Re: On what we want to support: travel?

Also sprach Dan Langille (dan@langille.org)
> On 1 Nov 2006 at 20:36, Stefan 'Kaishakunin' Schumach wrote:
>
> > Also sprach Peter Eisentraut (peter_e@gmx.net)
> > > Robert Treat wrote:
> > > > ISTM expanding the user base is one of the best things we can do for
> > > > our existing users.
> > >
> > > Why?
> >
> > Today's new user might be tomorrow's new developer.
>
> Subsitute contributor and it's spot on.
>
> Take the Bacula project for example. When I joined, nearly three
> years ago, we had relatively few developers.  To attract more
> deveopers, I started writing about Bacula, handing out brochures at
> conferences, and giving talks to whoever would listen.  We grew.
> With more users comes more people with an itch to scratch.  It is
> those itches that move a project forward.
>
> Why does Bacula have a PostgreSQL plug-in?  Because I wanted it.  And
> I wrote it.  When I started with Bacula, I was just a user.  In
> general, people becomes users, then they become contributors.

Same with me for NetBSD and PostgreSQL. When I begun with NetBSD, I
almost had no clue of Unix at all, now I am organizing advocacy for
NetBSD and writing documentation. Ditto for PostgreSQL, it got my
attention when someone asked me on a LinuxTag if I could compile
PostgreSQL on my HP Jornada 680 with NetBSD. Last semester I gave
several talks at the university about PG to attract new users.

> More users mean more resources to draw from.  When people get
> enthusiastic about something, they have energy to contribute.  In
> general, people do not go out of their way to contribute to projects
> they have no interest in.

Without a large user base, it is hard for a project to survive. See
all those dead projects at sourceforge and co.

> Also note: projects do not live on development alone, not that I
> think anyone was saying that.  I just thought it needed saying.

Right, you do not only need developers, but also people
who do testing, promotion/advocacy, writing doc, answering on mailing
lists, wearing the shirts and so on.

Writing code that works is fun, but writing something that works and
getting an email from someone who is just grateful for your code is
great :-)

> [1 -apologies for the blatent self promotion, but take the point, not
> not the bragging]

Thanks for the PostgreSQL driver of Bacula, Bacula rocks :-)

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