Hmmm, while I have generally been singing nothing but praise for my migration to the Linux desktop. I will, as someone new and lurking around contributing, speak about something that make me hesitant to try and/or turn me off or away. This is only my two-cents as an outsider.
I think some of the issues[1] that matter to people have seen no traction over long periods of time and the answer is "it's hard; we'll get to it, leave us alone." And of course, if you look up who these people are, telling you to leave them alone, they are absolutely fucking brilliant people... they certainly know the scope and difficulty. The thing is, these folks are very likely, insanely busy and the longer their lives/careers go on; the less time they'll likely have to devote to seemingly unimportant, to them, but difficult issues.
That's life. Zero hate and only thanks to the kind brilliant folks who have spent countless hours donating that brilliance to the world... But then, this poses the big question of: what am I, the less brilliant, to do? What can I do? What other problems require your brilliance or expertise? Lurking through other issues gives me a sense of "not qualified" and I eventually stroll away. Maybe folks, who are qualified and don't realize it, also walk away.
I'll very likely contribute to apps using GTK since it's a really nice experience and other parts of the Gnome ecosystem; but I don't know if I'll ever contribute to Gnome proper.
[1] I don't particularly want to identify specific issues because I don't think the nice folks who maintain it deserve to be inundated with noise like "fix plz 10yers."
Hey... being smart simplifies some aspects of problem solving, but being smart isn’t necessary to solving problems. One of the better engineers I worked with, while very slow, was extremely thorough. If you had a long-horizon project that had to go at absolutely light speed, you’d set him on the project; two years down the road and the core “inner loops” would be a non-issue. Even Mike Abrash admitted this guy was the absolute pinnacle for this sort of programming.
Actually, one of the best things you can do to have an impact is to improve a project's communication. Find out what isn't documented and document it. Research issues and get the back-story and architectural decisions. Help people understand each other. Draw out details that might be gumming up someone's attempts to start working on an issue. Help manage and coordinate the work. Discover if old problems are no longer a problem. Find ways to sell something when you are at loggerheads with someone, or find alternate solutions.
This is the kind of stuff that gets business projects done in half the time with twice the quality. Nobody has time to do it, but actually it takes almost no technical skill to do; somebody just needs to be hired to do it.
I think some of the issues[1] that matter to people have seen no traction over long periods of time and the answer is "it's hard; we'll get to it, leave us alone." And of course, if you look up who these people are, telling you to leave them alone, they are absolutely fucking brilliant people... they certainly know the scope and difficulty. The thing is, these folks are very likely, insanely busy and the longer their lives/careers go on; the less time they'll likely have to devote to seemingly unimportant, to them, but difficult issues.
That's life. Zero hate and only thanks to the kind brilliant folks who have spent countless hours donating that brilliance to the world... But then, this poses the big question of: what am I, the less brilliant, to do? What can I do? What other problems require your brilliance or expertise? Lurking through other issues gives me a sense of "not qualified" and I eventually stroll away. Maybe folks, who are qualified and don't realize it, also walk away.
I'll very likely contribute to apps using GTK since it's a really nice experience and other parts of the Gnome ecosystem; but I don't know if I'll ever contribute to Gnome proper.
[1] I don't particularly want to identify specific issues because I don't think the nice folks who maintain it deserve to be inundated with noise like "fix plz 10yers."