New lockscreen

[Martin Sandsmark]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 12:31:16PM +0100, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> as long as we keep in mind that ends do not justify means. this was NOT the 
> way to affect this result.
> there are better ways of accomplishing the intended result, and we should 
> practice them. that's all i'm trying to get across here.

So, what would have been the correct approach? Just so we can get that in a
single place without arguments.


> this feature had been sitting around for over a year. it would easily have sat 
> for another year or more. the workspaces would continue to remain in limbo. 
> how long should we wait until something is ready to be shipped? why do we end 
> up waiting so long in the firs tplace? why do we suggest "revert" rather than 
> do the work to figure out how to fix things?

Where has it been sitting around for a year? I haven't seen it until I
started using the pre-releases of workspace in November.


> > Because I wasn't sure which one was the relevant one. […] (but noone
> > seemed to read them).
> you guessed correctly by sending it to plasma-devel. if it wasn't the right 
> place, someone would have pointed you elsewhere. cross posting is not 
> something to because one is unsure; this ought to be common sense, but it 
> seems many have forgotten. 

Because plasma-bugs at k.o was ignored, I wasn't sure if I would get a timely
answer from plasma-devel either. And because, as you noted, it was brought up
very late, I wanted to be sure that it got attention before release.


> >  * The first one was that there wasn't really any development on it (as I
> >    said, maybe 5-6 real commits in december, leading up to its first
> >    release?).
> actually, it isn't the first release of this locker. it's been released a 
> couple times already, just not as part of kde-workspace.
> there are also components in kde-workspace that get zero commits per release 
> (usually because they are "done"). this one got 5 last month. that's not dead.

>From what I understand, the code in workspace is not the same as in Plasma
Active (or wherever it came from).

So this was for all intents and purposes a release of a new codebase (even if
it's based on code from elsewhere), and with the usual regressions and bugs
that come with that.


> in any case, you've used one metric and drew a conclusion about project 
> activity. asking instead of concluding would have been nicer and gotten a 
> quick, accurate answer.
> it turns out that "bugs list is not being managed" did not mean that the 
> screenlocker had no one who working on it or caring about it.

No, you're ignoring what I wrote. That the bugs reported were being ignored
was just one part, the smaller issue was the fact that noone in particular
seemed to be actively working on it in git, and the biggest "metric" was that
I asked on IRC and got an answer from one of the people who ported it to
kde-workspace that there was no official maintainer (yet).


> not really, given the context of the email as you wrote it:
> "no maintainer, and the new thing is useless": 8 lines
> "link to bug list": 2 lines
> "i could help if someone (who isn't there right now?) helps me": 2 lines 
> "revert": 4 lines

Please stop putting words in my mouth. My original mail consisted of:
 * One sentence about the fact that it had regressions and noone actively
   working on it (identification of problem).
 * One question about who was supposed to maintain it.
 * An overview of the current state of it compared to the old one (status quo
   for our users).
 * A link to the bugs in case the maintainer wasn't aware of them.
 * My main solution, fixing it.
 * And lastly the last-ditch way out of reverting it, with justification.

If your issue is that I used a lot of time on the revert solution, it was
because I felt it needed more justification.


> if the point was "this needs fixing, i'm ready to help" why not just write
> that? why not ask questions that focus on solution?

Because if it was just a code-drop and noone intended to continue working on
it, I'd rather have the old screen locker, which has a tested and working
codebase.

I didn't intend to maintain the new one, even if I was going to help fix it
up for 4.10, so my question _was_ focused on the solution.


> it needs people working on it. one of those people may be a maintainer, but 
> they also might not be. right now, hunting for the maintainer is secondary to 
> fixing it. once fixed up ("mission accomplished"), then we can step back and 
> figure out who is maintaining it. 

I would agree if we didn't already have a working solution that we could
revert to.


> a "clever" link to a michael jackson song. would you be fine if i did the same 
> to you? or would you consider it juvenile, cheeky and disprespectful?

Sorry, I was trying to lighten up the discussion a bit, but I can see how it
came across as cheeky.

My point was that you're making assumptions about what I intended, projecting
that onto what I wrote, and putting words in my mouth.


> the idea that "nobody noticed until now" means something is rather broken in 
> the development process. it should never have to come to the 11th hour; it 
> ought to be dealt with rather earlier.

But people *did* notice, they just didn't manage to communicate the issues to
the right people for whatever reason.

-- 
Martin Sandsmark