Necessitas is NOT a community project

[BogDan]

Hi,

>  WARNING! This post is a rant, expresses only my own opinion and feelings 
> might be harmed during the course of this reading. 

> *<RANT>* 

> This post is a reaction to a thread on the dev list where Bogdan was 
> lamenting on the lack of commitment to the project. 
> I found it both laughable and pathetic in the sense that NOTHING is done to 
> make it a project you can be committed to, and I'll expose, IMHO, why. 

Until now I find your remarks very insulting ... 

> 1) *This is a one man (and a half, sorry Ray), "benevolent despot" kind of 
> project.* 

I'm not going to accept you to insult Ray ! Ray's contribution is not 
half ! 
Because Ray dedicate his free time to this project, now 4000+ users 
can use this 
project on windows and mac ! What have you done for this project ? 

> Bogdan IS the project. Every single decision is made by him without 
> discussions nor appeal. He has his vision for the project (that I didn't 
> find, but it could be hidden in one of the zillions places the project is 
> scattered into. More on this later) and I don't feel like he is open to 
> discuss/challenge this vision. 

I'm confused ! First you say that "He has his vision for the project 
that I didn't 
find .. "  then you say  "I don't feel like he is open to discuss/ 
challenge this vision." ! 
If you don't know my vision, how can you say that I'm not open to 
discuss it, 
did we ever discuss it ? 

Anyway, my expectations for this project are here: 
http://community.kde.org/index.php?title=Necessitas

We (you and me) had a few discussions before, but I don't remember I 
have been that close... 
We talk about menus and about look&feel plugin, I remember that we 
had different approaches on this topic, you wanted add android 
look&feel only to 
your QML, I didn't agreed, because I still want to support class 
widgets. 
It means that I'm not open to discuss? Please give me more hints on 
this matter ! 
BTW Android 9patch is more complex than the standard, so, you can't 
use 
QML BorderImage (qDrawBorderPixmap) to draw the images ! 

> This is human. AFAIK Bogdan created the project and feels he has all rights 
> on it (which he has), but that prevents real involvement from others. 
> Fact is, if Bogdan is unavailable, the project just plain stops. 

Every community project, is based on meritocracy: 
You code/contribute, then you have the right to make decisions ! 

> 2) *NOTHING is done to make it a community project.* 

> I already ranted about this, but the scattering of the project resources is 
> just plain ridiculous, laughable and a HOWTO not to make a coherent project. 
> Wiki on sourceforge, 1 mailing list on kde and 1 on google groups, 1 bug 
> tracker on sourceforge and 1 on google code, unclear/hidden master 
> repository, unclear contribution process, which leads me to: 

If you search this mailing list you'll find all the informations you 
need: 
-  regarding HOWTO and other information: The sf.net pages was written 
by Damine Treg, 
sadly he didn't had time to continue, so I asked may times for peoples 
help ! 
Nobody wanted to do it! I can't do everything by myself ! 
- 1 on google groups - this is a high traffic general mailing list 
used by everybody. 
- 1 mailing list on kde  - this one is a low traffic mailing  list 
used only by developers, I don't have time to read all posts on 
google. 
- 1 bug tracker on sourceforge and 1 on google code -  it was discuss 
many times before, ONLY bug tracker on sourceforge should be used. 
- unclear/hidden master repository: check http://community.kde.org/Necessitas/Repositories
- unclear contribution process, as I already said to you before is not 
may fault ! 

> 3) *What the f... does necessitas has to do with KDE?* 

> I only assume Bogdan and Ray are KDE devs and that it is easy for them to 
> host necessitas's master git and "contribution process" on KDE, but this is 
> VERY wrong from a necessitas perspective. KDE might have its own 
> contribution process but it is irrelevant to us and ridiculous for a 
> necessitas contributor to have to register a kde account to be able to use 
> reviewboard, itself, IMHO, a very obscure and complicated system for code 
> contribution vs. what is existing in github or gitorious. 
> Obviously, all merge requests in the gitorious clone are ignored. 
> Pretty please, make gitorious the main repository, use gitorious merge 
> request system and do whatever KDE stuff you fancy do in your own KDE 
> corner. 

It has everything to do with KDE! Necessitas *IS* a KDE project ! 
Again, searching this list will give you enough informations. 
I'll try to summarize: When I released first alpha I had to put 
Ministro libs somewhere, 
I used some free servers to put the libs, but it was not a good 
solution. I dedicated my 
free time to this project and I didn't wanted to give also my money, 
so I had to find 
a reliable solution,  back then Nokia just joined Microsoft, to fight 
against android, 
so, I had to join somebody, KDE was the natural choice, we share the 
same goal: 
To keep QT free and powerful. 

Regarding contributions: We want to upstream everything, the problems 
are: 
 - Nokia doesn't accept contributions without accepting and sign their 
contributors agreement, 
 - I can't move the project to qt-project.org (they don't want it yet 
because is not finished) 
 so you can't accept their agreement, when you publish your patch. 
 - The ONLY solution was to "force" contributors to release their code 
under BSD or public domain. 

> 4) *Accept contribution, reject them, discuss them or ask for update, DON'T 
> rewrite them*. 

> Crying for contribution, then taking some parts of a patch to rewrite it 
> you way, mostly incompatible with the original patch, is NOT the way to go 
> to motivate contributors. 

  Again I find some of your remarks very insulting, I'm not "crying" 
for contribution ! 
  I'm happy to have more contributor, but i'm not crying ! 

  Some time is easier/faster to rewrite them, then to reject a patch 
or to 
ask for updates ! e.g. the menus patch that you sent [1], it didn't 
work at all, 
but I've seen a lot potential, so I decide to make it work [2] ! 
I *CREDIT YOU FOR YOUR WORK* and I push a working version, so, 
what was wrong in that ? 

  Probably you are frustrated because I had to revert your last 
patch, 
because it was a fiasco, it made the applications almost unusable, is 
that my fault ? 
Probably it is, because I trust your patch and I didn't run and check 
all the tests before push it ! 
The problem is to run and check all the tests it takes too much (1-3 
days). 

> 5) *The project is sloooooowwwwww*. 

> Due to 1), 2) and Bogdan's limited availability, necessitas is slow to 
> progress in its own right. I kind of made my own necessitas fork to move 
> on, and due to 4) it has diverged so much from the main trunk that I'm not 
> sure I'll bother rebasing. 

> 6) *Maybe related to 3), I don't know if it is necessitas or KDE, but one 
> should definitely learn about the "git rebase" command*. 

> All the merges coming from I don't know which branches makes the git 
> repository unreadable. The proper way to merge upstream is to rebase and 
> resolve conflicts. Merging upstream is pure lazyness. 

WOW you are so good! We didn't know about "git rebase" command !!! 
Of course you forgot to learn that you can't use "git rebase" command 
when more than one people is using that branch ! 
Check http://lwn.net/Articles/328438/ for more info on this topic. 

Merging with upstream is NOT lazyness, is responsibility ! 

> *Bottom line*: 

> *Necessitas is NOT a community project*. 

> Unless the issues outlined are addressed, It is pointless to whine about 
> necessitas' lack of contribution. 
> I suspect many of the more knowledgeable potential contributors will just 
> take the trunk and adapt it to their needs, without bothering trying to 
> contribute it back. Unless the project becomes more community friendly, I'm 
> open to contribute to a potential fork. 

> *</RANT>* 

I'm open to discuss what is wrong with my vision ! 
I'm open to know other people vision, so, please share your vision 
with us! 

Don't forget that this project is based on meritocracy! Even if you 
have a vision, remember that you must to code it, not only to discuss 
it ! 

To be clear: I'm open to discuss, but I'm not going to "cry" for 
contributors or to accept contributions with insults in the same 
box ! 

> Best Regards 
> - Chris - 

[1] https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/103934/diff/#index_header
[2] 
https://projects.kde.org/projects/playground/mobile/necessitas/androi... 

Cheers, 
BogDan. 
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