[Panel-devel] KDE4 front-end papers

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Tuesday 02 May 2006 05:28, Zbigniew Braniecki wrote:
> Hi Aaron, thanks for the answer.
>
> On 5/1/06, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> > 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.

most of the interaction with users happened, at least for me, in face-to-face 
meetings, through the openusability team and via email assisted conversations 
over the last year or two... you're right that i didn't find the 
kollaberation forums particularly useful; fortunately there have been other 
means.

> > 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?

i don't design all of kde. just bits of it. you're asking for broad kde4 
documents, i can't produce those (nobody can) because i (like anybody else) 
do not design all of kde.

for "my" bits of kde, my issue is not having the time to draw together these 
early stage design concepts into a coherent document. even if someone else 
did the writing, it would still take a lot of time to pry it from my head 
that i'd rather use putting it into code.

> > 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" ;)

don't confuse "those who create" with "those whom we create for". i don't need 
kde at all, personally. i'm just fine with blackbox and a bunch of xterms. so 
guess who i write kde code for, primarily?

> Actually, the more you'll go public, the lower will be the ratio of
> community/users.

this has always been the case, yes.

> And refusing your users and rejecting them to have their 
> voice on what KDE4 will be makes no sense to me.

a) we're not rejecting users; as zack pointed out, when the tech previews 
start rolling that's where users have a vital say
b) i'm pretty certain that having throngs of users comment on kde4 at this 
point won't make anything go faster or better at this exact point in devel. 
the kollaberation forums were a grand experiment to that end

> > 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.

we have bugs.kde.org, conferences, personal meetings and user mailing lists 
and forums for sharing concerns. 

but to be honest, after years and years of working on software (since the 
early 90s) i've discovered through that experience that the overwhelming 
majority of users have no amazing ideas or solutions when it comes to 
creating software. contrary to popular opinion, great software is not 
something that happens due to people who don't have practical insights into 
the means and methods of creating software. 

nobody expects average people on the street to have insights on how to build a 
bridge or where to put it or what roads should be added next because we 
understand there's a certain level of knowledge required to do that. and in 
spite of my using bridges and roads every day for 3 decades now, i still 
don't have that knowledge.

> 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?

of course not. "being involved" is a verb implying continued interaction.

> Vague? Jaw on the floor.

from the perspective of software design, yes.

-- 
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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