[Ifeffit] volunteerism....

[Bruce Ravel]

Hi Folks,

Matt said:

> From a political viewpoint, I think we'd need a volunteer to keep
> the scripts in working order for Win95/98/ME.  Unless that happens,
> I don't consider "upgrade to 2000" to be an unreasonable response.

I want to second this request.  It's really hard for Matt and I to
stay on top of all these different platforms.  The 9x/ME series of
OS's is sufficiently different from 2000/NT/XP (I run 2000 under
VMWare on my linux box) that it is hard for us to keep up.

I would be happy to help a volunteer 9x/ME tester/debugger get up and
running.  The biggest chore is learning how to use the program that
Matt and I chose for building the Windows installation package.
That's not hard -- I had it mostly figured out in a day.

Then Matt said:

> Also from a political viewpoint, could we encourage 'A fellow'
> to post such problems here?

I get lots of email from people about Atoms and, of late, about
Athena.  I have taken to pointing out the web entry point to our
mailing list whenever I answer a question from someone who may not be
a subscriber.  I encourage all of you to encourage anyone around you
who may be interested in our software to subscribe.

As ifeffit and friends have been finding a wider audience, more
problems have been cropping up.  This is a natural part of growth and
is very healthy.  With the help of all of you on this list, Matt and I
will be able to make a much better package.



Finally, some suggested reading from freshmeat, the software
repository: 

The Importance of Non-Developer Supporters in Free Software
  http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/156/

How to Report Bugs Effectively
  http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/149/

B

-- 
 Bruce Ravel  ----------------------------------- ravel at phys.washington.edu
 U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Code 6134          phone: (1) 202 767 5947
 Washington DC 20375, USA                             fax: (1) 202 767 1697

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