Re: The point of open source ...

[jwilliam cs iupui edu (Joe Williams)]

(from ryan)
> I think the point of open source development is that there is no "one
> developer" whom you must beg to implement features. I agree with you that
> POP support is critical to any good email package, as people will be using
> POP for quite some time to come. But why get all huffy about it when the
> source code and general development is open? If you do not have the
> programming skills yourself, someone out there probably will -- playing a
> support role like organizing coders would be better than just complaining,
> wouldn't it?

    Err, that is, of course, if the developers bother to accept source
code from other people.  About a month ago I had some free time
and decided to try to contribute to a GNUish project.  Balsa seemed
like it could use some help.  I'm new to the GUI stuff so I decided I would
get used to it by doing grunt-work and fix bugs before I tried to do 
something flashy like add PGP support.  I sent some fixes for the mailbox 
configuring stuff to this list and asked about how to get CVS access.  So 
far, no one integrated my fixes to the CVS repository, no one answered my 
question on CVS, and no one bothered to tell me my code was a piece of crap 
and they didn't want it(if this, indeed, was the reason why it wasn't added).
Of course I could go and create "Joe's Balsa" but it's not worth the effort.  
If Balsa wants to die because of lack of developer support, so be it.  I'm sure
some other GNOME mailer would spring up to take it's place.

				Joe