On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Thomas T. Thai wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Ross Harvey wrote:
> 
> > > re: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=netbsd-port-alpha&m=97854012425854&w=2
> > >
> > > first week of jan has pass, is softfloat for the alpha ready?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > I've been communicating with Jason on this subject, but
> > I see no reason to report to you about it.
> > 
> > If you would like to pay me for this work, or do it yourself,
> > then things would be different. Otherwise, please shut up.
> 
> your kind and considerate words are appreciated. thank you for your
> response. i wanted to get rid of the last two bugs which caused postgresql
> to fail on NetBSD/Alpha before they release 7.1. i'm sure i'm not the only
> one who would like to see some kind of reliable RDBM working on
> NetBSD/Alpha.
> 
> i've been on the NetBSD mailing list since 0.8 days. i can say that up to
> this point i've always respected the talents and wisdoms of the NetBSD
> developers. tonight upon openning my e-mail, i have acquired a new
> appreciation for attitude.

at the risk of speaking for Ross (who has been quite helpful toward me in
the past), I can see how the wording of your inquery could cause such a
response.  Given that this is a volunteer project, it simply must take a
back seat at times to whats going on in peoples other lives.  I'm also not
saying you meant your inquery that way, but it did sound a little like
'hey, whats your problem you were supposed to do this, where is it', which
sounds a bit more like a manager or paying customer attitude.

I'm looking forward to IEEE support too, but since I'm getting something
pretty nice for free, I'm happy to wait.

In general I think people here are pretty nice, helpful, and there's no
question as to the huge volume of good work which is done for free.

-Dan