[jlarocco]

Not this self-centered, ignorant complaint again.

Even if this time really is 100% wasted, it's not your wasted time, so it's none of your business anyway. Open source devs don't owe your their time, and you're not entitled to tell them what to work on.

But the time isn't wasted, in any case. If existing solutions met people's needs the alternatives wouldn't have been created. A huge project like a desktop manager or a Linux distribution doesn't get spun up on a whim because somebody doesn't like a desktop background, and it's telling that that's the only difference the author notices.

[ken]

Note that this position is mutually exclusive with "It's open source so you can just fix it yourself when it breaks". I can go fix it myself, sure, but then it is my wasted time, that there are 8 or 10 major distros. We shouldn't have to fix the same bug so many times.

I don't want 8 or 10 distros. I only want one. I don't even care which one it is. I haven't contributed to that OS in 10 years because so much of my time ended up being wasted.

Or, if you take the position that "Developers don't owe you anything", then that's fair on its own, but it means that it's not an OS that I can depend on for anything. It's true there's no literal debt to be repaid but project maintainers are supposed to be good stewards. They can be replaced, but it's a slow and rare process. I can count on my fingers how many successful open source forks I've seen. Most projects will die before they'll change maintainers.

> If existing solutions met people's needs the alternatives wouldn't have been created.

That doesn't follow at all. There are plenty of reasons for starting an alternative software project which have nothing to do with meeting any user need. "Ego" is a common one -- it serves only one person's interest.

[jlarocco]

> Note that this position is mutually exclusive with "It's open source so you can just fix it yourself when it breaks". I can go fix it myself, sure, but then it is my wasted time, that there are 8 or 10 major distros. We shouldn't have to fix the same bug so many times.

They seem to be complimentary ideas. I might refuse to fix your bug or add the feature you want, but you're free to take my code and do it yourself. It's no more a waste of your time than it would be of the other dev's.

I also don't see what you're saying about fixing the same bug 10 times. That's not how it works. Each distro is responsible for itself. If you submit a fix to zsh, for example, it's up to each distro to go upstream and get that fix themselves. Same goes for bugs fixed by distro maintainers - it's awesome if they submit the fix to the upstream, but they're not obligated.

> Or, if you take the position that "Developers don't owe you anything", then that's fair on its own, but it means that it's not an OS that I can depend on for anything.

And maybe you shouldn't. "Buyer beware" should apply double when you're getting something for free.

Paid Linux distros exist for a reason. If you're depending on it for something important it's worth paying for Ubuntu or RHEL.

> That doesn't follow at all. There are plenty of reasons for starting an alternative software project which have nothing to do with meeting any user need. "Ego" is a common one -- it serves only one person's interest.

Exactly, there are plenty of reasons. Just because you think they're bad reasons doesn't mean they are, or that anybody has to listen to you.

[dwaltrip]

> But the time isn't wasted, in any case. If existing solutions met people's needs the alternatives wouldn't have been created

This argument has merit. However, it also true that sometimes we developers are overly biased towards creating a new project in order to solve some set of problems, when it may be more effective and productive to get our hands dirty in an existing project.

Obviously, this isn't always the case, and there are other important factors. Perhaps the individuals involved have other goals besides simply addressing the issues in most practical way. But the mere existence of a project certainly doesn't demonstrate that its creation was the most effective method of solving the problem at hand.

[phendrenad2]

It's not self-centered or ignorant, it's an observation. Are observations inherently an attack now?

You're right that the time isn't wasted though. The fallacy here is that, if someone weren't working on <brand new totally superfluous Linux Distro X>, they would be contributing to Slackware or Knoppix. That definitely isn't what I've seen in the open-source world... People work on what interests them, and that usually means a new take on an old idea. The people who are logging into the Debian bug tracker every day looking for ways to improve Debian are a totally unrelated kind of programmer.

[na85]

>If existing solutions met people's needs the alternatives wouldn't have been created.

I'm not so sure about that. This modern age of change for change's sake must have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of javascript frameworks that appear to be even less diverse than the linux distributions.

Why are these flavourOfTheWeek.js frameworks being created? Is it really that someone's needs aren't being met or is it developer hubris, and the desire to be able to put Founder on one's CV?

I suspect much of the same attitude exists among those starting niche linux distros.

[PascLeRasc]

I agree, I view the Linux community the same way I view music. I like that every artist can make what they want, and I'm not owed anything from any of them - they aren't required to have their next album/distro be like their last one, and they aren't required to help me understand their work. Not everything needs to be catered to me. If I don't like an album or distro, that's my problem, not the musician's/developer's.

[agumonkey]

It's still a bit weird. Everybody wants to "contribute" but at some point there's so much noise and redundancy .. it's backward.

Note that I do understand we're all so different in context, understanding, drive, needs .. so bazaar will occur whether or not I like it.

I still believe we should have a tiny bit more integrative groups. Just a tad. No need to force people and resist their energy, but a bit of constructive interference.

[jlarocco]

> I still believe we should have a tiny bit more integrative groups. Just a tad. No need to force people and resist their energy, but a bit of constructive interference.

There's nothing stopping you from running a vanilla Ubuntu install.

What other people choose to do is still none of your business, though.

[PavlovsCat]

> What other people choose to do is still none of your business, though.

So they're not allowed to opine on it? What if that's what they chose to do?

[jlarocco]

Fair enough. Sometimes it's hard to tell if people are opining or proclaiming.