Enrico Ros proposing a SoC project for improving the GUI

[Thomas P.]

On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 09:24 +0000, Leo Franchi wrote:
> On 18 Mar 2009, at 09:18, Nikolaj Hald Nielsen wrote:
> 
> >> Frankly, you might be underestimating Enrico's powers a bit :)
> >
> > Quite possible as I have no idea who he is. On the other hand, I
> > generally judge people on what they actually do and not on what they
> > might or could do.
> >
> >> I'm known for brutal, relentless, barbaric honesty, and I will call a
> >> crappy coder exactly that, into his face. On the other hand, I will
> >> also call a wizard a wizard, which is exactly what Enrico is. He and
> >> Nuno Pinheiro could be a possible "dream team" for improving the GUI
> >> looks.
> >
> > Sure, which would be really cool. But doing this as a GSoC project is
> > super risky because it requires that Nuno is available during this
> > time. Also, I simply don't think 3 months is anywhere near enough for
> > this work. IF we want the new look done right, it also requires the
> > participation of the entire team. It is _not_ something that should
> > happen in isolation.
> 
> I think rather than just saying "with nuno he could be awesome" there  
> needs to be actual communication between us / him and the artists /  
> usability people. Markey is painting him as some sort of god (although  
> i don't think he is approaching nuno status for him yet) , which is  
> great, but on the other hand we have already been through one run of  
> developer-driven design and I think making *sure* that we have talked  
> with artists and developed a plan is essential.
> 
> leo
> 
> 
> >> Rejecting him would be utter madness. Was that brutal enough? :)
> >
> > 1. I never said anything about rejecting him.
> > 2. There is currently no proposal to reject.
> >
> > - Nikolaj

I agree with pretty much all people that have posted anything about this
topic so far.
1. Yes, the GUI can be improved a lot, especially visually. People
posting in comment areas (aka trolls) around the net have very blunt and
impolite ways to express their views, but it simply cannot be ignored
that many people are far less happy with Amarok 2 right now than they
should be. And it looks like that fact isn't being ignored by the team
since you guys really seem to be willing to change things. Which is a
pleasure to see.
2. When Mark states that Enrico is a wizard, he surely has quite some
experience with his work to support that. So, yes, it would be a huge
waste of talent not to have him involved in the GUI improvement process.
3. I agree with Nikolaj and Leo that a complete GUI redesign of a
project as complex as Amarok probably can't be done properly by one
person - no matter how good that person is - in three months. We don't
want to end up with something half done after the GSoC unless we can be
sure that Enrico will be able so spend many more months to complete it -
or more people are involved.
4. An interdisciplinary approach as suggested by Leo and others would
work best. It has proven successful in the commercial field and it will
work in the open source field just as well (or maybe even better since
OSS people are so well used to collaborative work). That doesn't mean
that someone who has talents in more than one field cannot contribute on
several levels, but bringing in people with different backgrounds would
still be helpful.

So I'd say: Start communicating with all people that could help here -
including Enrico of course - and start a project with a scope big enough
to really do this thoroughly. Setting up one - or maybe more - GSoC
project(s) to channel some of that work might still help. But the scope
of the overall project definitely has to go beyond that of one GSoC
project.

P.S.: One point in the idea on kde-looks troubles me and I'd like to
clarify if it would be part of Enrico's proposal: The idea to make
Amarok into a general media player. If that is the plan, it would have
to be discussed very carefully since it would be a deeply fundamental
change.

Thomas