Steve Holden wrote:
Now, the reason for this specific rant is this: I can tell a cry for help when I see one. Brett has done a magnificent job of providing python-dev summaries since Andrew decided he'd had enough, and he is to be congratulated for it. I managed to offload another bunch of work on him (moderation of various troublesome PyCon mailing lists), but at least I was able to recompense him by letting him into PyCon for nothing.
The more I participate, the more I can relate to Eric Raymond's notion of a "gift society". Volunteers give their contributions to the community just because they want to, and they may get recognition in return. But because these are gifts, you can just stop giving them away at any time, and nobody should feel bad about doing so. The community only is only entitled to the contributor saying so - finding somebody else to step in is indeed optional. I don't actually know whether Brett would prefer to hand over the python-dev summaries to somebody else, but if he wants to, he could just *stop* publishing them, with nobody taking over, and my appreciation of this contribution would not change at all. Continuing it until a new volunteer steps forward is, as I said, truly optional. I still recall when Tim Peters reappeared in the net (even though I haven't been around long enough to remember him disappear), and I know I didn't understand all the cheering and praising (I do now, of course). So their isn't anything wrong with taking a vacation from a project for some time, not even if the vacation takes a few years :-) Enough ranting. Regards, Martin