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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: KDE4: missing features from KDE3
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2009-08-04 22:09:40
Message-ID: 200908041609.48272.aseigo () kde ! org
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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. 

wontfix is, however, accurate. if there needs to be some emotional padding 
there, then lets come up with a different word for it. i can't think of one 
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.  

sounds like one for the psychologists (not being facetious!) and some user 
surveys. 

> 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 items 
which we just start ignoring wholesale. i don't like that either, but that is 
what is happening. it's easier to just push things into "wishlist" and ignore 
them all than to actually deal with them, and that's just wrong. it's also 
what is happening in a number of kde projects already. :(

speaking of inappropriate tags, the term "wishlist" pisses people off for 
similar reasons "wontfix" does: it's an accurate term, but people take it to 
mean something like "you're wishing" in a negative manner. i've asked a few 
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.  

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. 

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 
recognizing that we can't just compartmentalize this problem and say "it's 
just those people over there, at least _we_ are doing the right thing". that 
just results in increasingly compartmentalized and ultimately disconnected 
groups.

i'm not just talking about myself here, but the trend i am seeing week after 
week amongst developers who are slowly but surely disconnecting themselves 
from user input.

the people who are directly causing this set of problems will never step up to 
address it. and it's a cultural issue that it's even thinkable to take such an 
approach. so i think we need to take community responsibility and work on 
shifting things, not one individual at a time but the culture of our involved 
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, why
> > 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 more 
enjoyable to work on other actually useful things where i don't have to deal 
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. 
and if it's made harder for the contributors to track, manage and deal with 
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 KDE 
better" the more cooperation there is, the better it will go. and there is a 
minimal level of cooperation below which things fall apart.

this whole "kde3 features missing in kde4" meme that keeps on going is far, 
far below that minimal level of cooperation. right now when things improve 
it's because either someone steps up and does the work or we implement one of 
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 done
> > 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 any
> > 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. 

i'm doing so specifically to raise the concept that there is a collective, 
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.  

i know and appreciate that; but you're fighting against a constant current and 
i don't like that idea at all. that current should not exist, at least not in 
the direction it's currently flowing. it should be an occasional wave or a 
stormy night with the natural current flowing towards the positive. (to 
overuse the weather metaphores ;)

more realistically, i think we have two currents that are flowing in opposite 
directions. when it comes to "working together", one is quite positive and the 
other is quite confrontational.

i want to see the positive current become the overwhelmingly stronger trend.

-- 
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

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