Re: [hylafax-users] How to get page count for faxcover?

[Lee Howard <faxguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rance Hall wrote:

> I sure know how easy it is to misread motive and intent in an email 
> message, but I have to say that I took some of your comments to Joe in 
> much the same way he appeared to take them based on his questions.


Yes, I know.

Those who have been on this list long enough have probably come to know 
that I do get defensive when blame starts being assigned to HylaFAX or 
its developers.  So you probably took the comments in the way that they 
were formulated in my head.  I don't apologize for my sensitivities in 
this regard, but if my reaction is offensive, then I certainly do 
apologize for that.  I do try to not react badly.  I really, really am 
just trying to participate in a dialogue, interjecting comments here and 
there, helping people out, trying to keep my finger on the community 
pulse, etc.

In this case, all I wanted to do was to mention that using ImageMagick 
in the HylaFAX scripts is risky (since they tend to segfault and drive 
up resource usage, especially when used in multiplicity) and so care 
should be taken.  I sensed some blame placement in the reply to that 
comment.

> Now for the root issue... Lets say I want to enhance hylafax some way, 
> but lets also say I dont know how (or lets say that I havent got time 
> to learn for the next couple of months due to my current workload.)
>
> Lets also say that I send in an enhancement request.  Lets further say 
> that someone else on this list has already done what I want to do and 
> it isnt hard.
>
> How do we get together?


That's what this list is for, we bring up ideas, suggestions, ideas.  
This is all very healthy, I think.  So if you need HylaFAX to do 
something, please, mention it here, hopefully someone else will chime in 
and help out.  And if you even think that enough people could benefit 
from that something, then you are encouraged to file a bug report for a 
feature enhancement request.  This is all healthy.

Sentiments of blame and debt in an open-source software project 
community are unhealthy, I think.  So, for example, if I were to carry 
around a perspective and a philosophy that all HylaFAX users owed me and 
the other developers a real debt of gratitude, then this would be 
unhealthy.  I've seen it in other open-source projects, and it sours the 
community.  Likewise, user sentiment in an open-source project becomes 
unhealthy if that sentiment lays guilt somewhere near to the 
developers.  Users will become developers less-frequently when they feel 
intimidated in this way.

So anyway, you're not mistaken.  This forum is the place for the 
feature-enhancement-request kind of discussion.

> The wiki doesnt have a spot for enhancement requests, or a way to vote 
> on which enhancements might be the most useful.


Well, I don't use iFAX's HylaFAX wiki, so I can't say if this is correct 
or not.

> so we use this list as a way for two people on it to discuss some 
> particular aspect of hylafax and what they want to do about it.


This is good.

> I would suggest that the best way to handle this is with the wiki.  
> user modified comments might drive a priority scoring system, maybe an 
> online poll or something.


I'm sure that iFAX welcomes community involvement in their wiki, and if 
that works for you then I encourage you to do it.  That wiki doesn't 
work for me, though.

Lee.


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