From kde-devel Mon Mar 14 20:37:31 2005 From: Miles Stevenson Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:37:31 +0000 To: kde-devel Subject: Re: Allow money donations for precise bugs Message-Id: <200503141237.31769.miles () mstevenson ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=111083246814780 On Monday 14 March 2005 11:24 am, Maurizio Colucci wrote: > If they *really* were to go away, they would be a minority of very fanatic, > or very antidemocratic, or very stupid, people. So, IMHO, it would be > better to loose them. Perhaps we should scale down the name calling and attempt a more constructive conversation of this issue. From what I understand, many KDE developers (I am not one of them) are against trading money for features/bugfixes because they feel that KDE will become a "user-centric" desktop, meaning that they will have to start producing what the users want instead of what the developers want. On the surface, this seems reasonable. It is generally assumed that users (meaning users without any software development or design experience) want useless features because they don't know what works best, while developers want the "right" features, whatever that is. I think that there are potentially a lot of problems with this assumption. One of them would be clumping the majority of KDE users into the same category as Windows users as far as computer and software literacy are concerned. I have a sneaking suspicion that in reality, the majority of KDE users are in fact programmers, designers, engineers, and scientists. After all, Linux still has it's reputation as being the OS for geeks instead of the general public. The other problem I see is an assumption that there is some kind of rift between the interests of KDE users and KDE developers as far what KDE should be. I just don't see that. In fact, I think most KDE users are attracted to KDE because they want the same thing the developers want, a KDE that is customizable, integrated, powerful, and flexible. If the goal of KDE is to be a digital playground for developers to try new things and write whatever they fancy, then that is fine. There is nothing wrong with that, and I would be amazed at how nice of a desktop KDE is if that were the main goal of the project. But if the goal is to be a *viable* alternative to other desktops such as Windows, OS X, and Gnome (meaning desktop users would prefer KDE over other desktops), then a developer-centric model doesn't make sense. It is illogical to compete with other desktops by ignoring the interests of your users. Furthermore, I don't think the proponents of a donation system (myself included) want to take away developer freedom, or even make donation money the only motivation for KDE developers. I believe the idea is to give users the ability to proposition a developer and say "Hey, I'd really like to see this feature. If you want to make an extra $50 tonight instead of going to the movies, then I'm willing to pay you." There is no freedom being taken away from a developer here. If said developer would rather work on something of his own instead of getting paid to work on something else, then he is not being denied the freedom to do so. The very simple fact, is that giving developers the *choice* to work on what they want, or to get paid and work on what someone else wants, does not take away any freedom. Giving a developer more choice in no way disrupts their freedom. Saying that "There exists freedoms which are removing or reducing other freedoms. And this definitely is one of them. [sic]" might sound like some kind of mystical wisdom, but just doesn't make any reasonable sense. I submit that we should at least use reason here and recognize that giving additional opportunities for KDE developers to get paid for writing code doesn't "remove" or "reduce" the freedom for developers to not take part in it in any way, shape, or form. -- Miles Stevenson Email: miles@mstevenson.org URL: http://www.mstevenson.org PGP/GPG Key ID: 329F889D767D2F63 >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<