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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: apologies
From:       "Joshua J. Berry" <des () condordes ! net>
Date:       2008-06-14 8:45:27
Message-ID: 200806140145.33222.des () condordes ! net
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On Friday 13 June 2008 22:46:01 James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> Joshua J. Berry wrote:
> > On Wednesday 11 June 2008 06:27:18 James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> >> Mark A. Taff wrote:
> >>> My biggest issue thus far is the bullying.
> >>
> >> Yes, there is a problem although I wouldn't go so far as to calling it
> >> bullying.  To me, it seems more like a lack of empathy for users.  It
> >> would also help if developers were willing to admit that things don't
> >> work.
> >
> > So the roughly-150,000 (mostly-fixed) bugs in Bugzilla are... what,
> > exactly?
>
> Actually, those are mostly closed bugs.  I have no statics as to what
> percent of closed bugs are closed because they are fixed, but many are
> closed for other reasons.

I do have those statistics -- getting them out of Bugzilla isn't hard.  I 
don't think you'll find them overly useful, but I'll post them anyway.  I was 
merely using them in support of a larger point, because I like numbers.

72,309 bugs marked as FIXED
   ("We heard your complaint, and we fixed it.")
6,093 bugs marked as WONTFIX, LATER or REMIND
   ("Your bug report is valid, but we won't address it.")
18,719 bugs marked as DUPLICATE
30,557 bugs marked as INVALID or WORKSFORME
   (Non-issues, or closed by the reporter)
30,712 bugs are still open (UNCONFIRMED/NEW/ASSIGNED/REOPENED)
   (How many of these are now stale/irrelevant?  I don't know.)

So perhaps "mostly-fixed" was rather optimistic on my part.

> IAC, what does it mean that 'X' number of bugs have been closed.

It means that ~72,000 problems, of varying size and severity, have been 
reported and satisfactorily addressed.  (If the fix wasn't satisfactory, the 
reporter would have presumably reopened the bug.)

> That isn't a relevant question to my point; it is a nonsequitur.  The
> number of bugs fixed in the past has no relation to whether or not new
> software works correctly.

Yup, new software has bugs, and even design flaws.  You can't predict, by bug 
history or any other means, where the issues will be.  That's well-understood 
and really uninteresting.

But the bug history DOES say something interesting about the people involved 
in writing that software, which is where the heart of your argument lies.

You said, "developers [aren't] willing to admit that things don't work."  That 
claim, on the face of it, is fallacious.  It's fallacious because Bugzilla 
says the KDE developers have a long track record of addressing issues reported 
to them.  (72,000 of them, in fact.)

But I think the really convincing point, even more than the bug counts, is the 
fact that KDE has made it through almost 12 years and four major revisions, 
and during that time it has built a vibrant community, growing its user- and 
developer-base in impressive ways.  The codebase is evolving at an ever-faster 
rate, new "markets" such as EeePC are opening up, and we now have marketing 
and usability teams to do outreach and get feedback.  None of those (except 
possibly the first) would be happening if the developers didn't wish to engage 
with the users.

I think it's pretty clear that KDE has done a reasonable job so far of 
addressing most of its users' needs.  It wouldn't have stuck around so long, 
and grown so much, had that not been the case.

I could certainly understand if you took issue, in that specific case, with 
Aaron's tone.  I'd probably even agree with you -- he wasn't particularly 
empathetic (though in that case, I don't think that's necessarily a bad 
thing).

But you didn't; you made a sweeping, general statement about KDE developers as 
a whole.  I can't agree with that -- and I bet, if you thought about it, you 
wouldn't agree with it either.  KDE must be addressing at least some of your 
needs, otherwise you wouldn't be here in the first place.

> I stand by my statements.  But PLEASE, read the whole paragraph.  The
> sentence that is being attacked out of context is an example of how to
> show empathy for users.

I think--I hope--I have addressed both your empathy argument and your 
"willingess to admit" argument above.

> Users complain because they think that things
> don't work.  It shows no empathy to be combative and start off by saying
> that they are wrong and that things do work.

I don't think that's what Aaron was saying.  I think he was saying, "It's on 
the list, and it will work, once we get around to it.".  (He only clarified 
that what, like 6 times?)

As I said earlier, if anyone has been combative, it's Mark.  While that 
doesn't excuse a combative response (two wrongs and all that), Aaron still 
showed far more restraint than I would have been able to muster in his 
position.  He has my respect for that.

-- Josh


-- 
Joshua J. Berry

"I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere."
    -- /usr/games/fortune


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