[kde-community] Bikeshedding - our strength apparently *sigh*

[Myriam Schweingruber]

Wow, over 150 mails over that whole Github stuff, I am amazed.

Let me chime in to give you a non-developer perspective: Caveat: some
strong language ahead, but please take all this with a grain of salt
:)

Some of you wanted the mirror on Github because apparently there are
developers out there who are too lazy (or too dumb) to learn to use
new tools. Are those developers we want?

Some now start arguing (despite the clear statement from the start
that we will NOT accept pull-requests) to have an opt-in possibility
for some, because those people on Github are too lazy (and maybe
dumb!) to learn to use Reviewboard or Differential. Do we really want
people like those?

I heard people complaining about how reviewboard is difficult to use,
then why can I, as a non-developer use it within minutes, just by
reading instructions and thinking logically? Shouldn't all software
developers be capable of that?

I hear now the same messages from some: "Oh no, we are so used to
reviewboard, why do we have to learn something new and apparently
complicated to use!" what I read again here between the lines is "I am
too lazy to learn to use Differential!", which is a matter of 2
minutes apparently, I just tried it, it's really easy and I am NOT a
developer. So why can I, a dumb translator who is an extremely crappy
coder, do this and not you smart developers?

I remember people who were (and still are) core developers complaining
they were too old to learn to use git which is so complicated. Guess
what? I use git, and it really is easy, as there is a ton of
documentation out there and one doesn't use a bazillion of commands in
everyday use, maybe 10 at most. If somebody now would tell you they
can't learn git because it is too complicated, what would you answer?
Would you really want to collaborate with such a person?

In essence: we should stop that whole discussion which is simply the
result of laziness on our behalf, because:

You are developers, you learn new things every day (if not, I am
worried), you are able to read documentation, you are able to find it
without having to "ask for guidance" like a lazy student who has not a
clue about coding, you are capable of using free tools for Free
Software, because that is why we are all here: because we make Free
Software!

Giving in to commodity and laziness in Free Software development is a
bad thing, because it dilutes the idea of what Free Software is. So
please everybody, rethink about our values and stop that silly thread
about why or why not or how we should use a proprietary tool, because
that is what Github is: proprietary, and we don't want that in Free
Software!

Regards, Myriam

PS. Don't get me started about my use of gmail, please, I am deeply
ashamed about it and apparently too lazy to change... but I will reuse
Kmail again as soon as it stops eating my mail every time I filter
something and when Akonadi stops filling up my hard disk and memory
and... etc. etc. Promised!)

-- 
Proud member of the Amarok and KDE Community
Protect your freedom and join the Fellowship of FSFE:
http://www.fsfe.org
Please don't send me proprietary file formats,
use ISO standard ODF instead (ISO/IEC 26300)