51:01 -0800) Subject: Re: Maintainer policy for GDB Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii References: <20051117140353.GA11432@nevyn.them.org> <8f2776cb0511162240q6f550008udda9803b5253fd88@mail.gmail.com> <20051118030711.GB31581@nevyn.them.org> <20051118152618.GB9100@nevyn.them.org> <20051118185135.GA13986@nevyn.them.org> <8f2776cb0511181351k6aba28f7m5223956e4f84f46@mail.gmail.com> X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gdb-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2005-11/txt/msg00410.txt.bz2 > Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:51:01 -0800 > From: Jim Blandy > Cc: Ian Lance Taylor , gdb@sourceware.org > > On 11/18/05, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > In other words, if responsibility doesn't come with some unique > > authority, who will want such a responsibility? > > People who take pleasure in being helpful to the project, and to Free > software. People who want to establish a name for themselves as a > reliable contributor. There are a lot of reasons people contribute to > Free software projects; I don't think the pursuit of authority is even > a particularly common motivation. I know all about motivation to contribute, but I'm talking about something slightly different. It goes without saying that the responsibility should be taken voluntarily, not forced upon the volunteer. But even a volunteer gets some unique authority that is part of the job she's taken. For example, in projects where there's a head maintainer, only that person gets to make some decisions, and that person's agreement is needed to do certain things. Here you have an example of a contributing volunteer who, as part of her job, gets authority not shared by others. While pursuit of authority is not the most important reason people will accept responsibility, some people do enjoy it. We shouldn't request the volunteers to be too altruistic, I think.