[gimp-web] Edit schumaml interview
- From: Jehan Pagès <jehanp src gnome org>
- To: commits-list gnome org
- Cc:
- Subject: [gimp-web] Edit schumaml interview
- Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 09:43:03 +0000 (UTC)
commit 15f2e56b0627bcda09d856fb652b139c0bc059cc
Author: Pat David <patdavid gmail com>
Date: Sun Apr 30 11:02:37 2017 -0500
Edit schumaml interview
I just cleaned up the language a bit.
Re-added <br>'s I took out. These are added for formatting, which
I'd rather be handled through CSS - so I'll look at possibly
adding a style rule that might work for this.
(cherry picked from commit ce4e6ea3aee79afb09991df7ba6e40953b3f5099)
...2017-04-19_Schumaml-interview-WilberWeek2017.md | 97 +++++++++++---------
1 files changed, 55 insertions(+), 42 deletions(-)
---
diff --git a/content/news/2017-04-19_Schumaml-interview-WilberWeek2017.md
b/content/news/2017-04-19_Schumaml-interview-WilberWeek2017.md
index 843476f..001406f 100644
--- a/content/news/2017-04-19_Schumaml-interview-WilberWeek2017.md
+++ b/content/news/2017-04-19_Schumaml-interview-WilberWeek2017.md
@@ -7,11 +7,13 @@ Summary: Michael Schumacher gets interviewed by other GIMP developers
*This is the second of a series of interviews of various people surrounding GIMP development and community.
See also the [interview of Mitch, GIMP
maintainer](https://www.gimp.org/news/2017/03/01/an-interview-with-michael-natterer-gimp-maintainer/)*
-GIMP is not only made by hard-core developers. The team also encourages less technical-inclined
contributors. Michael Schumacher, *aka* Schumaml, is a good example of such a core contributor, as he has had
a very important impact for over more than 10 years. Mostly known as the project administrator, nowadays he
takes care of everything but coding: administrative tasks, management…
+GIMP is not only made by hard-core developers. The team also encourages less technically-inclined
contributors. Michael Schumacher, *aka* Schuamaml, is a great example of an important core contributor who
has been with the project for over 10 years. Mostly known as the project administrator, nowadays he takes
care of everything but coding: administrative tasks, management, support…
-Furthermore Schumaml was recently named the maintainer of the 2.8 branch, the stable version of GIMP which
only receives bugfixes, showing that it does not require a technically-focused mind to occupy important roles
successfully.
+Schumaml was recently named the maintainer of the 2.8 branch, the stable version of GIMP which only receives
bugfixes, showing that it does not require a developer to occupy important roles successfully.
-This interview was held on Saturday, February 4, 2017, at about 00:27 AM in front of a fireplace and after a
day of hacking at Wilber Week. With us were several team members, including Debarshi Ray (Rishi (R)), Øyvind
Kolås (pippin (P)) and Simon Budig who also asked questions.
+This interview was held on Saturday, February 4, 2017, at about 12:27 AM in front of a fireplace and after a
day of hacking at [Wilber Week][]. With us were several team members, including Debarshi Ray (Rishi (R)),
Øyvind Kolås (pippin (P)) and Simon Budig who also asked questions.
+
+[Wilber Week]: /news/2017/01/18/wilberweek-2017-announced/
<figure>
<img src="{filename}images/schumaml-interview/schumaml-interview-950w.jpg" alt='Schumaml, the tie-bearing
GIMP office manager' width='950' height='566'>
@@ -20,19 +22,22 @@ Schumaml, GIMP administrator (<small>photo by antenne used by permission (<a cla
</figcaption>
</figure>
-_Jehan: Hello Michael. You are GIMP administrator, at least that's what everybody says._
+_Jehan: Hello Michael. You are the GIMP administrator, at least that's what everybody says._
**Schumaml:** That's what everybody says, yes.
_J: How would you describe your contribution to the GIMP project?_
-**S:** I don't do much coding. It's just that so many people — from my perspective — do coding on GIMP
already and have a better grasp of source code, how it is made up. So I don't think I can contribute much in
that regard. So I try to do administrative stuff like handling the monetary aspect of the project like
telling GNOME that we need money for events like Wilber Week, for LGM reimbursements…
-<br/>
-I also care about the bug reports we have. I try to have them categorized, have a proper status, make sure
that they get replies, that we don't leave a bug report unattended for a long time.
-<br/>
-And also I have administrative privileges on the GIMP web server, on mailing lists, and… what else. Do I
forget anything? That's about it, yeah.
+**S:** I don't do much coding. It's just that so many people — from my perspective — do coding on GIMP
already and have a better grasp of the source code and how it is made up. So I don't think I can contribute
much in that regard. I try to do administrative stuff like handling the monetary aspect of the project such
as telling [GNOME][] that we need money for events like Wilber Week or for LGM reimbursements…
+I also care about the [bug reports][] we have. I try to have them categorized, have a proper status, make
sure that they get replies, and that we don't leave a bug report unattended for a long time.
+Also, I have administrative privileges on the GIMP web server, on mailing lists, and… what else. Do I forget
anything? That's about it, yeah.
+
+[GNOME]: https://www.gnome.org/
+[bug reports]: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/page.cgi?id=browse.html&product=GIMP
-I've been called the tie-wearing GIMP office manager, and I even got a t-shirt with a printed tie and a
"TWOM" label, because I've actually been wearing a proper shirt (made to measure) in one GIMP meeting, at the
Libre Graphics Meeting 2012 in Vienna.
+I've been called the tie-wearing GIMP office manager and I even got a t-shirt with a printed tie and a
"TWOM" label, because I've actually been wearing a proper shirt (made to measure) at one GIMP meeting during
the [Libre Graphics Meeting 2012][] in Vienna.
+
+[Libre Graphics Meeting 2012]: http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2012/
<figure>
<img src="{filename}images/schumaml-interview/schumaml-twom-480x702.jpg" alt='Schumaml, the tie-wearing GIMP
office manager' width='480' height='702'>
@@ -41,90 +46,98 @@ Schumaml, the tie-wearing GIMP office manager (<small><a href='https://www.flick
</figcaption>
</figure>
-<br/>
-_J: How long have you contributed?_
+_J: How long have you been contributing?_
+
+**S:** I think I started [somewhere between 2001 and 2004][]. The first contributions were probably getting
GIMP buildable on MSYS, the minimal GNU build system on the Windows platform. Because I was annoyed that
there were only GIMP builds for releases and not for every commit in between.
-**S:** I think I started [somewhere between 2001 and
2004](https://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/commit/?id=f7d599851c7fce5d289410cb568d515bcf737466). The first
contributions were probably getting GIMP buildable on MSYS, the minimal GNU build system on the Windows
platform. Because I was annoyed that there were only GIMP builds for releases and not for every commit in
between.
+[somewhere between 2001 and 2004]:
https://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/commit/?id=f7d599851c7fce5d289410cb568d515bcf737466
_J: Was it like nightly builds?_
-**S:** No it was not like nightly builds. I just wanted to be able to have a current build **for** the MS
Windows platform and also made **on** the MS Windows platform, so that I could build on my Windows system I
was using at the time. Yes, just be able to follow GIMP development more closely than for example a build
someone made for a development release.
+**S:** No it was not like nightly builds. I just wanted to be able to have a current build **for** the MS
Windows platform and also made **on** the MS Windows platform, so that I could build on my Windows system I
was using at the time. Just to be able to follow GIMP development more closely than using a build someone
made for a development release.
+<br>
_J: So you mostly use GIMP on Windows?_
-**S:** Back more than 10 years ago, I did use Windows exclusively. So basically back then I had done the
porting of GIMP to the Windows platform.
+**S:** Back more than 10 years ago, I did use Windows exclusively. So basically, back then I had done the
porting of GIMP to the Windows platform.
-<br/>
+<br>
_J: Do you use GIMP?_
-**S:** I use GIMP. Not as much as many other people but I use it to test many things of GIMP itself. I use
it to edit photos I make. I don't publish many of the images because when I'm editing them, I print them or I
use them for some documentation work, so it goes to a customer. I even still use it on MS Windows still. But
now my main platform is Linux.
+**S:** I use GIMP. Not as much as many other people but I use it to test many things of GIMP itself. I use
it to edit photos I make. I don't publish many of the images because when I'm editing them, I print them or I
use them for some documentation work, so it goes to a customer. I even still use it on MS Windows, but now my
main platform is Linux.
+<br>
_J: What kind of job do you do?_
-**S:** I'm working for a company that used to be a part of Siemens, which had been carved out by now. And we
are selling communication systems - in the past, you would have called these telephony systems. Nowadays this
stuff is called "Communication Enabled Business Processes". Like everything which has to do with
communication. Calling someone or texting someone or exchanging chats or whatever. And we are providing the
software, the service and the consulting.
+**S:** I'm working for a company that used to be a part of Siemens, which had been carved out by now. We are
selling communication systems - in the past, you would have called these telephony systems. Nowadays this
stuff is called "Communication Enabled Business Processes", like everything which has to do with
communication: calling someone or texting someone or exchanging chats or whatever. We are providing the
software, the service, and the consulting.
-<br/>
+<br>
_J: Why do you contribute to GIMP?_
**S:** It started due to pure selfishness: being able to have the most current GIMP available to me.
-<br />
-Since then, a lot has changed: I believe in Free Software. I believe software should be available for
everyone for every purpose. GIMP is a Free Software project. Around the time I got hooked up to GIMP, I also
got hooked up to Wikipedia, which follows the same approach towards knowledge. I feel like — yeah well — I'm
contributing to something that helps a lot of people all over the world. I think that's a good thing. And
GIMP happens to be the the first major project I contributed to. And I like it. It's also in-line with the
topics I specialized in at university: image synthesis, image manipulation. Kind of seem like a logical
extension.
-<br/>
+Since then, a lot has changed: I believe in [Free Software][]. I believe software should be available for
everyone for every purpose. GIMP is a Free Software project. Around the time I got hooked up to GIMP, I also
got hooked up to Wikipedia, which follows the same approach towards knowledge. I feel like — yeah well — I'm
contributing to something that helps a lot of people all over the world. I think that's a good thing. GIMP
happens to be the the first major project I contributed to, and I like it. It's also in-line with the topics
I specialized in at university: image synthesis, image manipulation. It kind of seemed like a logical
extension.
+
+[Free Software]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
+
+<br>
_Rishi: What do you think of Michael Schumacher?_
-**S:** (laughs) The formula one driver?
+**S:** (laughs) The [formula one driver][]?
+
+[formula one driver]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Schumacher
_R: Yeah._
-**S:** First thing, you know about his current condition, like probably still in the coma or a vegetable.
Surely I hope that he will get better. He probably won't make it to his former self but at least to a state
that he can live his remaining life in a somewhat decent way.
-He got famous when I was in the so-called German "Gymnasium" (part of secondary education). It was a bit of
an annoyance. I got the same nickname "Schumy" as he did. I didn't follow his career too closely, but knew
about every race he won because I would be congratulated at school.
+**S:** First thing, you know about his current condition, like probably still in the coma. I hope that he
will get better. He probably won't make it to his former self but at least to a state that he can live his
remaining life in a somewhat decent way.
+He got famous when I was in the so-called German "Gymnasium" (part of secondary education). It was a bit of
an annoyance. I got the same nickname - "Schumy" - as he did. I didn't follow his career too closely, but
knew about every race he won because I would be congratulated at school.
_pippin: Have you ever made use of sharing the name?_
-**S:** No I haven't. It got me an interview opportunity with a locale radio station because they were
calling all people who beared the name "Michael Schumacher" and they were asking them "*How hard does this
affect your personal life? Has it ever affected you?*". Once, I almost had an appointment canceled because
someone thought I was mocking him, but that was the only incident ever.
+**S:** No I haven't. It got me an interview opportunity with a locale radio station because they were
calling all people who had the name "Michael Schumacher" and they were asking them "*How hard does this
affect your personal life? Has it ever affected you?*". Once, I almost had an appointment canceled because
someone thought I was mocking them, but that was the only incident ever.
-I've never used it, I've never abused it. And nowadays, or after the end of his professional racing career,
it basically didn't matter anymore.
+I've never used it. I've never abused it. Nowadays, or after the end of his professional racing career, it
basically didn't matter anymore.
-<br/>
+<br>
_P: Any controversial theme you wish to be asked?_
-**S:** Like the fact that I would like to kill spammers? (Maintain several mailing lists, one forum and also
be a recipient for "*can we haz ads on gimp.org, plz?*" and you know what I mean)
+**S:** Like the fact that I would like to kill spammers? (Maintain several mailing lists, one forum, be a
recipient for "*can we haz ads on gimp.org, plz?*", and you'll know what I mean)
_Simon: Not very controversial._
-<br/>
+<br>
_J: What do you want to see in GIMP?_
-**S:** Feature-wise, I'm quite OK with what GIMP is right now. I have to admit that some of the current
stuff in the GIMP development version is still above my head - like for example, I have no real concept yet
of the difference of compositing and blending. Learning that it was 2 different things was quite useful. I
hope that we can get the documentation of GIMP up-to-speed in time.
+**S:** Feature-wise, I'm quite OK with what GIMP is right now. I have to admit that some of the current
stuff in the GIMP development version is still above my head - for example, I have no real concept yet of the
difference between compositing and blending. Learning that it was 2 different things was quite useful. I hope
that we can get the documentation of GIMP up-to-speed in time.
-I'm more concerned about the project management. As in how do we decide what new feature go into GIMP, how
do we decide how they get into GIMP, how do we decide what GIMP development will look like, for instance
post-2.10. Because you see it yourself, right now, our release cycles are much too long. Even the fact that
we have actual release cycles is probably bad. If you have a look at services like Twitter or similar, they
are constantly releasing. They just push new features out to the people and there is a constant review "*this
is working, this is not working*". With our long release cycles, users get surprised by "*Ouh this does not
work as it used to. Why have they changed it?*".
+I'm more concerned about the project management. As in: how do we decide what new features go into GIMP, how
they get into GIMP, and what GIMP development will look like. Particularly post-2.10. You can see it
yourself. Right now, our release cycles are much too long. Even the fact that we _have_ actual release cycles
is probably bad. If you have a look at services like Twitter or similar, they are constantly releasing. They
just push new features out to the people and there is a constant review "*this is working, this is not
working*". With our long release cycles, users get surprised by "*Oh this does not work as it used to. Why
have they changed it?*".
-But yeah, the project is still a bit old-fashioned in regard to releases. We are trailing current
development models. "Development models" is the term I use because I'm not even really familiar how you call
this. I'm intrigued by the idea of having stable branches with continuously added new features, but I'm not
quite sure if I want 2.10 to be constantly evolving. I would prefer to have 2.12. That's details.
+The project is still a bit old-fashioned in regard to releases. We are trailing current development models.
"Development models" is the term I use because I'm not sure how to refer to this. I'm intrigued by the idea
of having stable branches with continuously added new features, but I'm not quite sure if I want 2.10 to be
constantly evolving. I would prefer to have 2.12. That's details.
-<br/>
+<br>
_J: How do you see GIMP in 20 years?_
-**S:** First thing in 20 years, I'll be 60 (laughs). So I'm not even sure how I see myself at that point.
Well, let's be selfish. I very much would like to see myself still part of the project in 20 years. I would
still like to be able to see it as an image manipulation program. One of the major Free Software ones. And I
have no idea at all how it will look like (laughs) because there is so much that can change. Especially even
in the user interaction. How people interact with software might actually be the defining factor for how
applications will look in 20 years.
+**S:** First thing: in 20 years, I'll be 60 (laughs). So I'm not even sure how I see _myself_ at that point.
I very much would like to still be part of the project in 20 years. I would still like to be able to see it
as an image manipulation program. One of the major Free Software ones. I have no idea at all what it will
look like (laughs) because there is so much that can change. Especially in the user interaction. How people
interact with software might be the defining factor for how applications will look in 20 years.
-<br/>
+<br>
_J: What's **the** feature you are really waiting for?_
-**S:** The feature I'm really waiting for. It's not a feature of painting or image manipulation. It's about
organization. This thing we want to do, Plug-in or Ressource Registry 2.0. Properly built, really managed.
Like not the hand-duplicate of an existing plugin. The thing we talked so much about, have so many great
ideas, but always seem to lack the time to do it. This is the feature I would like to see.
+**S:** The feature I'm really waiting for... It's not a feature of painting or image manipulation. It's
about organization. This thing we want to do, Plug-in or Resource Registry 2.0. Properly built and really
managed. The thing we talked so much about, have so many great ideas, but always seem to lack the time to do
it. This is the feature I would like to see.
-<br/>
+<br>
_J: Do you contribute under influence?_
-**S:** Yeah, have a look at the 2.8.20 NEWS file, at the typos, which I did totally not notice. So now I
prefer to not contribute under influence.
+**S:** Yeah, have a look at the 2.8.20 NEWS file. At the typos, which I totally didn't notice. So now I
prefer to not contribute under influence.
_J: Indeed you are now the maintainer of the 2.8 branch, or at least the releaser. If not mistaken, you took
care of 2.8.18 and 2.8.20 releases. What can you say about this?_
-**S:** I guess I should start at why I am doing more 2.8 releases. As I explained before, I'm not interested
in coding that much, but much more engaged in user support and maintenance. Approximately one month before
the release of 2.8.18, we had received [a report about a security issue in the XCF loading
code](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=767873). It was fixed quickly, for both the development and
2.8 branches, but there was no plan to do a 2.8 release. We have instructions for this, and mitch replied
"*Just do it!*" when I asked about it.
+**S:** I guess I should start at why I am doing more 2.8 releases. As I explained before, I'm not interested
in coding that much but more engaged in user support and maintenance. Approximately one month before the
release of 2.8.18, we had received [a report about a security issue in the XCF loading
code](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=767873). It was fixed quickly, for both the development and
2.8 branches, but there was no plan to do a 2.8 release. We have instructions for this, and mitch replied
"*Just do it!*" when I asked about it.
-It still felt like partly flying blind. Had I done the version changes - to 2.8.18, and afterwards advancing
to 2.8.19 - correctly? Was the tarball made correctly? Would it build on any other system than mine? It did -
but I had still missed two action: the release tag is supposed to be signed (i.e. git tag -s), and the GNOME
translations teams should be notified about planned releases and a string freeze be put in place until the
release to make it easy for them to complete translations. 2.8.20 was much better prepared, and even had an
extra long string freeze - I had planned to do it in October 2016, but had to delay it to February 2017,
during Wilber Week.
+It still felt like flying blind. Had I done the version changes - to 2.8.18, and afterwards advancing to
2.8.19 - correctly? Was the tarball made correctly? Would it build on any other system than mine? It did, but
I had still missed two action: the release tag is supposed to be signed (i.e. `git tag -s`) and the GNOME
translations teams should be notified about planned releases with a string freeze be put in place until the
release to make it easy for them to complete translations. 2.8.20 was much better prepared and even had an
extra long string freeze. I had planned to do it in October 2016, but had to delay it to February 2017,
during Wilber Week.
-Releasing is definitely something you want to do right, and this means to take a moment of uninterrupted
time to do it, like a GIMP event I have in my schedule already. My approach towards bug handling has changed
a bit, too. I pay much more attention to bugs with attached patches, and try to apply and test those (we
really neglected to do this) in order to get them into a stable release.
+Releasing is definitely something you want to do right, and this means taking a moment of uninterrupted time
to do it. My approach towards bug handling has changed a bit, too. I pay much more attention to bugs with
attached patches, and try to apply and test those (we really neglected to do this) in order to get them into
a stable release.
+<br>
_J: This was a good interview._
**S:** Thank you for doing it.
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