Communication between developers and users

[Tom Chance]

On Sunday 02 May 2004 17:36, Stephan Binner wrote:
> On Sunday 02 May 2004 18:07, Tom Chance wrote:
> > Read this bug report, for example:
> > http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76915 Lots of opinions are raised,
> > and then the users are shut out of discussion.
>
> This is no bug report. And users were not shut out, I just pointed to the
> right location to discuss this. There is no sense that fans gather in some
> hidden corner to emphasize themselves how great an application is without
> ever encountering the people with other opinions and preferences.

Indeed it isn't a bug report. But you said in the penultimate comment: "This 
has to be discussed on the kde-multimedia mailing list (by the developers)". 
So where does this leave the userbase? I'm guessing you might retract the "by 
the developers" clause, but even so, how many users who might post a quick 
comment on Bugzilla will subscribe to a developers mailing list? And do 
developers want their list to be flooded with user discussions?

Obviously Bugzilla isn't an appropriate or even useful place to discuss this 
sort of thing. But neither is the developers' mailing list.


> > 2) A large architecutral change is discussed.
> > This is a long-term decision with major implications, and yet to an even
> > greater extent than app changes, users have very little input.
>
> I wouldn't expect much end-user input for architectural-only changes. Which
> user knows more than one or two and base his opinion on something other
> than whatever his favorite application happens to use.

The reason I brought the audio framework up as an example is that it is, in my 
opinion, not just a matter of which is the best technology. Why? Because 
Gstreamer has the widest acceptance already, and Gstreamer and MAS are to 
some extent under the fd.o umbrella. To users who value interoperability, and 
not having to configure lots of different packages, those are important 
considerations. So it makes sense to have some kind of input from them.

I don't think the status quo, with developer mailing lists, Bugzilla and 
ad-hoc discussion on places like the dot and kde-look, is as good as it could 
be. So I restate my questions: how and where can these discussions take 
place? And how can the Quality Team project facilitate them?

Regards,
Tom