[lug] The changing Linux Community was Re: cp and rm

[Hugh Brown]

This is something that is interesting to me.  I have extremely limited
programming skills.  I have the perception that if I were to try and get
involved in contributing code back to the community, I would be laughed off
or that I would be thoroughly overwhelmed by the learning curve necessary
to get to the point required to be able to fix things that bugged me.

For now, my means of contributing is answering what I can on mailing lists
such as this and by using the system at home.

Hugh

"Riggs, Rob"
> 
> I'm far less concerned about this than Wade is. I do understand his point,
> but the fact the one can pick up Linux at the local CompUSA is a big bonus.
> Now, we may end up with a smaller percentage of users that can or are
> willing to contribute back to the community. But the sheer volume of new
> users has also added to the total number of contributors in the community as
> well.
> 
> But, lets face it, in the past you had to be a hacker to use Linux. With the
> advent of commercial Linux distributions, that's no longer the case. We can
> not continue to expect that every Linux user will contribute some code
> changes back to the package maintainers.
> 
> Yes, the overall face of the community changes, but we still gain. And it
> gives us the opportunity to introduce new Linux users that can code to the
> concept of code contribution that is at the heart of the Linux community. 
>