Be nice to the contributors (was Re: NLD10 and GNOME)

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Le mardi 07 f�ier 2006 �5:55 +0100, Christian Fredrik Kalager
Schaller a �it :
> Hi, 
> While it would be good to get fixes and improvements right away I do
> think its to hard to criticize anyone for holding back a bit on things
> they are doing. Being able to ship something first is an important
> marketing tool and this has happened before. In most cases where it has
> happened the distribution makers have been good at working with the
> community afterwards to get their changes merged upstream.
> 
> Remember getting those changes merged in is in their interest too
> as keeping a larger and larger diff maintained is very costly and time
> consuming, so I am sure nobody wants to keep the changes any longer than
> necessary.

(this is no way specific to Novell or to the panel change in NLD10,
which just seems to be a new menu applet)

Let's put it another way: I'm a maintainer of some modules, working on
my free time on GNOME. I'm trying to fix bugs, and if I find time,
implement cool new features (most often small new features :/).

Now, something with a lot of changes comes out. It looks really great.
As a user, I'm pleased. As a contributor, I'm sad. While I'm struggling
in day-to-day not-so-funny things, I'll probably have to review a big
patch without having the fun of developing it. I'd have loved to give
some input on the idea, and on the implementation. Maybe I would have
said "no way", but "no way" means "I don't want this, but feel free to
patch your version if you really want".

I'm not saying it's bad to code some stuff in your corner. But please,
please, please be nice to contributors: tell the people who work on some
stuff what you might be doing, talk to them, ask them what they think.
You don't need to mail d-d-l to get input on some change.

Someone on irc wrote something like "GNOME is first a software writing
project, and then love". This is so wrong.

Don't ignore the community.

Vincent

-- 
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