From kde-devel Tue Aug 04 22:09:40 2009 From: "Aaron J. Seigo" Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:09:40 +0000 To: kde-devel Subject: Re: KDE4: missing features from KDE3 Message-Id: <200908041609.48272.aseigo () kde ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=124942391707962 MIME-Version: 1 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--===============1689266079==" --===============1689266079== Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart1718558.68LehqxFds"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --nextPart1718558.68LehqxFds Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tuesday 04 August 2009, Anne Wilson wrote: > On Tuesday 04 August 2009 19:00:09 Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > > On Tuesday 04 August 2009, Anne Wilson wrote: > > > WONTFIX is a major annoyance. > > > > it's also part of reality. not every thing can be or should be > > implemented. > > I never said it would. Like it or not, WONTFIX gives the impression that > you don't care. That should never be. There must be a better way of > tagging things.=20 wontfix is, however, accurate. if there needs to be some emotional padding= =20 there, then lets come up with a different word for it. i can't think of one= =20 atm. :/ > In many cases we probably need a tag that conveys the > meaning that it would break other things. Something on the lines of > SystemBreaker. =20 sounds like one for the psychologists (not being facetious!) and some user= =20 surveys.=20 > In other cases just changing the tag to Wish should be > sufficient. that doesn't work very well over time because then we get tons of wish item= s=20 which we just start ignoring wholesale. i don't like that either, but that = is=20 what is happening. it's easier to just push things into "wishlist" and igno= re=20 them all than to actually deal with them, and that's just wrong. it's also= =20 what is happening in a number of kde projects already. :( speaking of inappropriate tags, the term "wishlist" pisses people off for=20 similar reasons "wontfix" does: it's an accurate term, but people take it t= o=20 mean something like "you're wishing" in a negative manner. i've asked a few= =20 times to have this changed to "feature request". > > the user community that interacts with F/OSS projects such as KDE really > > needs to start understanding how this all works and taking some > > responsibility in their actions. as developers we're expected to be > > paragons of behavior, but really it's cooperative between all of us. > > except that the user community tends to still lack a clear set of shared > > values and ethics when it comes to these things. > > The user community is large and constantly changing. =20 agreed. > At the moment we seem > to have a really bad-tempered lot of loud-mouthed folk, but it's not just > on KDE lists.=20 i've noticed; but we can work to make KDE a safe(r) harbour, no? > I don't know whether it's the economy, the weather, or just > plain bad manners, but it's there. OTOH there are huge numbers of > long-time users that are never guilty of this behaviour, and don't deserve > to be tarred with the same brush. it's not about painting (or tarring :) everyone with the same brush. it's=20 recognizing that we can't just compartmentalize this problem and say "it's= =20 just those people over there, at least _we_ are doing the right thing". tha= t=20 just results in increasingly compartmentalized and ultimately disconnected= =20 groups. i'm not just talking about myself here, but the trend i am seeing week afte= r=20 week amongst developers who are slowly but surely disconnecting themselves= =20 from user input. the people who are directly causing this set of problems will never step up= to=20 address it. and it's a cultural issue that it's even thinkable to take such= an=20 approach. so i think we need to take community responsibility and work on=20 shifting things, not one individual at a time but the culture of our involv= ed=20 user community as a whole, together. > > sure; reality is that a small number of people in the real world need > > such a thing and we have had a large number of other things to take care > > of that impact even more people. that and sometimes we'd like to work on > > things that are enjoyable and useful to us. if it's really important, w= hy > > has nobody stepped up to do it? where is my motivation to work on it? > > The fact that you called it 'the actually useful feature' (quoted above) that doesn't mean i have any motivation to work on it. i may find it far mo= re=20 enjoyable to work on other actually useful things where i don't have to dea= l=20 with such people and attitudes. > > (answer: > > completely destroyed for 4.3 by the rudeness of the only response i > > received back from saying "yes, this needs to be done. won't be the for > > 4.3 though.") > > One comment? Come on! We all get rude comments from time to time. it was several comments from different people and the message was clear. > > > Unkind and unrealistic. Without bug/wish reports how do you know what > > > features people value? > > > > i'm just fine with reports. i don't like it being scattered in N > > different places (wiki lists, blog entries, etc ) > > It's called Free Speech. You (and I) don't have to agree. this isn't a Free Speech issue. it's a "how do we achieve our goals" issue.= =20 and if it's made harder for the contributors to track, manage and deal with= =20 then the odds that we will "achieve our goals" is diminished. nobody has to do anything, but if we all want to achieve goals like "make K= DE=20 better" the more cooperation there is, the better it will go. and there is = a=20 minimal level of cooperation below which things fall apart. this whole "kde3 features missing in kde4" meme that keeps on going is far,= =20 far below that minimal level of cooperation. right now when things improve= =20 it's because either someone steps up and does the work or we implement one = of=20 those features coincidentally. > > nor do i have any stomach for the > > users who get upset when we acknowledge the need but say "we haven't do= ne > > it yet" > > > > > Again, just a kind reply of 'coming, but not yet' > > > is not too much to ask, but often too much to get. > > > > well, saying "coming, but not yet" is often met with unfriendly > > responses. this encourages the developers to just avoid commenting on a= ny > > wishlist entries that come in as the response to anything that isn't > > "i'll do it right now just as you asked" has a high risk of earning a > > poor response. > > I've never actually seen anyone respond in that way. we get it regularly on bugs.kde.org :( > > the user community is making a bed for itself that i don't think it's > > going to want to lie in. > > Please stop talking as though the user community is a homogenous body.=20 i'm doing so specifically to raise the concept that there is a collective,= =20 cultural issue here that is shared and not specific to any individuals. > It > isn't. Some of us fight really hard to deal with the very things that you > are complaining about. =20 i know and appreciate that; but you're fighting against a constant current = and=20 i don't like that idea at all. that current should not exist, at least not = in=20 the direction it's currently flowing. it should be an occasional wave or a= =20 stormy night with the natural current flowing towards the positive. (to=20 overuse the weather metaphores ;) more realistically, i think we have two currents that are flowing in opposi= te=20 directions. when it comes to "working together", one is quite positive and = the=20 other is quite confrontational. i want to see the positive current become the overwhelmingly stronger trend. =2D-=20 Aaron J. Seigo humru othro a kohnu se GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software --nextPart1718558.68LehqxFds Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEABECAAYFAkp4sawACgkQ1rcusafx20MOugCeLRo1nSLZXbVEE1uI1WLDRrxM jqkAmgNA0dwEx9aUqMY48paQJPeUeV7b =Ob4S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart1718558.68LehqxFds-- --===============1689266079== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline >> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe << --===============1689266079==--