Re: roadmap status update/update request

[Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>]

On Llu, 2005-03-07 at 18:21, Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote:
> >A feature will be implemented if and only if there is a developer who wants 
> >to implement it, regardless of the number of votes it's received.
> 
> Which is exactly why open source software will never replace commercial 
> software or Microsoft.

I'd beg to disagree on this specific point. Commercial vendors get
motivated by customers to fix actual problems and they then pay people
to do stuff they might not otherwise have done. The community provides a
base from which to do that and a place to give back the results but it
will always do the bits it cares about. 

The size of the developer pool (and thus of course how you treat
newbies) is really important but most of them will do the stuff that
matters to them.

> You make Gnome sound ellitistic, and that's bad PR business to start with.

Thats what technical people I interview keep saying btw. "Gnome is
arrogant".

> Havoc, about users writing docs and analysis when they want a particular 
> feature: *I am* going to write such an analysis for each one of my 20 
> feature requests and then file them on bugzilla. Then, I will sit back and 
> watch how many of these bugzilla entries, if any, ever get a response from 

Make sure you do so under a new secret email address or you'll get the
"Jerry Pournelle effect" 8) - companies whose tech support works well
only for one man...

> page with the most wanted features? I TAKE  MAJOR OFFENSE as a user and a 
> Gnome advocate & supporter, you telling me that the developers of a 
> particular product don't even want to HEAR about what their users need.

Its dissapointing but I don't see the whole voting thing working very
much - if it stays a way to help developers see the priorities then
great. That might give a few people a shock too as to where the users
idea of urgent begins and what it is.

Alan