[GnomeMeeting-list] Warning - Read the First couple of Paragraph Before you Decide if You want To read The rest

[George Boyd <geboyd53 comcast net>]

This messages is very long if that bothers you delete it now. It is also
not specifically dealing with Ekiga. However it directly affects it. And
knowing the Linux community, I expect to get flamed even if you agree
with me. If you want to flame me, then email me directly and keep it off
the list. I know that sounds hypocritical since I am posting this to the
list, but so be it. I need to vent. Damien is the only one that can
flame me and I'll read it. All others will go into the garbage can.

I have been using and playing with Linux since it was first released to
the world. In 1963, I believe it was, Kernigan and Ritchie working for
Bell labs developed Xenix, later to become Unix, for the sole purpose of
having a means for engineers to be able to collaborate with each other.
SCO picked it up and ended up being the "standard" for the Unix
operating system which was easy to do because they were the only game in
town. Then, Linus Travaldis (I hope I'm spelling his name correctly)
comes along and presents us all with a remarkable concept of an
exceptional beginning to a REAL operating system that was open source
and free to all that wanted to continue developing on it. Through the
years different groups decided to make their own packages ignoring any
kind of standards. Then the war began. There was Slackware, BSD,
Mandrake, Red Hat, etc. etc. In my opinion Red Hat came out on top
because they were concerned about standards compliance and now there is
Fedora which is within itself a very remarkable concept. But the
problems still exist because developers are still having to work their
tails off to support all of the different distributions, a daunting and
nearly impossible task. 

Then came the war over the X desktops. When I first starting using the
"modern" desktops, I chose KDE because Gnome was still having problems
with crashes. It was because of KDE's insolent and arrogant attitude
that I finally told them to go shove it and I went to using Gnome
anyway, the best move I ever made. Again because of their efforts to
comply with accepted standards. Even as mature as Linux is today, the
"standards" conflicts still exists and this is what brings me to the
point in all this rambling. So many people writing so many non-standard
programs and distributions and some simply because they have no idea how
to take advantage of a real multiuser, multitasking, and multithreaded
operating system. So, naturally they blame their problems on the Linux
itself trying to satisfy the people that purchased their distributions.

That point now brings me to this one. Ekiga, a wonderful program written
by a remarkable person with a team of the most patient and helpful
people I've had the pleasure to have been associated with. But their
hands are also tied trying to support all these ridiculous "off the
wall" distributions and "outside" programmers that they have to depend
on for standards and usability. I know this next statement will anger a
lot of people, but the biggest culprit is ALSA, NOT Ekiga. What is wrong
with you guys? I don't know the relationship that you and Damien have
developed, but please get your act together. Listen to Damien, he knows
what he's talking about. At least when the developer of PWC, PWCX
chickened out, someone was gracious enough to rekindle it and did a
wonderful job with it.

Believe me, I do know the frustrations that you guys are going through
with all the ridiculous amount of off the wall distributions and and in
some cases incompetent programmers and users, and I admit I fall in the
later category. But I'm really getting upset about a lot of the things I
have read on this list through the years from users who won't listen and
programmers who won't cooperate in the spirit that is Linux. 

Damien and his team are working their tails off to bring us a wonderful
program and their only getting compensated by others complaints. Give
them a break ... PLEASE, Help, don't hurt. If you can't take
constructive criticism, don't ask the question. They are working so hard
to try to stay with compliant standards that I really believe that it
will be their efforts that turns this whole problem around. If you want
junk, run windose. If you want state of the art, let Damien and his team
persuade and prod the rest of the Linux community to do what is right.

Again, Flame if you want, but do not put it on the list. Hypocritical,
maybe. But so be it. Learn and do your part to help and I will do the
same. I'm sure that you as users don't want to lose what we have because
of other peoples ego's.

Damien, I do realize that most of this should probably have been put on
a different list and I apologies in advance. But the work you and your
team is doing is vital to bringing forth the compliance that is so
necessary. And as the saying goes "You're a better man then me Gunga
Den" I would have thrown my hands up in disgust a long time ago. And
please let me know if this was an inappropriate posting. If So, I
promise I won't do it again ;-)

George Boyd.
SIP :geboyd53 ekiga net