[Digikam-users] Digikam IPTC

[Dotan Cohen]

On 19/02/2008, michael hughes <leftbrainorama at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Markus,
>
> you started well and then ended up being as dismissive as the others. I am
> not even sure what a troll is. All I have said is that I have not worked out
> how to write into digikams IPTC apart from the preferences bit. I don't need
> more than the IPTC which LightZone offers - but it is there where I need it.
>
> I find it incredible to notice how sensitive you all are. You think I am
> wasting your time, you think I am an ignorant troublemaker trying to make a
> point. To quote Kurt Crömer "eee? guck im Spiegel, det ist eee"

Michael,
I know how you feel that you wrote to the list with constructive
criticism and everyone started yelling at you. You are experiencing
the same culture clash that most people experience in the first few
times they write to an open source application's mailing list. Let me
explain some things, and know that I am both on your side (as a new
Linux user who has gone through the culture clash as well) and on the
Digikam team's side (as I know what they expect).

Open source developers seem to love criticism, but of a very specific
type. Very specific comments such as "feature XXX does not work in an
intuitive way, a better way would be AAA" or "feature YYY performs in
the reverse fashion as the industry standard, which is BBB" are very
welcome and will make you many friends quickly. Saying blanket
statements such as "your product is immature compared to
MegaDollarsSolution" is akin to saying "your product sucks". Of course
you could not know that, in fact, it may seem to you that the Digikam
developers are being rather sensitive. After reading these lists for
about a year now, trust me, they are not being overly sensitive. They
are being impatient, and that's fine. They expect that if you are
going to say that their product is immature, that you will give very
specific examples.

Now here is another fork. You are probably saying that you _did_ give
examples in your comments regarding IPTC. The thing is, in your first
email, that all you did was mention the problems and then mention that
Digikam is comparatively immature. Please, be a little thick skinned
(this goes for the Digikam devs as well) and give a very specific
example of the workflow that you, as a professional, would expect to
add IPTC info. I'm sure that the devs would appreciate it, and if need
be, I'll help file the bug that will request the feature. Filing bugs
is the accepted way of initiating change in Digikam or any other FOSS
project. Note that if you think the devs on the mailing list are
sensitive, then you'll need to tread extra lightly in Bugzilla. I
suggest that in bugzilla one not mention competing projects, rather,
just mention the features you need and expected implementation.

In any case, I don't represent anything other than myself, but as a
fellow user I welcome you to Digikam and Linux in general. After some
time the culture will become more obvious and you will see why it is
the way it is. And then you'll write a similar letter to another
frustrated new user. Feel free to contact me off list if you have any
questions but don't want to risk the wrath of the elders here, in
regards to Digikam, KDE, or Linux in general.

Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?