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List:       userlinux-discuss
Subject:    Re: [Discuss] re: the brerating of Bruce
From:       Carlos Leonhard Woelz <carloswoelz () imap-mail ! com>
Date:       2003-12-13 19:47:59
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Personal attacks are not the way to go. But, there are things to consider.

On Saturday 13 December 2003 15:31, Michael Compton wrote:
> There are maybe 6-10 KDE/QT fans that are
> very vocal, and have said they doubt Bruce...but there
> are as far as I can tell 2-3 times as many that have
> said they support the leadership of Bruce and the
> direction of UserLinux.

_You_ are saying there are 6-10 KDE/QT fans that doubt Bruce. I saw only two. 
Don't try to classify people. It is not "we against them". Otherwise, people 
cannot communicate. Ignore the flames, but try to answer people's questions. 
To have disagreements is normal. Without discussion, there no improvement.

> The difference is that we the 
> supporters say "I agree with Bruce and support him,
> lets move on" and that is it...and the detractors feel
> the need to post several times a day trying to argue a
> point that has already been decided.  When they
> realized that the decision has been made, they decided
> to attack Bruce personally.  I think this is very sad
> indead.  Your pet project was not used, and so you
> need to throw a fit and attack people personally.  I
> really feel that this could have been avoided had you
> carefully read the whitepaper in the beginging.  for
> instance...


You are trying to divide people between two groups: the supporters and the 
(QT/KDE ones) that are against it. This is not true. The strong sentiment 
against some choices is rational: why _rule out_ QT/KDE, and accept different 
frameworks (even if they look like GTK, they are not)? Why look for a CD/DVD 
burner app ruling out K3B? A web development tool ruling out Quanta Plus? 
They have as much to do with the choice of the desktop as OOo and Mozilla.  
What about Scribus for publishing? It is a QT only app. It is out?

The KDE framework allows you to change the ui centrally. You can change the 
order of the buttons. You can theme the icons and widgets even better than 
other frameworks. You can solve the problems improving the interoperability 
between toolkits even more. And you would make Linux better.

So the question is: why accept 4 or 5 different frameworks and _rule out_ 
QT/KDE _apps_?


> "I think it makes sense for an enterprise project to
> make choices  among the two complete GUIs available on
> Debian"
>
> and
>
> "Having a bounded set of packages to collectively
> support and improve is important, especially at the
> beginning. Additions to that list can be driven by
> what customers are willing to pay for....Of course any
> of the service providers can make their own support
> choices from the full set of software in Debian, for
> their own paying customers, overriding our choices."
>
> and ESPECIALLY...
>
> "Expect the initial choosing to be painful."
>

The choice may be painfull, but it must be rational.
One thing is argue that the basic system and development libraries must be 
LGPL. Other thing is ruling out _apps_ because they are GPL. What does K3B 
has to do with LGPL and GPL discussion? Again: with KDE, it is easy to change 
not only the skin, but the whole ui to fit any standard. Just set the 
standard.

Ruling out apps just because they use a different toolkit, even when they are 
better, is just irrational. Thats what make people angry. They see a 
political agenda on it. And it is _logical_ to think so. Maybe not true, but 
_logical_. And you have to respect that.

> 2nd I have never seen Bruce to be pompus or arrogant I
> have seen him do what good leaders do.  That is make
> the hard choices, and move on.  In the very begining
> Bruce said that there would be favorites played.  He
> then played favorites.  There should be no suprise
> here.  Did you join this project so that you could be
> involved only if the term "play favorites" meant that
> they were always going to choose YOUR favorites?  Then
> we could all just as easily sit out here and say well
> it is going to be ThomasLinux or KurtLinux or
> AdamLinux, if that is what you want, then go do it.
> That is not what the goal of UserLinux is.  I think
> one of the reasons that you may find Bruce to be
> pompus or arrogant is because he is sticking to the
> choice that he made.  For one that is neither pompus
> nor is it arrogant.  It is leadership.  immagine if
> whomever you worked for come to you and said we are
> moving everything we do here to Gnome/GTK+ and then 3
> months latter said nevermind, I read somthing that
> said QT was better so we are moving everything to
> KDE/QT, and then a month latter said actually I think
> that Icemaker is the best solution.  Do you see where
> that would lead?  he made a choice...and he stuck by
> it.  that IS leadership.  I think also you may find
> him pompus because he does not make appologies for his
> decision.  He said licensing was the main reason, and
> there it is.  Settled.  Bruce said in the original
> whitepaper..and I quote again...
> "Expect the initial choosing to be painful."
> It has been...but he knew that going in, and so is
> trying to let it pass, as am I...however the personaly
> attacks have gone to far.

I agree. Personal attacks wont make things better. But, as I said, it may be 
painfull, but it have to be discussed and rational.

>
> Now Kurt, and Thomas, and Adam and the 1/2 dozen or so
> others that want to continue to pollute this list
> because you are not happy with the GNOME decision...I
> think it is time that you either decide to accept
> Bruces leadership and decisions, and contribute
> productivly to the project, or dont be suprised when
> nobody cries for you when you leave to fork, or do
> your own thing.  I think that it has been said here
> before...this project MAY NOT BE FOR EVERYONE.
> It could be that your goals, and vision do not match
> those of this project.  That is fine.  You are free to
> do as you wish.  This project is under the leadership
> of Bruce, and has a very specific target and goal.  I
> for one hope that you can accept that...and join in
> appropriatly, because it is obvious to be that you
> guys are very smart.  You are obviously very
> tallented, and I think that you could add to the
> project.  But if you are going to do that, do it in
> the framework that we have to work with, which is with
> Bruce as the leader, GNOME as the default GUI and then
> if you have individual customers or needs, then you
> can also download and install KDE/QT for them.  That
> is the framework that we have been given to work
> within.  Please accept it and move on or move out.  (
> I hope that you stay as part of the project, but that
> is you choice.  I would rather see you start your own
> project rather than continue to berate this one and
> its leadership)
>
> ~Michael S Compton
>

What is the framework? As I see, the framework is _no_ QT/KDE _apps_. And this 
is not logical.

There are different levels of support for a given framework in a distribution, 
in order:

a) To be the only option for the desktop, and the only options for apps, 
ruling everything else out.
b) To be the only option for the desktop, competing for best in class apps, 
(even when they don't use the same toolkit).
c) To be one of the options for desktop, and to compete for best in class 
apps.
d) To compete only for best in class apps.
e) To be completely ruled out of the desktop.

And the worse of the options:

f) To be completely ruled out of the desktop, even when other frameworks are 
accepted.

It is normal to be angry about option f. I would. It seems _political_. If 
this is true, you are sending these people who are dying to help home. They 
are not asking for option a. They are asking for option c. And it seems that 
did not even offer d.

This is even more important when a distribution is not officially linked to a 
desktop project, but a distribution trying to set a _standard_. Have you ever 
seen a standard body that decides without very strict guidelines and decision 
process?

Cheers,

Carlos Woelz

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