bug handling policy / interaction with users

[Roberto H. Alsina]

On Sun, Mar 16 2003 at 01:53:45am +0100, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
> On Sunday 16 March 2003 01:30, Roberto H. Alsina wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 16 2003 at 01:25:31am +0100, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
> > > On Saturday 15 March 2003 22:03, Tim Jansen wrote:
> > > > It is not realistic to expect that this will change as long as
> > > > components are done by unpaid volunteers.
> > >
> > > Being a volunteer doesn't mean you have no responsibility involved.
> >
> > Not being paid is not an excuse not to be polite, but
> > it surely is an excuse not to be bossed around like an employee.
> 
> Come on, the text of this bug report is a far cry from "bossing around". It's 
> polite, well written and rather sensible. It is  fairly "architect in 
> armchair"-like, I agree, but it's pretty easy to find worse than this.

I am not talking about this specific instance. I was replying to what
you wrote in general. Developers may be responsible, maybe even
responsible to users, but they are not accountable to them, and they
simply can not be ordered, or, as you said the will "go work  in
the Hurd".

Each person has different thresholds on how
much they want to communicate with users, or in what ways they can
bear such communication.

You said something like "or else go work in the Hurd". I think any developer
who helps KDE is valuable. If they prefer to work in a mad-scientist
locked-in-the-attic fashion, maybe KDE as a project should take steps
to allow them to contribute in a way they feel comfortable.

I have no idea how, though :-)

 ("\''/").__..-''"`-. .         Roberto Alsina
 `9_ 9  )   `-. (    ).`-._.`)  ralsina at kde.org
 (_Y_.)' ._   ) `._`.  " -.-'   Former KDE Developer (MFCH)
  _..`-'_..-_/ /-'_.'           
(l)-'' ((i).' ((!.'             Buenos Aires - Argentina
"It was like being crushed by an airplane 
full of leeches" (H. S. Thompson)