July 25th, 2006
 senji
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2006/07/25 13:59:00 - Pfft.
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Now, I know my experience of #debian can barely be called "helpful" or "successful". Indeed I might well have described many of the frequent denizens as one of the most unhelpful community support channels that I've ever had the misfortune to frequent.
But that was all before I went on #centos with a simple question, viz where I might find a more recent udev than the one in Centos 4.3 so that I could run a more recent kernel. I wasn't expecting more than about "well, it isn't supported, but you could try <url>" or, if really lucky, someone who had already done this telling me what they'd done. But no, instead I get the third degree about how you were only supposed to use the Centos blessed software with their beloved distribution, and that I couldn't possibly have any genuine need to use a more recent kernel (particularly that there wasn't any unsupported hardware in 2.6.9 that anyone might possibly want to use, and besides which Centos is a server distribution (why does it have two complete desktop environments then???)), and accused of being a Gentoo Ricer and a Troll.
Current Location: CB4 0WS
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](https://imgprx.livejournal.net/b44a4b91073c8528511408a6239e437f7166c2d5/iJTKNG0sUEJf28BrusH-1SZ8XRBUOnB4DSSvE_687epJrvLEsh34wOizOMZ-rxXwZFZpgyYCqnDE1TR86a4FDa1H9dZUtkEByGegkISC0qsAV0GkYpoU12kqJqyck5uN) angry
Entry Tags: computers, idiots, linux, rant, work
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 kaet
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2006/07/25 13:27:28
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People who support free software do so for their own motivations. Often, but not always, it's out of the good of their own heart. For which we should all be thankful. Sometimes, though, it's because they're looking to give someone a good verbal kicking, to prove something to themself. There's a similar thing looking for volunteers to do security at free events.
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 king_of_wrong
![[userpic]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/13556503/2804470)
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2006/07/25 17:59:55
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Hmm... maybe I'm old fashioned, but I reckon someone accepting a responsibility (especially for customer service or security), volunteer or no, should be competent to discharge it fairly and in a professional manner.
If that condition doesn't provide enough ego-stroking for the person in question, tough. Providing no customer support at all will kill the project only marginally slower than providing bad support, but the world has too many dead-end projects anyway.
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 marnanel
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2006/07/25 13:28:12
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IRC for people who aren't actually part of the development community is, like, the worst idea ever. Maybe. I don't know what can be done about it, but something should. (I don't generally hang around on support channels.)
I think #ubuntu is generally quite helpful, though.
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senji
![[userpic]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/26489712/856324)
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2006/07/25 13:32:16
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Well, yes. I only went to the IRC channel after exhausing the web as a source of inspiration and deciding that their website was fairly unfit-for-purpose...
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