Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Santa Claus is a CFA Firefighter
What are two things guaranteed to blow the mind of a three year old boy? Fire-trucks? Santa Claus? How about Santa Claus in a fire truck?
It's Christmas, and once again, CFA volunteers are driving around the streets in a fire truck, with one of the firefighters dressed as Santa Claus, handing out little bags of lollies to the kids. As if they weren't already well-regarded enough in the community!
I think the elder Banttha boy had forgotten about last Christmas, when Santa, perched on top of one of the big CFA tanker trucks, was driving around Upwey main street tossing lolly bags. In any case, this year, he was agog all over again.
It all reminded me of an article I read recently, in which the author dismissed support for open-source applications as being on the "volunteer firefighter" basis. When I first read it, I thought "I'll bet that person doesn't live in a CFA district!" If fires rip through my area, it'll be CFA volunteers putting their lives in danger to save my community. They don't get paid, they do it because... well, I don't really know why - probably because they're community-minded people who want to help others.
Although the author of that article meant it pejoratively, I think the point stands: a lot of people who write and support open-source software do it as volunteers. The question is whether you agree that this must neccessarily be a bad thing. My experiences with open-source applications, and their supporters, have been generally pretty good: PostgreSQL and Samba are two communities where the support has been excellent. Perhaps it helps that I don't stand there whining about "volunteer firefighters". In a few cases, I've been persuaded to help out and fix stuff myself. It's only fair, I guess.
By contrast, I have dealt with quite a few commercial software companies, and their support services. Some have been good (hello Veritas, thanks for being so kind to a clueless newbie!) but most have been appalling. If I had a dollar for each hour I've wasted dealing with Oracle and Microsoft support, I'd have... well, a few dollars, anyway.
I reckon the volunteer firefighters are doing a pretty good job.
It's Christmas, and once again, CFA volunteers are driving around the streets in a fire truck, with one of the firefighters dressed as Santa Claus, handing out little bags of lollies to the kids. As if they weren't already well-regarded enough in the community!
I think the elder Banttha boy had forgotten about last Christmas, when Santa, perched on top of one of the big CFA tanker trucks, was driving around Upwey main street tossing lolly bags. In any case, this year, he was agog all over again.
It all reminded me of an article I read recently, in which the author dismissed support for open-source applications as being on the "volunteer firefighter" basis. When I first read it, I thought "I'll bet that person doesn't live in a CFA district!" If fires rip through my area, it'll be CFA volunteers putting their lives in danger to save my community. They don't get paid, they do it because... well, I don't really know why - probably because they're community-minded people who want to help others.
Although the author of that article meant it pejoratively, I think the point stands: a lot of people who write and support open-source software do it as volunteers. The question is whether you agree that this must neccessarily be a bad thing. My experiences with open-source applications, and their supporters, have been generally pretty good: PostgreSQL and Samba are two communities where the support has been excellent. Perhaps it helps that I don't stand there whining about "volunteer firefighters". In a few cases, I've been persuaded to help out and fix stuff myself. It's only fair, I guess.
By contrast, I have dealt with quite a few commercial software companies, and their support services. Some have been good (hello Veritas, thanks for being so kind to a clueless newbie!) but most have been appalling. If I had a dollar for each hour I've wasted dealing with Oracle and Microsoft support, I'd have... well, a few dollars, anyway.
I reckon the volunteer firefighters are doing a pretty good job.
# posted by Banttha Fodder @ 3:45 PM 
