Re: Request for comment -- a better attribution system

Eric S. Raymond
2001-04-21T22:35:39Z

Francois Romieu <romieu@cogenit.fr>:
> Provided it's kept up-to-date. I.e. it calls for some tools (and these
> require the suggested changes).

Yes. I'll write the tools.

> I'll only object that imvvvvho there is no global problem here:
> * If user meets a serious problem, the maintainer will surely ask
> him to test some fix, to specify some point or whatever. Thanks to
> System, user will save 5 or 10 minutes. To be compared to the time spent
> with said maintainer or preparing the bug report.
> * If user don't know how to submit and don't use some exotic driver, I bet
> he will start by posting to l-k and be eventually redirected.
> * If user has identified problem with his FooBar SS6 adapter, chances
> are that he knows who he should reach.
>
> I have no problem with it but I'm not sure it's *really* useful.

Reducing friction costs and increasing accountability is always useful.
--
Eric S. Raymond

No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather
startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much
less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone,
convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without
restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended,
perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever
before.
-- Colin Greenwood, in the study "Firearms Control", 1972