Following the recent complaints regarding the lack of proper market research in the F/OSS world, KDE users suggested paying money through Bugzilla to see their features/bugfixes done, a proposal that was denied by the core KDE developers. The lengthy discussion comes down to SuSE’s Waldo Bastian reply which illustrates once more the developer-centric nature of F/OSS (in contrast to the more user-centric nature of commercial products): “KDE will be able to sustain itself just fine without users, while it will not last a single day without developers. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away developers and scaring away users, the choice is rather easy actually.” (2nd reply)
Special Note: My article the other day that seemed to have created a huge controversy, was not about implementing every damn thing people wanted, but only implement things that are really needed by the majority and only when these things are not coming in contrast with the general direction of the project. For example, if someone was asking Gnome to implement a “KDE-alike control panel”, that should be rejected because that design is not Gnome’s way. But when someone says “make Shift+Delete to delete a file on Nautilus automatically”, that’s a legitimate feature request to be taken under consideration, and many users would expect it to be there already (that’s not my feature request btw).
It’s about market research, it’s about putting together things that really need to get done (that’s feedback filtered by a special team, not by the developers who are already under a lot of pressure). That’s what market research is about. It’s not about listen to every single idiot out there and his little or big feature request. So, don’t take my article out of context and don’t make it about myself or specific feature requests, because it is not so. It is about evolving a project to become better by taking in some well-structured user feedback in it. That’s all.
Yes… I have nothing but gratitude for free software developers. Of course, they’re human and make mistakes, but if you think you can do better just start your own project and we’ll see then how well you manage it.
Throwing shit at others and bad mouthing is easy, making software and making everyone happy with your hard decisions is way harder.
To all those Free software developers who might be reading this: thank you!!!!
Sorry if I sound rude, but the whole “reputation” system sounds to me like absolutely failed in the medium to long term.
The only way OSS will reach enterprise levels is by getting the enterprises involved. No bounties/donations/praising, but real companies with the resources to do real usability studies on free apps and pay the salary of developers dedicated to improving free software based on the results.
KDE, Gnome and other projects are heading in this direction, and that’s for the best. Cause there will always be hobbyists to make free software that doesn’t adhere to enterprise standards, but they will be free to incorporate what they like about those projects in them.
Paying hobbyists for puntual, enthusiast-promoted changes won’t get free software near Apple’s quality at all.
Oh, guess what. I just read Waldo Bastian seems to think the same way:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=111075429612492&w=2
<p>KDE with users but no developers = a KDE where no progress happens.</p>
<p>Obviously.</p>
<p>KDE with developers but no users = a KDE where progress happens. </p>
<p>But there wouldn’t be any point to progress without users. You HAVE to have users.<p>
<p>Therefore, he would choose a KDE that will continue to evolve even withou many users over one with many users, but no progress.</p>
<p>Like I siad – without users there won’t be progress and obviously without developers either. Users do contribute myself – I myself have. Go ahead and look at KDE 3.3+ and notice the icons when you right click on the kicker. I think his way of thinking if flawed – you can’t have one, you’ll have to have both.
> Sorry if I sound rude, but the whole “reputation” system
> sounds to me like absolutely failed in the medium to long
> term.
Actually, the long term is precisely where the reputation system excels. Have you read something about the theory of games? The prisoner’s dilemma, stuff like that? Cheaters tend to succumb in the reiterated prisoner’s dilemma.
[Hugely off topic: I suggest reading “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins, an enilghtening book about evolution and the theory of games]
Unfortunately someone that doesn’t read OSNews and know her for what she is may believe her to be reputable.
It’s very unfortunate.
I don’t know what she’s complaining about with GNOME really, I’d rather they fix the bugs and add the features they feel are important before they add a checkbox for some thing-a-ma-jig.
True, but prisoner’s dilemma shows that the ‘always cheats’ prisoner is the winner in the short term (which is often the case for a lot of open source developers).
“I felt that it was needed because people really did not get what I was trying to say.”
You felt the need to backpeddle because more than 50% of your readers are complaining about you (again).
Note, these comments are on topic so you need not moderate them.
Actually, the long term is precisely where the reputation system excels. Have you read something about the theory of games? The prisoner’s dilemma, stuff like that? Cheaters tend to succumb in the reiterated prisoner’s dilemma.
Sorry, but my long term and your long term seem to be very different.
What do you think KDE developers would prefer? Having a job at Novell/Suse with a constant salary per month, or depending on reputations systems to get some income variable according to the free time they want to spend in satisfying strangers’ requests?
Also, you see this as a game with prizes, but the hobbyists in the first place don’t expect to get rich with their hobbies. Though the game theory may sound nice in an academic way, we aren’t talking about guinea pigs here.
I’ve known people who could make much money painting figures for other warhammer 40k fans, and wouldn’t cause they like it as a hobby for themselves, not some sort of job with no real schedule and no guarantee for the future. This is not different.
Would you tell Michaelangelo what to paint?
Since he worked on commission then yes. You’d tell him what you want and he’d paint/sculpt something appropriate otherwise he didn’t get paid.
Would you tell Jimi Hendrix what notes to play?
Nope, but you’d be pretty disappointed if you turned up at a Hendrix concert to find him sitting on a stool, wearing corduroy pants and strumming a banjo. He knew what his fans wanted and being the artist he was he gave it to them.
Would you tell your doctor how to operate?
Probably not, but if I’m having an eye operation and they start feeling my bollocks then I’m going to begin asking questions
KDE dont need of this shitty methods to develop a great
desktop….
Eugenia, I have a lot of respect for you for your “pot-stirring”.
Some people, especially the devs themselves, will probably say that you’re insulting developers and that you’re “whining about what you get for free” or “demeaning the work on volunteers who so unselfishly give you a gift”. Don’t listen to them for a second.
The thing is, these projects that have felt so insulted by your articles have been actively lobbying to have their software put into places like school systems and governments, where the users will be told by their bosses or teachers what software they will use will and have no choice to do otherwise. So when the FOSS projects lobby to have their software installed on these machines, they are effectively trying to force other people to use their software.
As far as I’m concerned, when a software project tries to insert its product into areas where people will be forced to use their software, they stop being hobbyists or volunteers, and any demand made of them is entirely justified, as is any criticism of that software project when the legitimate demands and grievances of those people are not being taken into account.
On the desktop, there are no volunteers.
The whole situation is simple, actually. The base of all is – the developers don’t owe you ANYTHING
They are either paid by a company – they owe it to the company. If you are a customer of that company – the company owes it to you. Same as with Microsoft or Apple or Sun or HP. You are unsatisfied with the product you get – complain to the company.
Or the developers are not paid for they work, they do it in their own time. Then they owe it to their reputation, to their close ones, to their own time and to their fellow co-developers. If you download something from the web – be grateful you could do it and you can use it. I am.
Unless you give back something to the community, don’t make any demands. Money, as has been discussed already, might not be the best way to give back. If you do something for fun, for the rewarding feeling inside that you made something that makes sense, you don’t want to be tied down, you don’t want to be forced to do something you don’t like.
IMHO, there’s nothing to be discussed. Developers “own” the project. Unless their goal is to please users (which mostly comes only after “scratching own itch” and “fun”), they have no obligation to fulfill all users’ wishes.
p.s. reading about comments being deleted by Eugenia, let this be a test, how open for discussion is this site.
I encourage everyone to read this post:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=111075429612492&w=2
by Waldo Bastian. Especially the paragraphs near the end.
I fully agree that the bounty idea is half-baked and you are probably very right about involvement of larger entities. Lets not forget what we are up against, though:
“I got the answer I expected from the Novell/Sun/Red-Hat people: “regarding market research, we care about it only when happens from our marketing department and to our customers”. They don’t care about the “generic” Gnome user. That’s ok. Understandable. These guys have a business to run.”
Sigh. Of course, there are no apologies given to volounteers despite the fact that they have lives to live.
So how do you get quality devs to be responsive to your needs? (Dekkard knows) One sure fire way is to hire them. Not little conditional bounties, but full-out, full-time responsibilities with an office and suitable compensation and rewards. You build engineering teams and testing teams and deployment teams. You conduct research. You market. You make strategic decisions and when the winds shift you walk into your crack-pot development group’s bullpen and you say you need them to work on the following priorities. And they do. That kind of commitment takes a lot of money, but that seems to be lost on some people. They want to act as they themselves were Novell or Redhat or IBM but they don’t have a campus to walk across or a bullpen to walk into or developers on staff that they can direct. So they harass volounteers on public forums and throw grenades in every direction. Fortunately, only a very small minority of users act like that. Unfortunately, they tend to be one person wrecking crews.
And of course, there are corporations donating back to the “generic” efforts. For example, GNOME now includes Evolution (for better or worse). The various desktop projects are being geared towards (and benefiting from) full standards support published by freedesktop and xorg which both have backing, etc.
Pretty much everything that Eugenia claims to be non-existent in fact DOES exist. She just wants the personal touch but isn’t willing to become the customer of a corporation to get it.
There’s a link at the bottom of the page if you want to read moderated down comments. I expect the one you just posted will join them.
> The base of all is – the developers don’t owe you ANYTHING
This is exactly what we want to change 🙂
We want to give developers the freedom to owe something to users. The freedom to choose to be paid for a feature.
The thing is, these projects that have felt so insulted by your articles have been actively lobbying to have their software put into places like school systems and governments, where the users will be told by their bosses or teachers what software they will use will and have no choice to do otherwise. So when the FOSS projects lobby to have their software installed on these machines, they are effectively trying to force other people to use their software.
You would benefit from reading the post I linked to. But since most people are too lazy to click on a link, I will quote the relevant paragraph for you:
The other problem is that there are people who are really fed up with Microsoft’s monopoly and would nothing better than to replace it with Linux and free software today. They like that to happen so much that they tell
everyone that Linux and open source software is great and can solve all their problems. And in their enthusiasm they may get a little bit overboard and exagerate a little bit. Now the problem starts when someone who has been told
that Linux can solve all his problems, then discovers that he happens to have a problem that it can’t solve. He will get all angry because “they” told him it could solve all his problems, and then he goes to “[email protected]” to
complain about it and he finds “developers” that make software because that happens to be what they like to spend their sunday afternoon on. And these “developers” shrug and think he is a loony because they never told him that their software would solve all his problems. At first this seems very strange till you realize that the “they” who told you about Linux yesterday may not be the same as the “developers” that you talk with today. And most (but not all, take me for example) of these “developers” are fairly reasonable and are quite sympathetic to your situation and may be able to help you, but in the end they don’t owe you anything and it is still all about how they spend their free sunday afternoon that you are talking about. – WALDO BASTIAN
The proposed system isn’t a bounty system.
Bounties wouldn’t hurt the project or the developers in any way, since bounties can be totally disregarded when the requested feature is considered not appropriate by the devs.
Dear KDE Devs,
Here is $10 million dollars. To ease compatability problems for users of the world. Please make your desktop look and feel like Windows 95. Please add make your API mimic the Windows API, but make the each function take 20 useless arguments.
Also, please get rid of all calls to free() and make all malloc()’s four times larger than they need to be. The bigger and slower KDE becomes, the better. Don’t worry, this will work and make KDE better. Besides, you have your $10 mil, just do what I say.
Thanks,
Bill G.
We want to give developers the freedom to owe something to users. The freedom to choose to be paid for a feature.
They already have this freedom. Look at the kmail developer, he accepts money for features already.
http://www.kontact.org/shopping/sanders.php
The top of that list is actually the feature request that generated so much commotion.
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17513
This bug is over four years old, and has over 2000 votes. One developer is willing to fix it, accepts money towards this task, and even has an easy way to donate to him.
So how much have people donated to him? A measly 125 USD!!
This extremely high profile bug, 4 years old, has only gotten $125! This indicates that this whole idea is retarded from the get go. What would a feature request get that only had 200 votes or so? 12 bucks? Let me know when you find a developer willing to code more than 10 minutes for 12 bucks.
> This extremely high profile bug, 4 years old, has only gotten $125!
It’s not a bug but a feature request.
bounties can be totally disregarded when the requested feature is considered not appropriate by the devs.
A small clarification. What I meant was: bounties can be totally disregarded, PERIOD. Even for no reason at all. Otherwise they wouldn’t be bounties.
It’s not a bug but a feature request.
Sorry, mistype.
This has been discussed too. The solution is democracy. Users (and developers) should be able vote for or *against* a proposal. So, silly features (or malicious features) would not be accepted even if paid for.
We want to give developers the freedom to owe something to users. The freedom to choose to be paid for a feature.
What if we don’t want that “freedom”? What if we are suspicious of anyone who claims to be “giving” us a freedom? Especially when dollars are attatched to it. Besides, if your goal is to purchase developer time to be spent on tasks you prioritize nothing stops you. Form a corporation and hire an engineering department. It’ll cost you more than your typical pay pal donation but its the only way to make a system like that work to anyones satisfaction. Then there is also no confusion about who sets the agenda, who decides on timeframes and who must pay the consequences for failure. Nor is there are confusions as to who has “freedom” or who is the boss and who is the minion.
i guess when she asked if she could do a poll on osnews about the most wanted feature, and just wanted to know if the gnome devs would do it (or if she would be wasting her time), what she ACTUALLY meant was that the gnomes devs would have a choice whether or not to act or her poll, making all the rants around this subject completely irrelivent.
this stuff isnt new, this is the way things have alwas been, and the only way opensource can work. im sorry if eugenia is now disillusioned, but her (and others) reactions to this have been childish, inflammatory, and wildly counter productive.
This is exactly what we want to change 🙂
We want to give developers the freedom to owe something to users. The freedom to choose to be paid for a feature.
Did you read till the end of my post?
Money, as has been discussed already, might not be the best way to give back. If you do something for fun, for the rewarding feeling inside that you made something that makes sense, you don’t want to be tied down, you don’t want to be forced to do something you don’t like.
I also don’t think, somebody took “the freedom to choose to be paid for a feature” away from the developers. They have it. They can ask for donations, they can try to get a job at a company, they can set-up an “anti-bounty”. If they didn’t, they probably have reasons why.
At the end of the day, what’s required here is decent requirements engineering.
Having people pay for features is unacceptable from a development POV, as people will just pay for gold-plating.
At the other end, developers maybe ignoring what users feel are truly important.
As projects like GNOME/KDE’s eventual targets are either corporate IT or average-joe. This isn’t, say “vim” or “Eclipse”, and you can’t expect “users” to code the features they want, even if they’re capable of using bugzilla.
Introspection by the developer is the worst form of requirements gathering.
We need the full range of requirements gathering techniques – user interviews, role plays, observation, ethnographic techniques etc… I’m sure Microsoft/Apple spend millions of dollars on these kind of things.
I think we just need more funding.
Waldo bastian sent me his apologies about the goat stuff via the list, and now the discussion seems to get back into “brain” mode.
Anyone who suggests that Hendrix played “what his fans wanted” not only has a terrible grasp on cause and effect but also never heard Jimi play. It’s actually quite a good analogy. You either like Jimi’s music or your don’t. You either take it with good grace or you piss off and listen to someone else. The difference between Hendrix and GNOME (among many) is that you actually have the option of taking the work of the GNOME project and doing whatever the hell you want with it. So you’ve got your cake, and you can eat it too, and STILL you complain.
Talk about the subject, but any personal attacks are out of order and anyone guilty of it should be ashamed of themselves.
Lets look at it, Open source as got an attack, bit wow
Read on her how many times OSX and XP are attacked without getting personal against the owner of the website, to all you lInux guys, grow up
What is wrong with the idea of prizes? Say if I want some feature implemented *really* urgently. I can simply put a bugzilla submission, attach a price tag to it, and wait till a developer comes along and says, “hey, I can implement that feature, and make a bucks doing so”.
If I were a developer, and some guy said, “I really need xyz feature, I’m willing to pay $100 for your time”, that would *definately* motivate me to create that particular feature or fix that particular bug.
Anyone who suggests that Hendrix played “what his fans wanted” not only has a terrible grasp on cause and effect but also never heard Jimi play.
Play? No, he played what he wanted.
If you’d bothered to actually read what I said you’d have realised I wasn’t talking about the music.
…you turned up at a Hendrix concert…
You already know that people showing up at a Hendrix concert are going to like the music. What great performers like Hendrix manage to do is take that great music and turn it into a great concert. They can’t do that without understanding what their fans want (Sometimes before the fans do).
Anyone who seriously believes a great show can be produced without considering the desires of the audience is living in a fantasy world.
I think the idea that free and open software could somehow replace commercial software has now died.
It’s not that volunteer developers are obligated to help others, it’s just that only a very small percentage of the population could ever hope to understand a large software project and modify according to their needs and desires.
Most people are willing to pay for something that works the way they want. Where a free solution is ‘good enough’, some will use it. Where a commercial product is great, many will buy.
I second that. Developpers and Sysadmins will use Gnome, KDE and Linux. Businessmen, Sales people, Marketing, Engineering and the rest of us prefer to invest in something serious, to rely on, and user-oriented.
Selfish and arrogant FOSS: No thanks, I’ll stick with WinXP or Mac OS X, they both work great for me, and I don’t mind paying.
Regarding the Kmail feature: IMHO the reason why there were few donations is one of visibility. The system only works if people know that they can donate for somethings. At least, we need to activate the feature site-wide, and put big “donate” buttons besides each feature. Then users will begin to notice. And even after they notice, some time will be needed for the idea to make its way in their mind. This is IMHO the kind of thing that starts slow but then explodes, as people slowly realize they are really in charge, and begin to feel like they are part of the process.
It’s funny how OSNews posts none of the interesting KDE information and news that comes out week after week and that is beneficial to Users but much more advanced than anything GNOME has to offer.
When it comes time to troll and bash KDE though, Eugenia is ready.
and be thankfull to FOSS becouse at least you can use it threat and get a price cut.
And if you showed up to Jimi Hendrix concert and he did basically what you expected but didn’t play all the songs you wanted? GNOME and KDE aren’t Hendrix playing banjo. They are Hendrix putting on a great performance but playing 3rd Rock From The Sun where you would have rathered Purple Haze. Perhaps, though, everyone else was happy with his selection.
The real point is that there is a difference between opinion and knowledge. Whereas all listeners of music are apt to have an opinion, most have no clue as to WHAT Hendrix is doing, or HOW he is doing it or even WHY he is doing it. Moreso, before he did it, they likely didn’t even realize that might be what they wanted. In other words, they wouldn’t even have been able to ask. Notice too that Hendrix doesn’t have to ask the fans anything. He need only observe their behavior to know if something works or not.
Besides who is to say that Hendrix playing a banjo wouldn’t BLOW YOUR MIND? That’s a big disrespect there and you probably don’t realize it. Artists break boundaries all the time. You think you know, but you don’t know. Hendrix has a much better idea of how to make good music than the typical concert goer ever can hope to have. That was one of the points that came out in the GNOME discussion. For example, a lot of users have opinions on how to fix (some specific feature) are adamant about it. However, they don’t know what is best. It could be that a superior yet uncovered design exists that sidestep the problems entirely and makes their feature opinions moot because that element no longer exists in the new design. That’s why developers have to watch what people do rather than ask them what they want. Its good to know what they say they want but that doesn’t mean that’s what will serve them best. This is not software specific. Your doctor asks you how you feel, but he still tests your blood and listens to your heart. Ever since BS Skinner we know that it is more objective to study behaviour rather than to resort to introspection.
AC if you notice, EUGINE posts storys that are submitted, not storys by herself, try submitting something by yourself, otherwise, don;t bother visitng if you think its just a troll sitr
I guess with the assassination of GNOME last week, the palace captains should have known that KDE was next, and sure enough, the other shoe dropped at OS NEWS.
Not suprisingly, the developers quoted first from GNOME and then from KDE, were not crazy about common users demanding a voice in the process-developers, no matter what the project, probably have a common base on some issues.
Throw in some “Animal Planet” references, and lo, KDE is now the bad guy, with GNOME lying in a gutter somewhere, already mugged!
Selfish and arrogant FOSS: No thanks, I’ll stick with WinXP or Mac OS X, they both work great for me, and I don’t mind paying.
Good for you, you are making a pragmatic and wise choice that fulfills your needs. Tell me though, how exactly is FOSS selfish (I’ll give you the arrogant as a gimme)? What parts of FREE and FREEDOM do you not understand?
Why do i get the feeling developers think users can only suggest dumb things? maybe they have some really good ideas, but if they usually get the FUD reaction to ideas little improvement will be made.
For example the applications ‘df’ (free disk space), ‘free’ (free memory, which should have been called mf) and ‘vmstat’ (virtual memory stats) have totally different command line options for the same (-v and -V, one has human readable the other not. etc etc..). For a user the is really confusing, i still don’t know which arguments to use after 4 years.
i’m sure if i file a “bug report” for this i get flamed to death, if anyone claims otherwise give me access to the CVS and i’ll fix it (yes, i’m a developer
).
*You* try submitting pro-KDE articles and see if they aren’t rejected.
yep, but the thing needed to make them true in FOSS it’s not money, it’s leadership. Maybe it’s needed a Simple-Users Group that coordinates Feature-Requests, encourage developers, make usability studies, help with documentation, find bugs and promote OSS (telling the good and bad parts, rejecting any closed format…). This must come from Users, developers have given more than enough.
Why do i get the feeling developers think users can only suggest dumb things?
No, no. Of course users will have good ideas. Its just that users can’t be trusted to know the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. Particularly in the context of the entire project and all other users. Majority rules selection doesn’t work either (particularly when you can’t realistically get a quorum anyhow).
As for the df issue — sigh. You won’t file a bug report but you want CVS access? Is that reasonable? Besides, isn’t df an old-school admin tool? Are the types of users being talked about likely to even care about it? If you are in a position to fix it, why not do so and submit a patch to the maintainer? Even if it isn’t accepted, nothing stops YOU from using your patches, yes? That is freedom!
OK, have you submitted a KDE article and being rejected?
I recall I’ve submitted two aticles on OSX, one posted, one rejected
Regarding the Kmail feature: IMHO the reason why there were few donations is one of visibility. The system only works if people know that they can donate for somethings.
Fair enough. But in this case there is actually a post providing a link to the site where one could donate to implement this feature. This post has been there for almost a year. Yes it’s not as prominent as a donate button, but I’m sure a few thousand people read that post, and still only scraped together a measly $125.
And @kaiwa
If I were a developer, and some guy said, “I really need xyz feature, I’m willing to pay $100 for your time”, that would *definately* motivate me to create that particular feature or fix that particular bug.
That may motivate you, but not necessarily many developers. They are mostly in this for the fun of it, not the money. I highly doubt someone could make a living from fixing bugs and collecting these type of rewards. They would have to be incredibly skilled in all aspects of KDE, in which case they could probably get a much better job working for one of the Linux companies.
Just wanted to say ‘thanks’ for the discussion.
To clarify, the comment with the link is comment 25 by stephen binner attached to
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17513
All of this negative bullshit is really bumming me out.
I came over to the Linux camp over 5 years ago and have been enjoying the freedom of choice I have while using it. But all of this “finger pointing” is really bumming me out, because I was under the impression that my fellow Linux users were positive, bright, mature people. The last few days have proven to me otherwise. At least regarding the majority of the posts.
We’re all part of the same group regardless of title (dev or user) We’re all users of the same thing, Linux. At least that’s how I see it. I just wish all of this bickering would stop and that people would just stop and look around for a second. Realize that nothing is being acomplished as we post all of this “fud” “trolling” or whatever you want to call it.
Serenity Now Damn it!
Eugenia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
Eugenia, I’m down on my knees
I’m begging you please to come home
Come on home
Thank you, and I’ll see y’all in the “moderated down” section.
I’m not sure that I understand why there was much controversy over the article you wrote. To me, it was fairly clear what you were saying. Some things need to be implemented in OSS if we want Linux/OSS to grow and have a larger user base.
Don’t use Gnome or KDE, there are window managers who do the job faster and without problems.
Whereas all listeners of music are apt to have an opinion, most have no clue as to WHAT Hendrix is doing, or HOW he is doing it or even WHY he is doing it. Moreso, before he did it, they likely didn’t even realize that might be what they wanted.
My post:
They can’t do that without understanding what their fans want (Sometimes before the fans do).
It’d be nice if you didn’t create my side of the argument for me and instead tried to read what I write.
Besides who is to say that Hendrix playing a banjo wouldn’t BLOW YOUR MIND?
Hendrix could probably blow people away playing paper and a comb. It doesn’t change the fact that people would be seriously confused if they had showed up for a Hendrix concert and found him doing a Cliff Richard set. Would they still haved enjoyed it? Probably. Would they have preferred a Hendrix set? Probably.
That’s a big disrespect there and you probably don’t realize it.
You trying to put words in my mouth is downright insulting.
For example, a lot of users have opinions on how to fix (some specific feature) are adamant about it. However, they don’t know what is best.
It’s supremely arrogant to assume the developers always know better than the users. It’s true that there are some very stupid requests that developers (And anyone else with half a brain) just know won’t work. It’s also true that there will be some useful requests that the developers won’t have even thought of. Ignoring the useful ones to pursue a personal agenda is just stupid (I’m not referring to any specific dev or project here).
Notice too that Hendrix doesn’t have to ask the fans anything. He need only observe their behavior to know if something works or not.
…
That’s why developers have to watch what people do rather than ask them what they want.
Which is the point I am trying to make (Yes, I did have one). Developers without the commercial backing to do large scale user trials don’t HAVE direct observation data. The only real data they have is secondary and if they treat user requests as background noise then they are cutting that down even further. User feedback is the only real clue to user behaviour that a lot of these projects have.
It’s unfortunate that the majority of people will only give feedback when they think something is wrong or they want something changed (Not a situation unique to software). That makes the amount of criticism seem artifically high compared to the praise, and nobody likes to be criticised all the time, but it doesn’t mean some of that feedback isn’t useful.
***
O/T:
Yup, I like Hendrix. I love his music and I think the man was a genius. However the first thing that I remember isn’t a particular song, it isn’t even the man himself, it’s him using lighter fluid to set his guitar on fire…total showmanship.
We’re not talking about some manufactured boy band here, so I don’t know if he ever sat down and consciously thought about what the fans wanted, but even if he didn’t he somehow managed to do it anyway.
Pure genius.
[i]But you are right about one thing: we are not an advocate of the movement. But neither we are an advocate of the closed source reality. OSNews is NOT a Linux/F/OSS site (like NewsForge is for example). OSNews is simply a tech site. So, don’t expect us to particularly advocate one or the other.[i]
But you run and mantain gnomefiles.org. Which is a gnome specific repository of OSS applications. Surely you can’t be so two faced that you would create a site advocating OSS (specifically gnome and it’s applications) yet at the same time evangelize here that you have NO bias. Where is the macosxfiles.org? the riscosfiles.org? the kdefiles.org?
pity.
The main driving force today for working on OSS projects is to build a list of skills to later help get one a job with a consulting firm, software company or company needing IT solutions. They get both a skilled person on various tasks as well as a seasoned individual on an operating system platform without having to invest a lot of training internally. This saves companies money, period.
Linux needs to embrace the mass consumer if they ever expect to knock Windows off. And when Linux goes up against OS X as an alternate on PowerPC they are at the base of K2 looking to reach the summit before they will convince a new Mac buyer [not a developer] to not use OS X.
Linux needs start embracing its current user base that have been extremely loyal or they will become a niche product like the many BSDs [OS X excluded] who are known for their server capabilities, first and foremost.
The major developers have all either become highly paid developers for companies like IBM, Novell, RedHat, so on or so forth, or soon will be and we know they have the clout on what does or does not happen, in user space.
This is suicide. We former NeXT employees know all too well how the elitist view the world saw of NeXT buried any future user base.
So I’m sitting down after my Hendrix post, watching a little TV and I get hit by a very strange sequence of thoughts indeed.
I start thinking about the film The Bodyguard (For those that haven’t seen it Whitney Houston plays a singer who is being stalked and Kevin Costner plays a bodyguard who’s trying to protect her).
There’s a particular scene that I’m thinking of here. In this scene Houston’s character is performing on stage and everything is going fine, everyone’s having a good time, until something happens (Can’t remember what). Suddenly it’s pandemonium. She’s dragged into the crowd, and people are ripping off parts of her costume, stealing her microphone etc, before Costner does the hero thing and saves her.
Now these people weren’t trying to mug her. They were her fans. They were trying to get a piece of her. They thought that being a fan, by buying the records, by going to the concert somehow entitled them to get more from her than she was already giving them.
It’s a film, it’s not real, but how far from real is it? We can see sports fans cursing their team for not winning. Film fans bad mouthing stars because they didn’t sign enough autographs at a premiere. Music fans getting angry because someone was sick and had to cancel, despite getting a refund. Along with thousands of celebrity stalkers.
Something in these fans head makes them believe they can demand more of these celebrities than they would ever demand of a normal person, or even themselves. Somewhere between putting up posters, wearing a shirt, or buying records they’ve started to feel that they somehow possess a part of these people, that they deserve whatever it is they are asking for, that they are totally justified in being upset when their demands aren’t met.
What’s that got to do with software?
Well there aren’t many celebrity programmers, but there are definitely a number of very popular projects. I often see terms like ‘zealot’ and ‘fanboy/girl’ in the comments of this site. I normally dismiss it as everyday trolling, but what if somewhere along the line there’s actually a basis for it?
Could it be for some people that in using a project, supporting a project, perhaps even advocating a project to friends they believe that they have become a much bigger part of the project than simply being a user? That because of their perceived involvment they can expect to demand the attention of the devs?
In short, have certain sections of the OSS community become fans not users? Not the everyday ‘Watch the football on the weekend’ fans, but the more extreme sort who wrap up a large part of their own identity as being a supporter of their team. Ok, so maybe they aren’t buying faeces and used chewing gum on eBay, but who knows what the future may hold (Devs should make sure to flush at conferences :>). Perhaps some of the larger projects are going to find that they NEED a buffer between the devs and the users.
As I said at the start, it’s a strange sequence of thoughts. I don’t know if I’ve managed to explain what I was thinking very well (It’s 4am), and this post will probably be buried in the number of comments in this thread, but it seemed like an interesting enough perspective that I should make a post about it.
Could it be for some people that in using a project, supporting a project, perhaps even advocating a project to friends they believe that they have become a much bigger part of the project than simply being a user? That because of their perceived involvment they can expect to demand the attention of the devs?
Ha Ha! Have you been paying attention for the last 5 years? Have you ever visited Slashdot? Are you seriously saying that you haven’t figured this out until now? The fact that these people take their software WAY too seriously has been beaten to death for years now (adequacy.org). Get with the program.
“which illustrates once more the developer-centric nature of F/OSS (in contrast to the more user-centric nature of commercial products)”
I really don’t get this comment eh – show me where users can give feedback to Microsoft (or any other commercial developer) and get their features added?
…show me where users can give feedback to Microsoft (or any other commercial developer) and get their features added?
Right here:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=33353
Here’s some more:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=32853
Insightful +1
at least we have the right to suggest, dont we?
unlike os x or windows…
I used to really like osnews
“that’s feedback filtered by a special team, not by the developers who are already under a lot of pressure”
Hence the sublime genius behind posting all that unproductive rubbish to desktop-devel-list……
…where commercial software is user focused? Seriously. Anyone seen it? When was the last time Microsoft responded to anyone’s email about required features? Since when was mandatory DRM user focused? Where’s the Apple bugzilla? Anyone seen it?
Nobody even knows who you are and could care less about your one man boycott.
Go start a geocities website and rant all you want you mental midget.
I’ll do the web poll up later, but these are the results: …
I think bounties is the way to go. They are working very well for Gnome and Horde right now. A system can be placed on KDE page that any company who desires (distribution, or private) can place a bounty (after approval of KDE developers) on a feature they want and any developer up to the task can work on it for the $$$.
Ok, the whole hendrix analogy is starting to confuse more than help.
It’s unfortunate that the majority of people will only give feedback when they think something is wrong or they want something changed (Not a situation unique to software). That makes the amount of criticism seem artifically high compared to the praise, and nobody likes to be criticised all the time, but it doesn’t mean some of that feedback isn’t useful.
Of course not. No dev ever said they don’t listen to user feedback or don’t care at all. They do. Just because devs are saying that they will work on what they enjoy (which may be influenced by users) doesn’t mean they will ignore everything users are saying. They’re just not going to implement unreasonable requests.
** below is responding to something else that just popped into my head**
Saying that if developers don’t want to code user requested features, they should make way for people that do, is naive. First of all, the current developers are not standing in anyone’s way, and if there were a throng of new developers just aching to implement some new features, they’d already be working on it.
I work on a OSS project and I’m in constant contact with users. The fact that these conversations are happening at all is a sign of that – (normal) users have much easier access to OSS developers then closed source ones. I think here at osnews we’re seeing the downside that these public discussions have over private ones (not that I would have it any other way) – bad PR. Perhaps Eugenia would prefer that we start sending users boiler-plate “your feedback is always apperciated” instead of being honest.
Sometimes users have good ideas, sometimes they don’t. Regardless, probably the feedback recieved from users while helping deal with an issue or helping then understand how a feature works is more helpful then what explicit ‘great idea’ an user has.
Ok so its insulting to pay certain developers to implement features that users desire, rather than donating to a project in whole. Users still want certain features, but developers are volunteering, or being subsidized by a large company and don’t have time to implement these features, so what users want isn’t of the developers concern. So how does a user go about remedying this situation? The only thing I can think of, is to pay a private programmer. They would implement this feature(s) and hopefully the project will include it in there releases, or someone else will like it and continue to update it.
So I guess what we really need is a hacker 411.
–Ashley
Linux needs to embrace the mass consumer if they ever expect to knock Windows off.
Why do you think that “knocking Windows off” is Linux’s goal?
(Presuming there is a single thing that can be called “Linux”).
I believe that the developers are doing it in order to create something better, not in order to push anyone else out of the market. (Except those, who do it for their salary, of course).
I think that this false belief, that the goal of Linux is to knock off Windows, makes people think that the developers should implement every feature request and all the other strange things that were popping up in this thread.
However, you can’t reach a correct conclusion, when you start out from incorrect assumptions.
I haven’t watched the video yet admittedly (limited connection), but from the descriptions like “usability lab-generated data”, it doesn’t quite sound like user feedback to me…
I note that doesn’t seem like somewhere official I can give feedback (unless MS devs read that forum and listen) – just one of their devs claiming that they do listen, which comes under my heading of PR.
As AdamW said, where’s the Bugzilla?
at least we have the right to suggest, dont we?
Sure you have. If you know the difference between a suggestion and a demand
.
unlike os x or windows…
Oh, OS X and Windows user don’t have the right to suggest what the want in their OS? I thought that Apple and Microsoft cared about their customers. Silly me. [/irony]
I’ll convert to Windows and let it blow up in my face. That should kill me.
Microsoft took a poll and found that all viruses would disappear once all people learned to get along, but that this would require a microchip implant in your brain and for the user to be hooked up with an electric magnetic pulse generator.
Nothing is stopping people from making a monetary donation in exchange for a feature for any FOSS project. Simply open your phone book, look for the nearest commercial programmer, and ask him/her what it’ll cost for them to write your feature and release under an FOSS license.
Oh, that’s too expensive for you right? You were thinking a donation of maybe $100 would be enough? Idiot!
And herein lies the reason bounty systems are not fantastic. Sure, a bunch of people could donate to certain features, and maybe this could work, although I find it doubtful. Either way, nothing is stopping someone from setting up such a site to allow for this kind of aproach. Eugenia?
I’m sure that such a site with bounty’s of large sums would be favorable to developers. The thing is that it’s insulting to a developer to be asked to hack on something for almost nothing. It is wonderful for them to donate their time doing some work they enjoy, but it’s an utter insult to them to be offered $50 for their work, which would cost monuments more in the commercial world.
I think you’ll find most developers do listen to users to some degree, but no-one will go out of their way working on code they don’t want to without some form of incentive. I think the negative PR resulting from the initial post has driven developers to respond in an extreme manner out of sheer insult, and I don’t blame them one bit.
So isn’t the proposal essentially:
* to only pay or coerce developers for features they don’t want to do (or have no interest in)?
* but not to pay them for the core programs and everything else they have contributed over many years?? 99.9% of Linux?
This is getting annoying.
I still think Eugenia is on to something, namely how to enable users and developers of big OS projects to interact in a meaningful, that is beneficial to the project, way.
Just reread the discussion on the Gnome mailing list where several people pointed out that this list, that was meant as a way for developers to interact, had become nearly useless as it was swamped by Gnome users, Gnome enthusiasts. I think this shows that the problem of user – developer interaction is a very real one and discussing how to implement better ways for this interaction to happen is a worthwhile effort.
However, what is really annoying and disgusting is the way this discussion has been portraied by Eugenia in her articles on the subject. Reading the actual discussions on the mailing list one will find a lot of well thought out responses by the developers. Now you may of course agree with these responses, or disagree, but simply ignoring them and taking answers of some devs out of context, misinterpreting them and in the process totally misrepresenting what has actually been discussed certainly doesn’t help, to say the least.
“KDE will be able to sustain itself just fine without users, while it will not last a single day without developers. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away developers and scaring away users, the choice is rather easy actually.”
MERCEDES BENZ will be able to sustain itself just fine without ENGINEERS. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away ENGINEERS and scaring away CUSTOMERS, the choice is rather easy actually.
A BREAD SHOP will be able to sustain itself just fine without CUSTOMERS, while it will not last a single day without BAKERS. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away BAKERS and scaring away CUSTOMER, the choice is rather easy actually.”
How right you are, mate! Tell me, who pays your bills?
Eugenia, if you would read all posts in that thread, there are many good points why “lets gather 100$ and they _have_ to implement it” is wrong.
Like Aaron wrote:
“if people don’t like how the existing development is going, i don’t see how their $20 is going to change that.”
And KDE developers, to my experience, don’t ignore whishlists/bugreports – thus we _have_ feedback already, but in the end _developers_ must decide what will be implemented – if you are not one, you can’t possibly understand what design changes some feature might require (unless, suddenly, we are happy with dirty hacks).
I gotta I agree with you. There probably are problems between users and devs, but I think things are being blown out of proportion. On most opensource projects devs tend to listen to users, but its impossible to implement all the requested features or it may need a massive overhaul of the whole project.
What these two posts do (one from Eugenia and this one) is portray opensource projects as loosely run by a band of devs who don’t care about the users, but lets not forget that without users, the projects would be dead anyway. After reading some of the posts by the devs, I am sure that some of them were taken in the wrong context to make a good story on this site.
In a bakery, the bakers are getting paid to make bread per hour. In a car manufacturer the engineers are being paid for their efforts per hour. In the FOSS world this is clearly quite different.
One proposed solution so far has been bounty’s. Do you believe that a bounty system would provide enough money to pay these programmers at an hourly rate to implement your feature? I don’t.
I don’t think anyone has anything to complain about given that these developers are contributing their time to these projects. I can’t see many of the people complaining here going to work everyday for nothing, yet they seem to have that expectation for the FOSS developers.
If no-one buys the bread at a bakery, the bakery goes broke, and stops producing bread. Given that a FOSS coder is likely deriving payment from an outside means (a real job, as FOSS is a hobby on the side?) there isn’t the same certainty that his code contributions will cease if consumers don’t use the end-product, as he/she was doing it for fun anyway.
“KDE will be able to sustain itself just fine without users, while it will not last a single day without developers. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away developers and scaring away users, the choice is rather easy actually.”
MERCEDES BENZ will be able to sustain itself just fine without ENGINEERS. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away ENGINEERS and scaring away CUSTOMERS, the choice is rather easy actually.
A BREAD SHOP will be able to sustain itself just fine without CUSTOMERS, while it will not last a single day without BAKERS. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away BAKERS and scaring away CUSTOMER, the choice is rather easy actually.”
How right you are, mate! Tell me, who pays your bills?
“KDE will be able to sustain itself just fine without users, while it will not last a single day without developers. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away developers and scaring away users, the choice is rather easy actually.”
I really disagree with this. A developer becomes a developer because he has used a piece of OSS and likes what he sees and wants to contribute.
If you have no users you will find your developers will leave too. If you have users you will always have a steady flow of contributors.
This kind of arrogance sickens me, but unforuntately is typical of most OSS projects.
I have honestly had it with this site. I’ve been coming here for years (even clicked on a few advertisers links before), but now I’m not coming back.
My reasons: well, who really cares. If I explained, I’m sure they would get modded down. Let’s just say the running of this site is less than professional. Feel free to mod this down if you wish. It’s what I expect.
Obviously the developers are either making decent decisions on their own, or listening to users to some degree, because their software seems to sport a significant number of users as is, so I think your claim of arrogance is blown out of proportion.
I think you’ll find that when things are being done for free (in FOSS, charity’s, and small clubs/organisations) these same choices need to be made. The people contributing for free won’t be willing to bend over backwards like some customers might expect. They are, afterall, not getting paid.
People should respect the work that they do for nothing, and instead of expecting, and demanding (which only angers these people, as they are doing it for others benefit afterall, and like to see these people being thankful, instead of demanding) actually step in and do something themselves to help!
I really disagree with this. A developer becomes a developer because he has used a piece of OSS and likes what he sees and wants to contribute.
If you have no users you will find your developers will leave too. If you have users you will always have a steady flow of contributors.
This kind of arrogance sickens me, but unforuntately is typical of most OSS projects.
OT: I have a feature request for this site to include a better quoting system. I am not willing to pay for it (or at least not enough to cover the costs of your time to implement it) but none-the-less as a user I have an expectation that the quoting system will be improved.
Of course, others might disagree with me, citing that b, and i are more than sufficient when combined with the copy/paste of any modern platform, but their opinion is wrong.
I understand, however, that the developer of the site might not feel like enhancing the current system of quotation. He or she is probably not receiving the sort of money that would make things like this worthwhile, but he or she may decide to do it for the benefit of their own site anyway.
Certainly, if I were the site author, I’d be insulted if someone demanded that such a feature be implemented with only the offer of a years subscription to the site. Such a subscription would not come even close to covering the time taken. If I were the author, I’d much prefer a slab of beer, than $50, as I’d be earning much more than $50 doing this work commercially.
I don’t think Suse is developing S/W for fun only. Heck, without USERS they’d be broke. And without USER INPUT they can’t SELL. And without SALES developers can’t feed their families.
For haven’s sakes do you really believe NOVELL bought Suse because they have the best dvelopers writing S/W for fun and for free? C’mon, ask Waldo how much Suse pays him for his work.
Believe it or not, USERS are more important than DEVELOPERS.Without user feedback a dev can NOT develope selleble apps.
“KDE will be able to sustain itself just fine without users, while it will not last a single day without developers. So when it comes to choosing between scaring away developers and scaring away users, the choice is rather easy actually.”
What’s so damn provocing about this statement. I think he is totally right. You can discuss the semantics in this, whether is just about KDE sustaining itself or is it about software living without user, you can also discuss who is a user an who a developer and so on, but to me taste from its literal meaning the statement is true.
The problem is that many “open-source devs and users” tend to get ideological about the whole thing. It’s all about taking over the world without paying money but with getting all the love and attention from the devs the user needs in advance for being part in this kind of revolution
. Jippie, it’s just software and we’re not at war.
On the other hand many oss devs tend to think the coder is the only one, and the only one who knows the truth about developing good software, to him/her it seems to be all about implementing, not desinging, planning, testing or maintaining. And that’s fine, implementing is the most fun part for a lot of people and if they choose to make their code opensource and publically available they don’t have to give a damn about what some kid wants or doesn’t want in this code. They can give a damn, but they don’t have to. Why should they? Just to please some geeks who think they are at war against the ones above and their way of fighting is using oss and downloading stuff over p2p-networks.
But nevertheless a lot of once free oss devs are now getting paid by big companies for just doing the work they did in their sparetime before their being employed. The thing is, why are companies spending money to such projects. I think it’s for big amount about creating an image. Like “hey, lot of people use this, so let’s be cool and employ the developer and then let’s see what we can do to earn money with this. So maybe it’s true, that if oss developers get paid that they just have to listen to what paying customers are saying and wanting, but screwing away potantially paying customers is also the best way for the paid oss-dev to get unemployed.
just my 2 cents
Then why don’t you complain to Suse or Novell instead ?
I just hope one day that one can have 1 desktop solution and 10+ hardcore windowsmanagers, to much to know for the average joe
Stop critisising, questioning, commenting, debating, filing bug reports…
OSS is a haven where developers can produce software that no-one else can use. Free from development cycles, design, testing, maintainance and accountability.
What a lot of people fail to understand is that every time a user posts something on the internet about a piece of software, every developer of that program has to read it. Discussions like this are driving developers crazy.
Seriously though, if you want to pay a programmer to add a feature to a program, I don’t see what’s stopping you.
There are plently of volunteer organizations that are not totally beholden to the individual volunteers to get work done. Look at the Peace Corps, if they only did work that was interesting to the individual volunteers the organization would be a mess and no country would allow them within their borders to work.
It takes a commitment to the goal and the maturity to honor other’s needs to get these types of user requests implemented. Sure it would be nice to only work on pet projects, but to make the whole platform more useful to the community you built and rely on for bug reports maybe you should bite the bullet and fix something the non-devs are interested in for the greater good.
What we need is a more cohesive structure in charge of these projects that would organize the volunteer developers. And we need a policy that they can volunteer and work on their pet projects, but the price of participation is to accept some assignments as well.
Who said that GNOME and KDE were user-oriented?
According to the project descriptions:
http://gnome.org/about/
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/
http://kde.org/whatiskde/
http://kde.org/whatiskde/project.php#usersview
Both GNOME and KDE claim that they are usable. According to these docs, for GNOME usability means following guide-lines that come from user testing. For KDE it means having a consistent interface. Neither of them say “Developers will drop everything to ensure that all user requests will be looked it and users don’t have to worry about logging reports in Bugzilla ’cause we’ll do it for you.”.
Given this, saying that GNOME and KDE have exclusively “Deaf Developers” is off base and presumptious. GNOME and KDE is trying the best they can, but “the best they can” doesn’t mean “dedicated resources to ensure that all requests are dealt with with a certain quality of service.”
So who *is* saying that GNOME and KDE is user-focused and enterprise-ready? How about Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu, and Linspire? If you want to complain, go to the appropriate forum for these distributes and follow the rules of the forum. *Distributions* are the place people should look for support, not GNOME and KDE.
What we need is a more cohesive structure in charge of these projects that would organize the volunteer developers. And we need a policy that they can volunteer and work on their pet projects, but the price of participation is to accept some assignments as well
My first reaction was “WTF?”, “nuts!”, but let me put it this way: why do YOU want to organize SOMEONE ELSES life?. Volunteer developers are just that. Volunteers. They do it, because they want to, hence they do what they want to do. They can organize themselves (CVS access, mailinglists, etc). Why do you want to force them to do something they are not interested in? *mind boggles*.
For an answer read the first part of the post.
OSNews drops to new lows of sensationalism and tabloid “journalism”.
I am hesitant to call this journalism since you can’t even correctly identify between fact and your opinion.
It is your OPINION that a “KDE-alike control panel” for GNOME would be bad.
It is your OPINION that Shift+Delete would be a useful feature. NOT a fact.
Your summary is also wrong. It is also wrong to take a single message out of a flame war and attempt to build a trashy story around it. Yes, it might not have been Eugenia who posted this story, but if a story does not meet certain levels then it should NOT be posted.
This is just a basic skill of journalism: identifying fact from fiction.