Another thought about the feature process: I suppose you could look at quality as a concept driving the feature process, and quality is what dictates having an acceptance bar. Because if you’re not going to make any judgment on quality, then really, anything goes.
This might, to some, beg the question of putting the cart before the horse, but I’d say it’s more of a chicken and egg problem. A call for better quality goes out, a system emerges to fill that need. Simply having that system, any system, leads to more energy, whether through friction or impulse. (That’s a lot of metaphors for one paragraph.)
The feature process itself has fortunately had people willing to work on it, take input, improve it, and get traction. If some argue that the process has its flaws, I’ll certainly agree (as would everyone who works on it, I imagine). But better to have lopsided growth than stagnation. Concrete suggestions for correcting said growth patterns is cheerfully accepted, as John Poelstra pointed out earlier.
Hmm… you want people to let you know what (if anything) is wrong with something, and in addition to their effort in providing said information, you want a proposed suggestion for a solution.
Too much? I don’t know. It is *certainly* in line with the contribution theme of the project. While it is true that I get a great distro from my effort… or arguably a *better* distro because of my effort.
Is that enough reward? Can I get something less esoteric, perhaps more tangible? Fedora t-shirts or flash drives for good suggestions and implemented solutions?
Not sure why I posted, but a random though, and I wanted to see if my wordpress openID worked. Good luck continuing to make the best Linux distro on planet Earth.
@Marland:
First, thanks for the kind words about Fedora, I agree whole-heartedly. 🙂
Second, I think you hit the nail on the head with why we ask for suggestions along with complaints. When it comes to our contributor system, it’s not enough to complain that something doesn’t work. (That might be OK for end users, but not for people participating in the development process.) I’m not saying discussion is useless — quite the contrary. But at the end of the discussion, you have to have a concrete plan for actions, and people who take responsibility for the actions.
So to start that process, we ask the person(s) finding problems or faults to suggest ways to fix them, and we accept that what they suggest may not be the best solution. But there’s a shared understanding that by making the suggestion, they’re doing their part, just like the folks who put time and effort into the original system. That “roll up your sleeves” attitude is what makes Fedora what it is.