[Panel-devel] KDE4 front-end papers

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Monday 01 May 2006 01:06, Zbigniew Braniecki wrote:
> Aaron stated that KDE team has prepared the full UI and feature set related
> documents before they started actually implementing them. That's awesome!

er, no. what i said is that we have an HCI working group and a technical 
working group. that we have multiple individual projects within kde (which is 
a meta-project) each working on these things both individually and in 
coordination with the project itself. that it's a work in progress and that 
we don't have the manpower to burn carting it up into nice little packages 
this far in advance of the release for users to ponder over.

> The only problem from my point of view is that those docs are not known to
> community - including myself - and thus people actually don't know what
> KDE4 will be. 

welcome to open source. stay focused on using 3.5; tech previews will emerge 
for kde4 this fall.

> And this problem is WAY wider than just curiosity of small 
> group of people - it's about a reliability, predictibility, and cathedral
> vs bazaar problem. 

predictability of the sort you are looking for is overrated and, honestly, not 
very useful. go look at microsoft's track record on this, and go see how 
apple handles this. 

i'd also suggest that in the nearly 10 years of kde we've shown that we're 
pretty damned reliable. if we need to prove that to you again, you haven't 
been paying attention.

> Can anyone tell me where those docs are? 

hundreds of hard disks, hundreds of minds, some documents and code in svn, 
dozens of individual websites ... we treat development like movie studios 
treat CGI: we pull the immense job into tiny pieces, feed those tiny pieces 
out into the grid of computers and people we call the community, and they 
each work on their bit to create a final scene.

> No company/project can currently rely on KDE4 because they don't know what
> it'll be. 

we've never asked people to rely on kde4 currently. rely on kde3 until kde4 is 
ready.

> I assume that KDE team shared their vision with Mandriva, maybe 
> Linspire, maybe some other distros which are totally kdeish.

actually, we've been sharing our vision with the world since last year. in 
fact, the dust that plasma kicked up was really beyond what i -wanted- to 
communicate as far as level of detail and volume goes.

that said, mandriva, linspire, etc.. don't have any special line to us that 
anyone else who -gets involved- with developing kde4 can't also have access 
to. if they know the vision better than you, it's because they are currently 
helping work on kde4.

that's where we are at right now. it isn't ready for people such as yourself.

> But noone else can prepare his own plans in tie with KDE4.

what plans are you trying to make? if you are specific as to your needs, 
perhaps we can give some guidance. asking for the "whole concept" is not 
specific enough to give anything like a meaningful answer.

> More, it's users not only has TOTALLY NO influence on what KDE4 will be -
> since they were not invited to the discussion about KDE4 UI and feature
> set, but also they even cannot predict what will KDE4 be. So, Joe Average,

wow. wow, wow and wow again.

first off, let's be honest: users who do not get involved have never had any 
influence in kde in the past. if that bothers you, find comfort in the fact 
that it bothers me too. but i can't change the past.

with kde4 we -have- gotten -amazing- amount of feedback from users; we've done 
a -lot- of research with users (and much more is left to be done); we, the 
project, have for the first time actually reached out to the users and it's 
already paying off IMHO.

so your statement here rings a bit hollow to me.

> who wants to use KDE, cannot say if he will want to use KDE4, because he
> doesn't know. 

and that's ok, because you don't need to make this decision today. do you like 
kde3? yes? use it! no? use something else! when kde4 is ready, then you can 
ask yourself the same questions about kde4.

> And, against all good habits of Open projects, KDE team seems 
> to focus on "big wow" instead of "release early, release often" method.

again, vast mischaracterization of the project. we do release early and often. 
in fact, everything you could ask for right now is in svn. but it's not in 
any shape for a release, not even a tech preview. some things take time to 
develop. your whinging has just increased that time by sucking time out of my 
day and everyone else's who read this exchange.

> The only reason for not publishing those documents (assuming that those
> docs are not published, and it's not only me who missed them) I can find is
> that it could start a laud discussion.

or maybe it's because we don't have a bunch of people sitting around with 
nothing better to do than gather up all the early design concepts from around 
the project to publish these documents? perhaps it's because the current 
design is -too early- to make such documents from.

in fact, those are exactly the reasons.

> But from my experience, the only 
> reason for which people refuse to know other opinions is when they're
> afraid that they can be wrong.

and my dad's stronger than your dad. really, this line of argument has no 
affect here. please don't bother.

> Also, from my discussion with KDE team members on the IRC channel, I got
> the picture of the project which doesn't believe that the community can
> help. It's a blind circle. If you don't let them help, they cannot do this.
> And if they cannot do this, you get no help.

who do you think develops kde? -the community-. read that as many times as it 
takes to understand it. here, let me say it again: -the community-.

we've expanded our previously developer-only community out into the art, 
writing and usability realms vastly over the last 2 years. but you know what? 
if you wish to get involved, -you- have to get involved. we can't force you 
to get involved, we can't make you get involved and we sure as hell don't 
have time to spoon feed people who can't be bothered to put in the effort 
themselves.

we can only open the invitation and make it as easy to get involved as we can. 
and we've had a number of users step up in the last year, which says to me 
that we're doing a good job of that.

> Aaron said during that comment thread, that if I want to help I can join
> one of the various projects - Oxygen, KDE docs, KDE QA... It's a problem.
> You should not require people to be a part of the project, any project, to
> let them help you.

by helping a project, you become part of the project. there is no room in open 
source for armchair dictators. if you have input, get involved. there is no 
shortcut.

> If Zeldman or Mayer would like to suggest you 
> improvements to your website, would you ask them to join KDE Web Dev
> project first?

if they started providing input on the kde-www list, guess what? they -would- 
be part of the kde web dev project. surprise!

> If Jakob Nielsen would like to spend a few minutes and point 
> you out the major flaws in your KDE4 UI plan, would you require him to join
> KDE4 project?

ditto for above.

> The best moment, to let the plan get under the heavy discussion is just
> passing by. Once you already created the libraries, you will have to spend
> ten times more effort to redesign it if someone will point you a flaw than
> if you'd listen first, before acting.

wow. first the "you don't want to be bad people, right?" card and now the 
fear-of-failure card. heh. your jedi mind tricks have no effect here.

now, we have a huge community of people actually involved and peer reviewing 
concepts, code, art and more. we have hundreds and hundreds of people taking 
time out of their lives to do exactly what you suggest. if you aren't 
managing it, perhaps you should reflect on why you can't and others can 
rather than trying to figure out how the world around you is letting you down 
(hint: it isn't)

> Examples of UI/Feature set docs:
> 1) http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox2
> 2) http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox:Home_Page
> 3) http://wiki.flock.com/index.php?title=Cardinal:Specification

thanks for pointing to single applications; amazingly vague wiki pages. while 
interesting reading, you're comparing apples to oranges.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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