[kde-doc-english]Re: Folder/Directory

[Thomas Diehl]

Am Donnerstag, 9. Mai 2002 13:21 schrieb John Knight:

> This is getting ridiculous ...

Hmm, a few messages back you wondered why people did not reply to some of 
your postings. Has it ever occurred to you that beginnings like this don't 
come across as really constructive?

> Do we not make KDE for others?

Sure. As everybody knows who read the "historic posting" by Matthias Ettrich 
back in 1996, there is only one reason why we are doing all this: to make 
using a Linux computer easier on his girl friend. (BTW: Anybody knows what 
became of her? ;-)

Seriously: We are making KDE for ourselves _and_ the users, and _also_ for 
users yet to come, including the people who are still on Windows, Mac and 
so on. Sometimes, we can make compromises that should make everybody happy. 
And sometimes we just have to make a decision although the result cannot 
please everybody. That's about it.

> I was always under the impression that KDE
> was for users, not just something between developers. So why don't we
> hold an online vote over a month or so, where users can express their
> opinion on what they want to have, with a comments section?

Wake up. It may be hard to digest at first, but KDE is not a democracy. You 
can't vote on what free developers "have to do" if they don't want to. We 
are trying to get as much constructive feedback as possible but the 
decision is ours, esp. it's the decision of the people who do the actual 
work involved. Most people around here have been Slashdot readers and 
contributors for years. But the day the Slashdotters decide on KDE what to 
do next will be the day you see masses of KDEers leave the project.

If you are really interested in the subject you should read the thread on 
"App duplication" at kde-core-devel. Not only because it explicitely (and 
thoroughly) discusses the way how decisions are found in KDE. It is also a 
very good illustration in itself on such a decision. But you better bring 
some time. Meanwhile, it is almost a 100 messages long:
http://lists.kde.org/?t=102050810200002&r=1&w=2.

And this again illustrates another fact: we cannot make _every_ decision in 
such an elaborate way. We would do nothing but discussing, and voting, and 
re-discussing forever, and finally introduce a big bureaucracy. Which is 
why I really would like to end it here now. This is not going to get us 
anywhere if there are no new arguments.

> In the end, if KDE becomes more centralised around users' wishes, then
> disputes like this won't be of any concern and we simply find out what
> the general public wants.

I fail to see a dispute. There is a pretty clear consensus so far on Erik 
Bischoff's "Option A". I only miss a public announcement and some 
discussion on the developer lists. This should, IMO, be initiated by Malcolm 
or another native speaker from the proof reading / documentation team.

Regards,

Thomas


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