Shorewall devel - Jan 2003 - Thanks Tom. Development doldrums in another open source project

I, too, want to thank Tom for such a great software package and all the 
support he has always given.

I was just reading a Slashdot interview with the Nagios/NetSaint author
Ethan Galstad.  The whole article is interesting and I bet the questions
and answers would be similar for Shorewall:

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/09/1216259&mode=thread&tid=156

Question 19 seems pertinent:


<19>
19. Did the brown stuff ever hit the cooling thing?

By del_ctrl_alt

Was there a make or break moment when it could have all ended? If so what pulled
the project back on track?

This question was modded fairly low, but I felt it was a good question to
answer, so I did. Maybe my experiences will help others...

Yes, there were at least two times when I seriously considered dumping the whole
project for good. One came when my personal life was going through some rough
spots and the other came when the trademark mess popped up. Both times I ended
up deciding to continue the project, but only after several months of
"downtime". I felt that I had invested too much time in the project to
simply
let it die off. I enjoy working on Nagios and think I would have felt a sense of
personal failure had I decided to quit when things got rough. There have been a
number of other times when I''ve thought about ditching the project, but
I''ve
come to realize that they are just part of my natural development cycle and will
pass with time. I''ve found that my normal cycle works something like
this:

   1. Spend time mulling over and planning new features
   2. Code, debug, document
   3. Detest everything about this project and do nothing at all
   4. Rinse and repeat...

When I feel I''ve had enough and can''t stand the project
anymore, I just stop
answering email, stop coding, and stop thinking about the project. This can last
for a week or four months. When I''ve had enough time away from
everything, I can
get started again. This period of disgust is also a time when I start
formulating ideas on what needs to be changed or added. I''ve come to
accept and
expect this period of downtime and, as a result, am now much happier with the
project. Anyway, if you''re thinking about starting an OSS project of
your own,
its something to think about.
<\19>

Thanks for such a great firewall!

-- 
Steve Herber	herber@thing.com	work: 206-261-0307
Systems Engineer, AMCIS, UoW		home: 425-454-2399