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On Saturday 27 July 2002 11:08 pm, Terence McCarthy wrote:
On Sat, 27 Jul 2002 18:28:01 +0100 "paul" <psutton@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: <snip>they are generally more helpful if you do this. Also a shared solution via a group can benefit all users. The UG help can be included in any bug report as tried solutions, this helps the developers, more.Yes, you're right, and often (usually?) the LUG/distribution lists can provide a quick answer when the problem is not a bug. This reduces complaints to the developers, as well as generally raising other readers' knowledge. I've found, over the years, that Linux list members are usually (a) very knowledgable, (b) willing to share their knowledge, and (c) -generally- very tolerant of those who should have done their own research. There are RTFM flames, of course, but these are comparatively rare. On the other hand, I've often been pre-empted on a harsh reply by someone who has beaten me to it with either "the answer for tinies" or the results of their own search on Google (which the enquirer could have done perfectly well for themselves). Overall, LUG/distribution lists are the most helpful and civilised I've come across- perhaps the smiling penguin is responsible... Terence
I haven't looked recently but aren't there specific User Groups for the major OpenSource progs? A User group dealing only with a specific piece of software usually filters out the common newbie questions and provides a debating forum in which suggestions/bug reports can be passed on to the developer. Such groups help to reduce the amount of mail to the developer. A few years ago I wrote a little patch editor prog for a synthesiser and introduced it into the Atari public domain. Most of the snail mail I received (email for the Ataris hardly existed) was of a similar content. Because I felt duty bound to reply to every one most of the time I was replying with a photo-copyed sheet. While the mail I received was miniscule in comparison with the major OpenSource progs available today, a User group always helps to keep the non-developing load off the programmer. Keith -- SuSE 8.0 Linux on 700Mhz AMD Duron with 128MB RAM and 20GB Maxtor HD using KDE's Kmail -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.