Abusive Email
I don't know if anyone else gets abusive email from people subscribed to UserLand-hosted mail lists, but I do. For a couple of years I put up with it, and then I decided in January to force the people who were doing it privately to go public on the Frontier-work list. Then it stopped.Yesterday I got mail via an anonymous redirector that was very disturbing. I know who sent it because the person forgot to turn off their email signature. This one I'll keep private inside UserLand only, but in the future, to anyone who thinks about sending accusing or abusive emails to me privately, a couple of things:
- I won't respect your wish to keep it private. So if you think you're being shielded by my acquiescence, forget it. We have a great communication system called Scripting News. Think twice, if you think you have me cornered, I am not. I can make your emails public with a few commands, and I will do it, in order to stop the childish self-centered behavior I'm seeing. I won't be a party to it.
- We're working very hard. Every one of us at UserLand. If you've never been part of a team that shipped a piece of software as complex as Frontier, on two platforms, with a six-person team, you can't possibly understand what it's like to do what we do. We really do care about quality. You can help by addressing us individually and as a group, with respect. That includes me.
Further, I think some people want to have a personal relationship with me, and when I say no, they get very angry with me. This is not appropriate. Keep a professional distance.
As often is the case, a very small number of people are behaving badly, it spoils the fun for me, and perhaps other people. I'm not supporting this behavior anymore.
But wait, I have more to say!
I think we're doing great work. We got to Windows. Serverside COM is coming real soon. Mac native TCP. ContentServer. We delivered a Frontier 5-compatible ClassAds.
We're getting XML deeply integrated into our environment. We just delievered a new, hugely powerful serverside architecture. Web-based remote admin. The website framework connects up to HTTP.
The new power we're delivering now is as fundamental as the release of the website framework was in 1996.
And look at all the cleaning up we're doing, all the docs we're delivering, all the newbies that are coming on board.
There's a lot of movement! When we move, people's stuff comes up. When things are quiet, inbetween shipping periods, we get along better. There was a very long period between 4.2.3 and 5.0. It took 1.5 years to get cross-platform. So it went from quiet to an avalanche of shipment. There's no sign of it letting up.
Watch out for people who say we aren't doing great work. I think they're trying to hold us back. I won't go for that. We've waited a long time to move into the spaces we're moving into now. We have an R&D advantage. The things we're delivering cross-platform now are things we already delivered on the Macintosh. People weren't watching when we were Mac only. Now they are. When you do something the second or third time, the results are much better! We're getting there.
This is the sweet spot of technology. We worked very hard to get here. Some people want us to stop. No way!
I invite people to come with us on this journey, instead of standing in the way. We're *all* getting more powerful. We now have an architecture serverside that makes it easier for us to work together without getting in each other's way. Let's do it, let's work together, with respect and a positive attitude about each other and the future.
Want to set up a business around Frontier? Great, let's talk. Want to do something that's relevant in the larger world? Absolutely! Let's get focused and get to work, and then the politics and personalities won't be so important.
Dave Winer
March 9, 1998
|
This page was last built on 3/9/98; 6:31:43 AM by Dave Winer. dave@scripting.com |