Re: Openness (Was: Re: Module Proposal: Zeitgeist)

[Seif Lotfy <seif lotfy com>]

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 6:36 PM, Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:
> On Sun, 2012-04-22 at 18:21 +0200, Florian Max wrote:
>
>> Which brings us to the matter of openness: the results of everything
>> the design team does ends up on the GNOME wiki under
>> live.gnome.org/Design.
>
> I think people are more concerned about being able to have input
> on the process, not on seeing the results published on the wiki.
> I'm on #gnome-design all day. I often skim the backlog. I don't
> really see the discussion that leads to the results. Sometimes
> I see mention of meetings. I don't know where those meetings
> happen.

Exactly. Non-designers want to be part of the process. Reasons behind
decisions need to be written somewhere, but that is not enough.

If a new a developer comes and asks for reasons behind a decisions, I
doubt that the designers, who are already as busy as it gets, can take
time to explain each one who comes over what problem is being solved
via the design and how.
So having design decisions and their reasoning documented would help.
But also as designers it is their responsibility to communicate with
those who still doubt these decisions, starting with those willing to
implement or help out directly. Because if they can explain to those
nearest to them, those can then jump in to help others.

So I think my point here is. Documenting is important but communication is key.

I get it when designers think that they can spend your whole time
trying to convince people of a vision, but at some point something
needs to be done. I agree to a certain extent. But who will do it? The
paid developers. Well this would make us lose the community on the
long run.

We need to work on communication between designers and developers. Build trust.
Designers have to take time and push themselves to be patient with
developers and explain to them seems to them to be trivial facts. Once
developers understand how hard a designers job is they will respect it
and trust in the decisions and vision, even if they don't agree in the
beginning.

But also designers need to work on growing they base. The entry level
is not that easy I guess. We need to work on basics. If someone comes
with designs that are not suitable for us, we can't just pus him away.
The fact that he/she came over to discuss designs with us shows
initiative to contribute. So some slight wording like "You know that
is really good, I am not sure how it can fit in our designs but would
you try taking this view out and show me...." etc...

We are not selling GNOME to consumers only. We are selling the community too.
I like the subject of this thread, because openness does not only
reflect on the decisions making process but also on the openness to
accept new contributors.

Cheers
Seif

>> Of course it would be really fancy if the wiki also contained the
>> reasoning behind decisions, but let's face it - none of us does
>> anything like that (I doubt you are adding comments like "Using a
>> full-blown GObject rather than a boxed type here because ..." or "This
>> variable is a double and not an integer because ..." to your code - I
>> certainly don't. Still, wouldn't that be helpful for newcomers?).
>
> That sounds like exactly the sort of thing I write in my git
> commit messages. I hope you do too.
>
> --
> Shaun
>
>
>
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