tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20038672.post5937791434356590296..comments2024-03-28T00:58:29.187-04:00Comments on Robert Haas: CommitFests and MeritocracyRobert Haashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08393677427643988650noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20038672.post-50092748612070818502011-04-04T19:24:44.482-04:002011-04-04T19:24:44.482-04:00So, for what it's worth, I did not intend to b...So, for what it's worth, I did not intend to bring up 'anti-meritocracy'. I do see how the conversation quickly turns into that, but I tried to focus on what I see as the community's primary goal: creating excellent code.<br /><br />Also, I don't think that it's easy to classify how our community operates, and meritocracy is a poorly defined term at best. <br /><br />I'd like to describe how we operate more precisely, and talk about the things that we do well. <br /><br />I'm going to try to do that in my own blog later today.Selena Deckelmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13333357633279345574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20038672.post-84522857079572426762011-04-02T22:09:41.189-04:002011-04-02T22:09:41.189-04:00To be honest I find this whole "Anti-Meritocr...To be honest I find this whole "Anti-Meritocracy" line of thinking somewhat offensive. While I have no problems with someone wanting to find ways to reach out to people and find new contributors, I think this line of thinking severely discounts the efforts and sacrifice made but those involved with the project, and also gives an impression that there are barriers to entry that quite frankly do not actually exist. <br /><br />Contributors to Postgres are measured on a fuzzy scale of time and usefulness. If you want to contribute to Postgres (and I'd argue if you want to contribute to *anything*), you either spend time on it, or you do something really useful. The more skillful you are at doing something useful, the less time you have to spend, but for the rest of us, we make up for that by spending lots of time on things. Of course, some folks have both tremendous skill and dedicate lots of time. But that is the key; that you make the choice to get involved, that make the commitment of your time. <br /><br />And this is what bothers me about the the idea of chalking up Postgres involvement to that of privilege. It's not "luck" that allows you to stay up past 11pm, or at least not luck in any useful sense. Millions (Billions?) of people also have that same "privilege", but it is a tiny minority that choose to spend those late nights answering questions on a mailing list, reviewing code, fixing the website, or organizing events, rather than seeing what's new with Team Coco. When people arrange their jobs/hobbies/families/lives in ways that allow them to contribute to Postgres, it is not luck or privilege that brings that together, it is a choice, and I think it deserves to be recognized as merit for those contributions. <br /><br />This is the classic open source idea of meritocracy. I think this is what Ed was getting at. And I think it's something the Postgres community should be proud of. For most other "open source" database like MySQL/MongoDB/Ingres and others, most of the contributors are either employees of the company or they don't get to contribute at all. In Postgres, there are no such walls. All we ask is that you dedicate some time, and do something useful. You can be poor. You can have kids. You don't need an advanced degree in computer science. If you are willing to pick a problem and dedicate the time to help make things better, you will be recognized for those contributions. At least by me. That is what meritocracy is about.Robert Treathttp://www.xzilla.netnoreply@blogger.com