App duplication again (Re: new project in kdemultimedia)

[Thomas Diehl]

Am Sonntag, 5. Mai 2002 23:36 schrieb Waldo Bastian:

> > there
> > would be no problem to have eg 5 cdrw programs, a hundred vocabulary
> > trainers, or 10 vector drawing apps in it -- right?
>
> Yes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that everyone should start
> making his own vector drawing app, I rather see people working together
> on one truely great app. However, if that, for whatever reason, doesn't
> happen, then I see no problem in having multiple apps with overlapping
> functionality in CVS.

Hmm, depends on what you call a problem. But I could imagine that many 
people won't be too enthusiastic when translators and documenters go on 
strike and produce 60+ messages threads every time something like this 
happens again. And from what you are saying we may be in for that any day. 
If it's not about CDRW then maybe media players or graphic apps.

Question is: Do we want really that? And if we don't: Can't we really find a 
way to prevent it from happening? I'm not talking about maybe 2 apps with 
some overlapping functionality where there is no decision yet on how to 
bring them together. I wouldn't want to discourage rewrites, either. (Most 
truly great programs are rewrites.) But an unlimited number of apps with 
almost the same functionality just because people don't work together "for 
whatever reason"? No, sorry.

I think we are going to need a transparent decision mechanism on what goes 
into CVS and what doesn't in a not too distant future. Yes, I know this is 
a horrible thing to even think about and I hate this whole discussion just 
like anybody else. We don't want a bureaucracy, we don't want dictatorship, 
and we don't want to keep people from experimenting, even if it means a lot 
of wasted time and code. Anyway, I still think we should at least 
_consider_ something like that piece of "thinking aloud" in 
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-i18n-doc&m=102051450931639&w=2

Regards,

Thomas


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