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List: kde-devel
Subject: Re: Open question to all developers.
From: Michael Pyne <mpyne () purinchu ! net>
Date: 2008-06-25 22:28:47
Message-ID: 200806251828.48595.mpyne () purinchu ! net
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On Wednesday 25 June 2008, FiNeX wrote:
> Hi all!
>
>
> Lately KDE is having some troubles with the communication between
> developers, kde enthusiast and common users.
>
>
> It seems that the current tools used for communicate are not efficient
> enough: wikis, ML, planetKDE, b.k.o... the informations are all present,
> but informations are too much and sometimes not well organized.
Well good organization is essential, I think we are doing better now at
putting information in a logical spot. Unfortunately there's a lot of
information out there, so even having it in a given spot doesn't mean it will
be found. ;)
> One big problem is that users want features. Tom, our example user,
> probably have read something about feature X, somewhere on the web, Tom
> maybe want X and Y. He try a 0.x version, probably X and Y aren't there,
> maybe X is in trunk and Y planned for 4.2... who knows this info? Some
> knows developers, some infos are on the commit log, some else are on the
> wiki, some is in b.k.o and maybe on some blog entries in Planet.
> At this point Tom try to ask it on b.k.o (Tom is not a skilled user, it is
> more easy that he doesn't use the ML).
Well what we do have is a Feature Plan for upcoming versions but it sounds
more like you're talking of a "Feature Matrix"
i.e.
Feature | Implemented | KDE Release |
---------------------------------------------
Feed dogs | No | Never |
Shiny! | Yes | 4.0 |
More config | Yes | 4.1 (future) |
etc.
I've posted about one of the other cases (getting features into the ChangeLog)
but there wasn't much resolution on that.
Really though, we need something like Bugzilla so that's not going away. We
need good commit messages so those aren't going away. Any system which adds
to the workload of discussing features has a probability of being used about
inversely proportional to how hard it is (which is why we use TechBase for the
release plan and auto-generated ChangeLogs).
But I think the thing to take away from this is that the user in question
isn't going to be building from SVN so unless the feature is in a release it
doesn't really matter to him. And if it is in a release presumably he'd have
noticed by just trying it out. So I don't really think something like this
would stop all that kind of strife (although I also don't think this is the
most harmful kind of strife).
Regards,
- Michael Pyne
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}</style></head><body style=" font-family:'Consolas'; font-size:11pt; \
font-weight:400; font-style:normal;">On Wednesday 25 June 2008, FiNeX wrote:<br> > \
Hi all!<br> ><br>
><br>
> Lately KDE is having some troubles with the communication between<br>
> developers, kde enthusiast and common users.<br>
><br>
><br>
> It seems that the current tools used for communicate are not efficient<br>
> enough: wikis, ML, planetKDE, b.k.o... the informations are all present,<br>
> but informations are too much and sometimes not well organized.<br>
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>Well good organization is essential, I think we are doing \
better now at putting information in a logical spot. Unfortunately there's a lot of \
information out there, so even having it in a given spot doesn't mean it will be \
found. ;)<br> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>> One big problem is that users want features. Tom, our \
example user,<br> > probably have read something about feature X, somewhere on the \
web, Tom<br> > maybe want X and Y. He try a 0.x version, probably X and Y aren't \
there,<br> > maybe X is in trunk and Y planned for 4.2... who knows this info? \
Some<br> > knows developers, some infos are on the commit log, some else are on \
the<br> > wiki, some is in b.k.o and maybe on some blog entries in Planet.<br>
> At this point Tom try to ask it on b.k.o (Tom is not a skilled user, it is<br>
> more easy that he doesn't use the ML).<br>
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>Well what we do have is a Feature Plan for upcoming versions \
but it sounds more like you're talking of a "Feature Matrix"<br> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>i.e.<br> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"></p>Feature | Implemented | KDE Release \
|<br>
---------------------------------------------<br>
Feed dogs | No | Never |<br>
Shiny! | Yes | 4.0 |<br>
More config | Yes | 4.1 (future) |<br>
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>etc.<br> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; \
margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; \
text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"></p>I've posted about one of the other cases \
(getting features into the ChangeLog) but there wasn't much resolution on that.<br> \
<p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; \
margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>Really though, we need something like Bugzilla so that's not \
going away. We need good commit messages so those aren't going away. Any system \
which adds to the workload of discussing features has a probability of being used \
about inversely proportional to how hard it is (which is why we use TechBase for the \
release plan and auto-generated ChangeLogs).<br> <p style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; \
margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; margin-right:0px; \
-qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; -qt-user-state:0;"></p>But I think the thing to \
take away from this is that the user in question isn't going to be building from SVN \
so unless the feature is in a release it doesn't really matter to him. And if it is \
in a release presumably he'd have noticed by just trying it out. So I don't really \
think something like this would stop all that kind of strife (although I also don't \
think this is the most harmful kind of strife).<br> <p \
style="-qt-paragraph-type:empty; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0px; \
margin-right:0px; -qt-block-indent:0; text-indent:0px; \
-qt-user-state:0;"></p>Regards,<br>
- Michael Pyne</p></body></html>
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