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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: kde's future
From:       "Friedrich W. H. Kossebau" <Friedrich.W.H () Kossebau ! de>
Date:       2001-01-09 18:01:47
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Sven Niedner wrote:
> 
> On Monday 08 January 2001 23:53, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> > My opinion is to totally abandon any file dialog, together with save and
> > load. But that is another story :-)
> 
> I like that idea. Besides the technical problems how things should be done
> right now, it might be more productive to think of what should be done in the
> future and how it might be implemented in a consistent way. The version
> control suggestion that came up a while ago is one thing, and I suppose you
> suggestion is related to this.

Yes, you got what I mean... :-)
 
> It was often argued that OS projects are not good at innovation, and I
> believe the point is valid. So, let's be more courageous about these things.

OS: operating system or open source? ;-)

Innovation is a hard process, you need men and time (-> money) to do it.
If something is new it has to be developed, tested out, often started
again. An innovation is based on an idea. Mostly to fulfill a need
(commercially: to make money ;-). But this idea may not be worked out,
or seem to make no sense (or no need). If your are not a programmer
yourself you need someone to do the coding work for you. On every case
better of course if there are a lot who work on an innovation project.
But they need to be convinced. So the inventor(s) has/have to a) have
access to their mind, and b) have convincing arguments that make sense
(to them ;-). If you look on freshmeat or else you might find a lot of
project that have something innovative (if closer looked at) but are
lost in space (without programmers, without users for feedback). That is
why I think only seldomly real innovation is seen done by os projects.
(rather quickly thought about)

Now you ask to be courageous. I think you are on this list having the
same reason that I have (and the others, most not doing coding?): You
feel KDE has enough drive (read: motivated coders) to not stop. As you
like the basic direction you hope that your little pushes (read:
proposals, argumenations) help to direct it a little bit to your goal
(read: needs/wishes).

Aeh, well, what was I about to say? Next time I should end before doing
human business... :o

Nevertheless: What I would like to help breakthrough is us making
working drafts out of the list. There is so much already forgotten again
that had been discussed here. At least by most (including me). And
people getting new to this list might not be wanting to read last years
mail archive to get to the state of today. I remember someone proposing
to do weekly conclusions but that didn't make it into reality. 

I think there is always someone starting a thread because he has an
idea. Some are minor changes, some are bigger concepts. Those that are
bigger concepts should become a draft. 

Who should maintain a draft? The one throwing it into discussion could
be the best because he had the idea and hopefully the intention to
realize his idea. But he must be fair enough to accept and include also
arguments against his idea. But I think all people on this list are,
aren't they? ;-)

Where should the drafts be stored? On privatly organized servers? I fear
that some drafts might get lost by the time that way because of people
getting uninterested and removing it. I would like all drafts on a kde's
server. That way drafts that lost its maintainer are preserved and can
still tell the last state, perhaps finding someone new who doesn't need
to rewrite/think everything. I have no clue as I'm not involved in
anything else concerning kde project how this could be done. I don't
expect that everyone on this list maintaining a draft is allowed to have
access somewhere. Please, kde core guys, could you tell me, how this
could be organized?

Problem might be that threads that are quite dynamic need perhaps daily
update of the draft. If there is a middle man who puts all the new draft
version on a kde server he might be unpleased to do this on daily
demand. Got what I mean?

Idea: install a script run each hour that synchronizes the local copies
on the kde server with the origins on external servers. That would
prevent loosing and enable up to date documents. So the kde guy who
cares about needs only to take care of the list of external urls and an
index-document. And write that script. I hope he/she (whoever) knows how
to do this :-)   (no idea myself)

What should a draft contain:
* the threads name (for referring)
* description of unsatiesfying state that is to be changed
* proposals how to do that (theoretically and practically), 
  with arguments against and for (name, reference to mail on listserver)
* collection of urls related to the thread
* collection of useful information (e.g. extract from an url)
* a (pre-)final conclusion if reached: success, failed, laid aside,
reason for that
* date of last change, name (email) of maintainer(s)

That way this list might be prevented from rediscussing things. What is
even better: those kde core programmers who have no time (could there be
another reason ;-) to read emails on this list could quickly notice what
mind breaking ideas have occured and start implementing them :-))

And last not least M$ agents have a nicer job when collecting ideas...
:-(

A draft that seems to be closed becomes a paper.

To make nails with heads:
If I correctly state there have been these real threads in the nearer
past:
* EA (biggest of course) -> actual -> draft (didn't Magnus Ihse once
prepare something?)
  maybe Thomas Zander + Rik Hemsley and Andreas Pour have drafts too
* app start notification/visualisation -> closed, but should be a paper
to read
* control center buttons -> almost closed I guessed (haven't followed)
-> paper
* 3D userinterface -> between failed and laid aside -> draft
* resizeable dialogs -> success -> paper already (style guide)
* spacingsizing style -> laid aside -> draft in preparation (by me)
* file dialog properties -> actual -> draft

A long time ago but remembered at least by me (because fascinated by):
* abandoning of file dialogs, load and save -> laid aside -> draft
(perhaps prepared by me)
* desktops concept -> ? -> draft (perhaps prepared by me)

So: Who wants to maintain which draft?   

Hello? Someone out there? ;-)

Hey, this is your chance! For what reason are you discussing? I think
the difficult part of the maintaining job is to initial the draft. But
once it is done it should be easy to maintain. If something is done a
bit wrongly the others will kindly help. They don't differ from you :-)
And the one maintaining a draft needn't to be the one who drives a
discussion if his latin is at the end (ips, my mother's tongue gets in
between). Everyone is pleased that he maintains the draft. Each taking
care of one k-wheel that might be included in tomorrows great k-machine.
Do I get euphoric?

Please, let's do this step! Let's get efficient.

Friedrich

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