After the robust thread started by the recent post to the Debian PowerPC mailing list, I received a private message from someone I had indirectly affected in what I wrote. His name is Joe Malik, and he actually does much for that mailing list in terms of participation and helping folks along. I thought about what he wrote to me, and it caused me to reflect on what I had quickly banged out in frustration. Part of my response to him spoke to some general thoughts of mine about open source involvement and mailing lists. I have posted part of it below:
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Call it frustration, call it justified anger, call it whining, but I finally had enough of the response I and other new list members have been getting on the Debian lists. Being a new list member, you don’t exactly want to alienate everyone, particularly when you need their assistance if you’re ever going to come up to speed.

I reached a point shortly after my previous post where the risk of being alienated was outweighed by the state of things on the list. So, I posted the following:
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To put it mildly, trying to make some noteworthy progress with getting Debian Linux to run on the PowerBook is not going well. One thing that makes the already-frustrating experience even more unpleasant is getting answers or advice from those in the know. Participation on open source mailing lists is voluntary; we all know this. People answer as they have time, etc.

However, when you have burned 4-6 hours on something, then you hit a brick wall, and then you articulate a fairly detailed question, you hope for some guidance. I have been getting quite a few one-line, cryptic answers that tend to lead me on another 2-hour quest that ends in my learning that the answer was only half the story. I think my frustration is starting to show, as one of my posts from today’s adventures shows:
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