New KDE 4.1 release

regomodo · Guru Joined: 25 Mar 2008 Posts: 445

I think this link is applicable to the situation. The following sentence more particular

Earthwings · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject:

Nephilim666 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 148

There is a post on PlanetGentoo about KDE 4.1 Gentoo Ebuilds by cryos. Makes an intresting read in my opinion.

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

de-slot kde just to be compliant to a bad standard that most users even never heard of?

great idea - not.
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ibins · n00b Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 27

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2048 Location: Germany

and that I really don't believe. Why should it be 'easier'?

as a fun fact, I have seen enough apps fall apart after a kde update so the 'so apps always link against latest kdelibs' argument is bogus at best.
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Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

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Nephilim666 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 148

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

cryos · Retired Dev Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Posts: 242 Location: US

steveL · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:31 am Post subject:

Nephilim666 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 148

To be honest, I sometimes despair of how this community talks to one another. Why does everyone have to bitch around when trying to make a point? There is no respect for different opinions and there is no respect for the ones that do the work. If someone disagrees with me or doesn't do what I think is best, most certainly has to be a fucking idiot! Right?

It is so frustrating to follow any discussion because of these patterns!

I have to admit that I don't understand all the technical merits of this debate, all I know is that I can live with both, slotted or not, and that it's the devs decision which way to go since they will have to do the work. But why is it so hard to treat each other with some decency? :evil:

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

Yeah, I totally agree. The community got itself into an endless cycle:

A group of "pseudo-intellectuals" criticize the devs, devs try to answer them. "Idiots" join in with criticism without actually reading.
Devs are annoyed and don't want to spend any more time arguing with these two groups of people.
Another group of users wants to know what's happening; flaming of the devs ensues. The devs choose to stay out; they are accused of being in an "ivory tower."
Eventually a dev decides to risk giving out some information.
Back to step 1.

Seriously guys if you have nothing good or constructive to say, don't say it just for the sake of increasing your post-count phallus one.
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steveL · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:10 am Post subject:

I thought the dev was being rude, so I called him on it. From his blog post he sounded like he was close to burning out: "I am quite honestly exhausted discussing why this is or is not a good idea" yet he's apparently seeking the exact same: "I am certainly open to opinions. It would be good to get wider feedback from the community on which direction they would like to go in and why." That doesn't excuse his tone ("Did you spot the must not use part of that sentence and the fact that the X Windows System is a special exception?")

The fact that the argument given is false (since that applies to /usr/X11 and not the rest of the GUI apps that might depend on it) had already been reasonably pointed out and he got defensively aggressive, instead of just admitting it was crap. That's why I called him on it, and I'd do it again. (Not that I need your permission, just explaining my reasons.)

Nephilim666 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 148

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

steveL, I never meant to criticize you personally, rather the group in general - some are better, others are worse. I know you made a lot of useful contributions that benefited everyone.

However, since you are willing to discuss this, I'd like to ask you this:

What exactly are you hoping to accomplish by admitting that the FHS argument "was crap"?
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steveL · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject:

steveL · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject:

Nephilim666 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 148

Steve, you really don't get it, do you? It is just too tiresome for almost anyone to follow any discussions around here or in the ML's because of all this stupid flaming. And I'm not only talking about users but devs alike! This is what really drives people away from contributing, imho.

If you do take a look at the comments in his blog, you will see that he answered any post quite calm and friendly until someone pointed him to the comments in this thread. And if you post on the distros official forum, it's kind of hard to argue that they were "discussing amongst themselves". Naturally he got offended by those posts, so you can hardly blame him more than yourself for loosing his temper.

Also there is no need to patronize me about being naive. I hang out here since 2003 and I know my ways around. I'm also aware of these notions in the devs community but I tell you something. I don't give a fuck! Things work in Gentoo for me better than in any other distribution. Volunteer projects follow their own rules and there are still plenty of responsible devs about that keep things somehow in track. I like the way things work and wouldn't trade it for any other distro even if it means that I cannot yell at someone if things go wrong. After all I'm a freeloader like most of us, only giving back little tiny bits whenever I manage to do so.

Once again, I'm not trying to defend the holy devs from the evil users, but I'm pleading for a more respectful way to talk to each other! And sorry to say but most of the time I see users, not developers, fucking up on that issue.

pilla · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:51 pm Post subject:

Please, everybody take a second to chill out before going on this subject.
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Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

steveL · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:22 pm Post subject:

@AM088: No it's not about feeling superior; the point is not to allow that kind of nastiness to go unchallenged, irrespective of who is doing it. Naturally, most people don't feel that sure about picking up a dev on nastiness, so that tends to go unchallenged which I think is much more damaging; it inculcates a sense of superiority in the devs, and the consquence for community interaction is worse too. If it's ok for devs to be nasty, new users will see that as the accepted norm, or just think "why bother?" IRC channels tend to show this kind of thing much more, but it comes down to the "this is our private playground" attitude; "if you want to play, take some abuse cos we are l337 innit?"

@nephilim: Sorry but that's the second time you've started swearing (first time I hadn't even said anything to you.) If you see this as flaming, maybe you're not as experienced as you claim? (although you do appear to be getting quite heated.) Wrt discussing amongst themselves, I meant they weren't discussing with cryos and telling him to his face how stupid he was, which is exactly what he did (only he got his facts wrong.)

Etal · Veteran Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 1931

steveL · Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject:

cryos · Retired Dev Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Posts: 242 Location: US

OK, I lied, I will post a reply to some of the comments but do not intend to get baited into a long discussion on this. I responded to this thread because someone called Volker Armin posted a direct link to the post I replied to, this is a public forum for Gentoo Linux and the people in the thread were stating that I had not read the FHS spec. I would certainly agree that my response was terse but I fail to see where it was rude. I honestly think it was quite polite after the tone the post I was replying to took.

@steveL: If you feel you are on some kind of crusade to call devs on their behaviour but to condone/ignore users poor behaviour then good luck with that. I did not get my facts wrong, they got their's wrong but in all honesty that is quite irrelevant. The way they and Volker went about trying to point it out was just plain rude (behind my back or to my face). I tried to set them straight but did not see the point in writing too much. May be I should qualify future posts with constructive, polite and useful feedback would be appreciated?

In response to your comments on my burnout, they were dead wrong and seem to be total hyperbole. I don't honestly see the point in discussing this with you further as your replies are certainly not what I would consider polite either. Are you exempt from behaving in the way you expect others to behave? What I meant by that comment was that I was tired of explaining things over and over, therefore I made the blog post setting out my current thoughts. I can see where some confusion may have arisen from that sentence and I will try to be clearer in future.

If someone can't read a spec then I will try to correct them. If they are rude then I may be a little terse but I disagree with your assessment that I was rude. I don't think I am some l33t dev, I personally do work on stuff in Gentoo for altruistic reasons. I have limited free time and so I can't always do as much as I would like. I expect people to treat me with respect and in return I will do the same. Remember that most devs are just users who liked Gentoo, thought they could help and chose to give some of their free time to do so - I consider myself one of those people. Over the years I have learnt quite a bit, if I am wrong I will admit I am wrong and if people can discuss this in a constructive and courteous manner I will reciprocate.

I try as much as I can to take into account the opinions of others, and we have worked hard on the KDE ebuilds, keeping options for both the minor slotting and an FHS compliant install. Gentoo does have a policy of trying to follow the FHS where possible (and where it makes sense to) - check out the developer docs. If you can conherently tell me where you think I have misunderstood the FHS and why the FHS install of KDE in the kde-testing overlay is not more in keeping with the standard then please do. I have read the FHS and several related docs, it clearly states that /usr/kde is not allowed, that was my point. Whilst this isn't the end of the world it is a fact and the user in this thread was incorrect and chose to state their incorrect assessment in quite a rude fashion on a public Gentoo forum. I am not 100% if you are agreeing with said person or not to be totally honest.

I work with users and developers in a constructive fashion wherever possible. I try to minimise my interactions with rude developers and users. I am not paid to work on Gentoo and so why should I put up with it? Are you surprised that I did not feel like taking part in a thread where people were being quite rude about the work I choose to do in my spare time? The whole reason I am working on some of these changes is to improve the user experience for more casual users that are not as vocal, the ones that would rather things just worked with a minimum of hassle. I also wanted to be as transparent as possible and felt that making some posts on my blog would help to let people know what was going on. I chose not to censor the rude comments made but will admit to some of them making me wonder why I continue to give up my free time, others did not and filled me with hope ;-)

I would rather you didn't spend your time dissecting my posts trying to find hidden meanings, assessing whether you might be able to accuse me of being rude, or looking for sentences that can be misinterpreted to fit what you would have liked me to have said. Why not simply ask me for clarification rather than making wild assumptions? Why not point out you think someone is wrong in a reasoned way? I don't believe anyone or anything is infallible, including myself. I don't subscribe to being overly polite to everyone in the world and personally think my response was terse and that is it.

It has been refreshing to hear from many other users (and a few developers) who are not so rude and possibly even appreciate the work we are doing. I would have liked to have had KDE 4.1 in on release day, for a number of reasons this was not possible and I didn't want to leave everyone guessing. I personally do hope the attitudes in the Gentoo community improve from both sides and will do what I can to help that along. I am open to constructive criticism and have not claimed to be perfect or have special powers (because I am a dev or otherwsie).

I hope this clears things up a little. I think this particular thread has probably run its course. Apologies to casual observers if I was overly terse but I think most reasonable people would understand my reasons. Now I am going to go back to work, hopefully this evening I will have time to try and iron out any remaining issues so that we can get KDE 4.1 into the tree.