[Panel-devel] KDE4 front-end papers

Tue May 2 13:28:52 CEST 2006

Hi Aaron, thanks for the answer.

On 5/1/06, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
>
> 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.

Let me quote you ;)
"that's also why it's taken so fucking long: i started from the end user
experience result and designed that first."

For me, it's obvious that you must have it somewhere. What you called "user
experience result".
And those docs:
 - http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/01/12/kde4.html
 - http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/09/19/1616206.shtml?tid=130
 - http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39184118,00.htm
 - http://www.canllaith.org/svn-features/kde4.html
 -
http://blogs.qtdeveloper.net/archives/2005/08/03/some-basic-thoughts-about-kde-4/

Are just a set of whishes, people either describes what should happen with
KDE4, or what technologies should be there.

>
> 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.

you're right. I rethinked this after sending my email, and I'm  reverting
that point from my concerns.

> 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.

Is there any chance to bring them into any UI design spec document? I mean,
I'd like to spend some time on this if I could.
As you may remember I brought this list -
http://www.e-gandalf.net/wiki/index.php/KDE4_Features - to life and from my
point of view, such UI specs, feature set plan is a next step. I'd like to
be able to confront the set of ideas with your plan and get info which of
those you are considering implementing and which you don't.

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.

I'd like to deploy KDE4 in a two companies depending on what UI solutions
it'll bring (we also consider using Xfce or KDE 3.5) - I need to put into
next year's budget - it's not important, it's just an example. I believe
that it's better to be open for everything beside of some cases, than being
closed for everything beside of some cases.

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.

Ok.

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.

Oh, wait. Can you elaborate a bit more on this? I saw Kollaboration project,
where tons of people submitted awesome ideas, features, mockups, animations,
and got more and more frustrated on total lack of communication channel so
they simply were on themselves - they had no way to know if their ideas are
interesting for KDE leaders or not. I saw similar things on kde-look.org and
kde-forum.org in KDE4 brainstorm channels.

So yes, you're obviously right, users gave you tremendeous feedback on KDE4.
It's just that it was very one way communication.
I mailed you asking about the reasons, and you said that signal/buzz ratio
is too high for you to try to scan all those discussions looking for actual
ideas. So, I spent some time and prepared an aggregated list of features
basing on all those three sources. I asked for feedback on which of those
features seems interesting for you. You didn't find time for this.

What I still miss is the back signal. Not some interview where you'll say
"KDE4 will support NMM and GStreamer and will support tons of hardware
thanks to Solid" but either

a) signal to idea authors - so they can now that their idea was interesting
for you
b) signal to whole community about the feature set and what ideas you're
going to implement

so your statement here rings a bit hollow to me.

I'm sorry for my bad english :/

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.

I'd say that in 60% of cases people use KDE3 because it's the best what they
can get on their favorite OS but they can't wait KDE4 ;)

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.

Thank you for your opinion. It brings my concern about your evaluation of
discussion as the channel to gain knowledge vs. discussion as this stupid
thing that people does instead of staying silent ;)
Sorry, whineing - not 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.

Wait. I can try to address the first point on my own. But the latter
suprises me - didn't you say that you already prepared whole concept BEFORE
coding? If so, how could this be to early to gather it into a spec docs?

It still confuses me then - do you have or do you have not a front-end plan
that you're implementing? Do you follow the routine of writing libs and then
bulding some UI on top of this, or you first prepare the UI and then write
code to implement this UI?

If it's the latter case, how could it be to early to write specs?

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-.

Assuming that everyone who spend his time for the project is the only who
matters has much better slogan "We create software for our own" ;) Actually,
the more you'll go public, the lower will be the ratio of community/users.
And refusing your users and rejecting them to have their voice on what KDE4
will be makes no sense to me.

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.

I strongly disagree here. You have, you'll have and, surprise, you want to
have users. Many of them. And 99% of them will never become involved into
the project. But they can give you amazing ideas, solutions, share concerns,
and with a very, very, very little amount of work, but from very, very, very
many people, they could improve the final product in a great way.

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

Wait, everyone who wrote sth to the maillist is a part of the project?
Everyone who wrote a post on the forum is a part of the project?
What about those who only commented an art on dot.kde.org?

> 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.

It's sad for me that you still consider my person as someone who want to
harm the project for some reason (either, by whineing, jedi mind tricking or
trying to force you to do what you don't want to do)

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)

Assuming that the reason I'm writing to you is because I have a problem, and
suggesting me to figure out my problem is the best way not to have any
feedback beside of the precizely requested one. Which is probably not what
you'd like to have.

thanks for pointing to single applications; amazingly vague wiki pages.

Vague? Jaw on the floor.

while
> interesting reading, you're comparing apples to oranges.

Ok, so - could you point me out the docs on which I could base preparing
oranges for KDE4 project? The pieces of public docs which gathered together
would be able to answer questions - what KDE4 will be for the user? How it
will looks like? How will the UI work?

If you don't think it's important, and think that the fact that all Appeal,
Plasma, and KDE wikis have 2 or 3 edits per month, and this maillist has 2
or 3 edits per month, is what should happen, I promise not to disturb your
silence anymore.

Greetings
Zbigniew Braniecki
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