Way to success?

[Klaus Staerk]

Dear Sebastian,

sorry, but there are some formulations in your e-mail that I really don't like 
and where I wonder if you really want to contribute to an Open Source 
Project!

Here are some points about it - and please consider that this is NOT an 
offense against you personally - it maybe should open your eyes on how things 
work in an OSS project ...


1. The communication from your side towards the KDE webmasters wasn't that 
good - you were asked several times to subscribe to the kde-www-list (until 
you subscribed one day ...) - but this list is the central point where the 
KDE webmasters discuss - maybe it would have been enough to regularly post to 
the KDE webmasters without subscribing to kde-www - but you didn't. So don't 
start a discussion about bad communication, please.


2. You say 

"If this trend continiues, that everybody is just taking my stuff or making 
pages, layouts & co without talking to me about it" - 


Ahem, now, is this YOUR PERSONAL STUFF distributed under whatever licence or 
is it a contribution to an Open Source Project - released under the GPL - 
where it is allowed that somebody else takes your ideas and plays with it to 
come to an alternative solution?


3. Who allows you to bash other people's ideas? Well, obviously some people 
(Christoph and Neil?) took your layouts and played around with it - but does 
this give you the right to be mad about it? 


4. If you come to the point that you really want to contribute your stuff to 
the KDE project - then be sure that nobody is really interested that you 
always say: "hey, but the way the KDE pages look now is just my personal 
idea" 

This doesn't mean that nobody would appreciate your good work. Everybody's 
work (no matter if programmer, designer, webmaster, translator, whatever,...) 
here in the project is very much appreciated - also your's - but in the end 
it's a part of the project and there's no point in insisting that it may 
belong to you ...


So please, think about what you really want. And when you are able to 
contribute to the KDE project and see how your work gets part of the project 
and other people contribute again to your contribution (without you being mad 
about it) then everything's fine. Please see that this is how things work in 
an OSS project!

And when you're sure that you want to contribute here (in an cooperative way) 
then be sure to be very welcome.

Best regards,

Klaus



On Thursday 17 October 2002 22:02, Sebastian Faubel wrote:
> Dear people,
>
> i actually believed i was a member of the kde webdevelopment team, and
> being the designer of the layout i would have something to say regarding
> the implementation.
>
> Unfortunatly the past few days thougt me something totally different...
>
> I was very keen on having the chance to take KDE a few steps forward,
> and the website, which is the most common and important form of
> promotion, to a level beyound any competition - even microsoft's website
> these days. This was my dream.
>
> I really wasted a lot of time in the past 3 weeks to making graphics,
> ideas, writing guidlines for webmasters and thoughts of how to organize
> the final implementation...i also regrettably neglected my money
> bringing projects - for what? Nobody cared or even read my proposals.
>
> It seems that nobody wants to hear my voice, and nobody cares of what
> thoughts stand behind the current published state of my layout.
>
> There were recently some websites published, showing the "new design" -
> my new design. Showing me that people don't even think when they're
> posting..
>
> + http://promo.kde.org/newsforge/kde-3.1.html
>
> Using elements of the "new layout" - even before it's done.
> Showing the logo which still contains the "Alpha" brand.
>
> + http://usability.kde.org/newdesign/
>
> Using a totally crapped sourcecode, this new "one panel" layout is
> even less downwards compatile to resolutions than my first "two panel"
> alpha. Moreover this so called "layout" doesn't even implement font
> faces, the css is more than the half size longer than mine... forgetting
> about what wonderful heredity options even CSS 1 supports.
> Being the website of the KDE usability team, i ask myself about the
> intuitive navigation and style elements...
>
> Didn't we agree on using the "two pane" layout, like also the users on
> kde-look voted for? Are the voices of users and kde promoters and
> finally mine really that irrelevant?
>
> If this is the case, i will quit any work i've done for kde so far, and
> you are free to delete my cvs account and do with my stuff whatever you
> want.
>
> Anyway, do you think it is a proper way to "upgrade" the website of the
> biggest opensource project on earth by simply letting anybody posting
> his stuff into a big hive amd by NOT comunicating with each other?
> Do you really think this is the way to succeed the current state of
> things?
>
> Coming to the point:
> If this trend continiues, that everybody is just taking my stuff or
> making pages, layouts & co without talking to me about it -
> you have seen me the longest time.
>
> greetings,
>
> sebastian
>
> PS. I attached a "one panel" version of my layout, for people to see
> what benefits the other one has.... I definitly refuse to use it.

-- 
    |   klaus staerk   |   klaus.staerk at gmx.net   |   staerk at kde.org   |