Re: Are we the reason Apple isn't helping us?

[Ralph Little]

Hi,
Well, I'm a general lurker and small contributer in my own way. I'm 
looking at one bug and have requested help from wine-devel in the past. 
So, in a nutshell, I consider myself an outsider of the general crew.

Therefore, I'm going to be a bit more forthright about my response to 
this post.

The Wine developers know nothing about me and my experience. I have 
attempted to demonstrate that, although I lack much time, I am prepared 
to put some effort into helping where I can in my small way. There are 
many like me. In have tried to be cordial and respectful on wine-devel. 
In return I have had nothing but courtesy, helpful assistance and 
general goodwill in answer.

There is a right way of entering into these things and a wrong way. The 
Wine crew, as far as I know, know nothing of this supposed Apple 
developer. He has not demonstrated his experience or trustworthyness or 
knowledge of the Wine product to any level. Jeremy expects that as a 
stranger the Wine team should take his word at face value that he 
submitted a needed fix and that it sufficiently corrected the problem 
without doing even the *minimum* of effort to convince them. I have read 
the bug issue in question, and from the outset, he was disrespectful and 
downright combative and dismissive of all of the Wine teams procedures. 
Despite that, the responses on the bug tracker from the Wine team where 
measured and non-escalatory. A slightly different approach would have 
yielded a substantially different result. A humble request for 
assistance in knowing the proper channel and aid in getting the change 
properly submitted would, I feel, have had a far greater acceptance of 
what he was after.

I agree that sometimes the responses on the bug tracker can be curt to 
the point of rudeness, but mostly that is down to the impersonal nature 
of the medium.

Jeremy obviously thought that the change was important enough that he 
should take the time to submit it in the first place. A little bit of 
natural humility and expressing a more willing sentiment would have gone 
a long way to helping his cause.

Cheers,
Ralph