Okay, I went through and certified everyone who I know that's already signed on ... that I believe would recognize me back. I'm not sure if it's pleasing or disturbing what high ranks many of these have. Guess I'd better get used to it :)
It seems to me that the statistics will be badly skewed by two things:
- the site is young yet, only people who have heard of it are here
- there are a lot of people I know via either Linux or USENIX conferences, but by face more than name. As I don't really have my email aliases file memorized either (isn't that what computers are for?) and even if I did there's nothing that insists people must use the same username here... I am crippled in my ability to recognize people and I suspect many others are as well.
I think that the projects should have another relation type, power user which indicates that one is knowledgeable enough to help other people with using... whatever that project provides. Projects with lots of power users can contribute to one's level of Mastery if you're a sufficient contributor/developer type on it. Just a thought.
Oh yeah, also in the 'disconcerting' category, if the project is a Documentation related project, Documentor = Contributor = Developer? Fod the Gazette Jim said the second and I said the last, since he writes the stuff and I make perl beat up on the resulting mbox. But it's still likely to confuse.
Much more interesting
Two days ago I applied both the USB backport and Alan Cox' 15pre17 patch to pristine sources from kernel.org. They didn't seem to interfere with each other in the slightest. Now I get to decide what model of USB toy to buy myself to test it...
I haven't caused it great destruction and 'aiee' noises like the other two kernels I cut this week, so there you go; a statistic of one, but what the heck.
For the exceptionally curious, the Debian 2.2.14 source kit did not accept Alan's patch. 4 rejects.