Older blog entries for scav (starting at number 1)

Recently released 1.2beta2 of f2w helpdesk.

Now, I really have a very naïve understanding of how to choose version numbers, so it should probably not be above version 1.0. I live and learn.

Also, less recently, I've read Erich Fromm's book "To Have or To Be". Heavy going in places, but pretty sound and satisfyingly spiritual. In short, he says what you are is important (and by extension, what you can become); what you have is not.

A parallel with software development: contrast "owning intellectual property" with "being creative".

I notice this viewpoint helps with the usually difficult but serious question "What do you REALLY want?". If you interpret this as "what do you want to HAVE?", there is no end to it, and you are into that old finite resources and infinite options thing. If you ask instead "what do you want to BE?", it's a question you can answer to the first approximation, and the answer can be a productive one.

Or so I think, anyway.

Just spent a gruelling couple of days writing documentation for f2w helpdesk.

It strikes me this is where free software projects are most likely to repel potential users and contributors. Because I had a look at my project, imagining I was a newcomer to it, and I was repelled.

Hence, the User Guide and Admin Guide that I knew all along would be needed finally got written.

Oh well.