The Wanderer <wande...@fastmail.fm> writes: > On 2016-09-15 at 16:17, gregor herrmann wrote:
>> Debian can't lose customers because we have no customers because we're >> not selling anything. > This is a terminology difference. It isn't for me. For me, this is a very foundational and freeing concept. Debian is not participating in the giant obligation pressure game that you're referring to. Our users don't threaten us with withholding money. We don't cajole our customers into giving us money instead of someone else, or instead of not spending it. All of that rat race mechanic in which one is constantly worrying about how one is perceived, whether other people will continue to give one money, and whether one is losing "market share" does not apply in the same sense to Debian. Instead, we are a community of people building something *for ourselves*, cooperatively. If other people in the world want to use it, great! If we can help them use it, great! Even better if we can attract them to contribute. And if they don't like it, great! They can use something else. Or make it better. They have free choice. But they don't have *control*. They can't force us to make Debian something else because they have lots of money, and we don't have to work on anything we don't want to in order to keep customers. > Others think of it in terms of the provision of any service, regardless > of whether for compensation or not. For example, in my department at my > workplace, the people in other parts of the organization to whom we > provide computer support are called our (and our department's) > "customers" - even though we don't charge them for the service. But this is still the same type of thing, and it still doesn't apply to Debian. They're paying you to support them, although the money moves indirectly and is subject to controls and rules set by other people. But you're not volunteers. You are paid to serve the needs of customers. Debian is a volunteer project. We are not paid, nor bound, to serve the needs of *anyone*. We're doing this for ourselves, for each other. There is so much fear and worry and careful public relations management in the corporate world because everyone's jobs depend on the inflow of money from people who have to be convinced to keep spending that money, and one has to do all sorts of things one might not want to do, or agree with, in exchange for maintaining those customers and that market share. Debian is delightfully different. We care about market share of *volunteers*, but we don't have to care (and indeed, I personally don't care at all) about market share of *customers*. Someone choosing not to use a commercial product threatens (in at least a small way) the continued viability of that commercial product by withholding resources to pay all the people working on it. Someone choosing not to use Debian does not threaten the viability of the Debian project. We are a chosen community who can continue building our distribution regardless of what the broader world thinks of it. This is a HUGE part of what the Debian project means to me. It is far, far more important than making any individual Debian user happy. It's what makes working on the project a fun and delightful hobby, as opposed to a tedious, unpaid job. So I get quite defensive about attempts to introduce that sort of existential pressure and hostage-taking that comes from serving "customers" or worrying about "market share." > I think the key elements might be something like "we are offering > something which we want them to accept, and they are relying on that > offer". But I *don't* want them to accept it. That's the whole point. I don't care at all whether they accept it or not. It's a gift, given freely to the world, for anyone to take or leave as they choose. And, most importantly, it is in no way an ongoing *obligation* on me to make it fit for their purpose. If I take on that sort of obligation, I expect to be paid in a conventional employee or contracting relationship, to compensate for my loss of control over my priorities and the requirement to do a lot of unenjoyable, tedious work to achieve things I don't care about at all. When I do volunteer work in my free time, I am not bound by any of those restrictions. That's *why* I do it. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
