license of support files for bug 154602

[Christopher Hicks]

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, J. Paul Reed wrote:
> On 09 Jul 2003 at 08:00:49, Gervase Markham moved bits on my disk to say:
> > But, in fact, I think I've got a new one :-) I would like Bugzilla to be
> > a credible enterprise bug-tracking system. Whether it's a fair or unfair
> > conclusion for them to draw, I don't believe it would give a more
> > favourable impression to admins evaluating Bugzilla if they went into the
> > params and saw "Enable smiley support in comments? [Yes|No]". What
> > message does this give them about our priorities in development?
> 
> I'm inclined to agree with you, but to answer your question, none.
> 
> If they know *anything* about open source, they will know one of its
> principle tenants is code gets developed because a developer wants to
> scratch their own itches (or the itches they're paid to scratch).
> 
> If smiley support in comments was one developer's itch, the fact that
> support for it exists in Bugzilla merely means we allowed it into the tree.
> Anyone who looks for any more meaning than that is drawing illogical
> conclusions. 
> 
> We should *never* make decisions based upon what some "enterprise" software
> procurer *might* think about when they see (or don't see) a feature.
> Remember, these are the same idiots buying Microsoft's shit year after year
> because they saw some ad in PC Week.

Bravo.

> Having said that, I agree with you; I don't see the point of smileys in
> comments, and I wouldn't want to waste time fixing this feature if it ever
> broke. Tally up one vote for keeping this, like some other really useful
> patches (drop down menus, anyone?) as a patch-only sort of a thing.
> 
> I wouldn't be opposed to distributing the images + the patch and
> instructions in their own directory in contrib (since there *are* images
> with this one).

Come now.  If you want to punt on it until the next version fine, but it 
doesn't do much harm to let it in eventually.  It should be a straight 
forward patch.  Don't get scared by the smileys patch!

This might even encourage the use of bugzilla by the game development 
community.  That'd be good for the games and for bugzilla.  Just imagine
a bugzilla smileys theme for Half Life.  Smileys with one eye hanging out, 
etc.  Fun, fun.  I can't wait.... :)

-- 
</chris>

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It
will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)