[kde-community] finding a clear vision for KDE - first draft for discussion

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Freitag, 12. Februar 2016 12:07:27 CET Alexander Dymo wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 1:04 AM, Martin Graesslin <mgraesslin at kde.org> 
wrote:
> > Why should there be a line?
> 
> I've been managing software development organizations since 2008. I
> attest to the importance of drawing a line. There's so much you can do
> with software. Unless you learn to say "no", you will not make a good
> product.

> By the way, I learned this the hard way in open source world too. Let
> me tell you a story.
> 
> When I was a KDevelop maintainer during 3.x cycle, I welcomed every
> single KDevelop plugin into the core.
> 
> End result? We did not attract new developers this way, but instead
> were forced to maintain a huge collection of barely useful software
> with a small team.
> 
> During 4.x development we clearly defined the core of KDevelop. It was
> to be a great C++ IDE. Any plugin that did not fit into the core was
> separated into its own repository. What remained received as much
> attention as possible.
> 
> End result? A much better product. New contributors. And guess what?
> Some of the plugins that were separated not only survived, but saw
> more development and usage.

See, here is the big difference: I (and I'm pretty certain most of the people 
arguing for an "inclusive" vision here) fully agree that a _product_ vision 
not only has to make clear what the product _should_ be, but also what it 
should _not_ be.

A product vision has to give a clear focus, because there is only so much you 
can do with given resources in a given time, plus more features increase code 
complexity and make maintaining the code more complex.

What we're talking about here, however, is not a product vision. Not at all. 
It is about how a _community_ wants the future to be. It is on a much higher 
level than a product vision.

Maybe what you want is an overarching product vision instead of a community 
vision, after all?