1. The clients are fully aware of the nature of development kernels.
2. They are fully aware of the risks involved with using development
kernels.
3. From their point-of-view, they have valid reasons as to why they
want/desire/need to use development kernels
4. They accept problems/bugs/failures which are of a technological
origin, and understand that those issues will be addressed either
externally by the developement kernel developers or internally
as their expertise grows.
5. They totally agree that documentation should be updated, and
clarified where there is the need. However, in their point-of-view
source code and comments contained therein should not be touched.
What they do not understand is:
1. Why are changes which are of a non-technological origin being
allowed to be made. Particularlly when those changes do break
previous functioning code and applications. Changing documentation
is one thing, changing source code and comments is a total
different matter.
2. Why is someone, other than the author/maintainer, making changes
to the source code and the comments contained in the source code.
Why are they so 'upset'.
1. They view this as a capricious act and internal critics of Linux,
opensource, GNU GPL'ed, freeware, etc are using this as an example
as to why none of the above should be used. This has and will
continue to create an environment of political infighting which
the supporters of the above do not want or need at the moment.
The supporters of the above have no defenseable position when their
critics can point to this spelling and grammar correction event.
The internal critics are using the incident as an example that
the opensource community is not a peer review of source code
but a one person crusade to correct spelling and grammar errors
with disregard for the original intent of the author/maintainer
and for what it breaks.
The supporters are unable to guarantee to those internal critics
that is type of event will not happen again.
The spelling and grammar corrections have no technological merit
in their point-of-view.
2. Several have either pointed out the current Framebuffer problems
or questioned as why the clients are not more concerned about the
problems caused by that change.
The framebuffer change is backed by an excellent Web Page which
provides detailed information as to why this change has been made.
Please refer to <http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/Console/>
for further information. There is no such page for the spelling
and grammar corrections.
They see an antithetical position between RedHat Linux Distribution
5.1 which has a language option of "redneck" and the spelling and
grammar corrections. The supporters of Linux find the 'redneck'
option a source of humour and an indication that the Linux Community
has left room for humour to be exhibited. However, they find it
extremely difficult to reconcile the 'redneck' option
and the current wholesale spelling and grammar changes.
They are concerned that this incident may just be the first and any
future incident of this type will just further undermine their
ability to continue to support the use of Linux, opensource,
GNU GPL'ed, freeware, etc, in a corporate environment.
In closing the clients are not "children" which must be shielded
from the "nasty" development kernel, they are intelligent engineers,
software engineers, etc which have choosen to support the use of
Linux, opensource, GNU GPL'ed, freeware in a corporate environment.
They understand changes which have technological merit, and are
prepared to take/assume the associated risks.
-- Terry L. Ridder Blue Danube Software (Blaue Donau Software) "We do not write software, we compose it."When the toast is burnt and all the milk has turned and Captain Crunch is waving farewell when the Big One finds you may this song remind you that they don't serve breakfast in hell ==Breakfast==Newsboys
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