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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KDE Development Policy
From:       Waldo Bastian <bastian () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-03-10 5:42:48
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On Friday 08 March 2002 11:48 pm, Neil Stevens wrote:
> While these problems are bad enough, they in turn throw up further
> obstacles to a stable release:
>
> 1) When users and developers cannot build KDE, they cannot test KDE
> 2) When developers are locked out of KDE builds, they cannot
> contribute fixes.
> 3) When the credibility of the KDE release policies are called into
>    question, users and developers are less likely to feel that
>    testing is of value, and stop participating.
>
> The credibility of the release policies are further damaged by the
> manner in which the decisions are made.  For instance, the major
> change to libtool, there was a minimum of discussion, with no
> compelling bugs or reasons shown for making this drastic change.  In
> cases like this, the whims of a few dictate large change for the
> masses.

I agree with you that changes to the admin dir are disruptive and a hassle for 
everyone. That makes it a painfull change but not a wrong change. There are 
very few people with intimate knowledge about the magic in the admin dir and 
those two people are to my knowledge Stephan Kulow and Michael Matz (let me 
know if I forgot someone). So when those two people agree and consider it 
necassery that things get upgraded before 3.0 then that is what happens. 
That's not because of the "whims of a few" but because of the "well thought 
out decission by the people responsible for that part of KDE."

Where it went wrong is the communication of such change to the rest of KDE. 
Especially because it is disruptive it is important that such changes are 
communicated clearly to everyone involved. If you, as a developer, make a 
change to something in KDE that may affect others, make sure that you inform 
those others about it. It doesn't matter whether it is a BIC change in 
KConfig, a new string in KEdit or an upgrade of the admin dir. 

KDE is a very big project and such communication is very important. It will 
only become more important when KDE grows bigger. Proper communication is a 
responsibility for everyone of us.

Cheers,
Waldo
-- 
Reports of KDE 3's Death Have Been Highly Exaggerated


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