[PaQSO] PA QSO Party Software

[John Bednar]

When someone volunteers to develop free software used by others (or
when someone agrees to be a contest sponsor), there is no contract
or rules. Endless changes, bug fixes over night, annual updates,
feature requests, etc. may be the expectation but the volunteer can
be pushed the point of finding other things to do with their spare
time. 

I am not saying that changes shouldn't be discussed or considered, I
just have a different view of the statements below.

John
k3ct at verizon.net


> -----Original Message-----
> From: paqso-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:paqso-
> bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Goody K3NG
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 9:42 AM
> To: PA QSO Party
> Subject: [PaQSO] PA QSO Party Software
> 
> While it's often a pain to accommodate Party changes in
> software, it's a
> fact of life in software development.  Anyone who develops
> software
> professionally or on the side knows this.  When you volunteer
> to develop
> software, you sign up for a couple things: annual updates, bug
> reports,
> feature requests, clueless users, people emailing the day of
> the Party,
> etc.  It comes with the territory.  It's not all pain and
> drudgery
> though; the developers must derive some pleasure out of
> developing
> otherwise they wouldn't do it.  Show me a piece of commercial
> software
> that hasn't changed in the past five years and I'll show you a
> bankrupt
> software development company, or a dying industry or a screwed
> up
> government agency using it.
> 
> We shouldn't hesitate to make changes based on software issues.
> We
> should certainly give ample time for developers to make changes
> (now is
> the time to make changes, not September 2008), but the needs of
> the
> Party participants drive the structure of the party, not the
> software.
> This is a QSO Party and not a software party.
> 
> Developers, please don't take this post as a dig, but more as a
> recognition of the difficulties you go through.  My hat goes
> off to
> those who develop software; we all owe a debt of gratitude to
> you.
> 
> 73
> Goody
> K3NG
> 
> --
> Blog: http://thek3ngreport.blogspot.com/
> 
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