Re: Question to GNOME Foundation Board candidates

[Alexandre Franke <afranke gnome org>]

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 8:38 PM, Daniel Espinosa <esodan gmail com> wrote:
> ** How do you address negative campaigns from *users*? There are a response
> on blog.gtk.org, but developer oriented not user oriented, then there are
> few diffussion about GNOME technologies goodness and use in other projects
> (including KDE).

First of all, as they say, "haters gonna hate". You can do all you
want, there will always be a vocal minority that is going to complain.
This interview is by the way an interesting read on the toxicity of
communities: 
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/239318/More_carrot_less_stick_Jeffrey_Lin_on_tweaking_League_of_Legends_player_behavior.php

This is not really a job for the board. This is something every
community members should do, as individuals. This is something I do
when I man the booth at events such as FOSDEM. When people complain,
talk to them, try to make them say what the real issue is to have a
constructive debate, try to see how you can help them. File a bug for
them. Talk to the relevant developer about the issue. Teach them how
they can actually do what they are trying to achieve and show them how
beautiful GNOME is. If after all that they want to use something else,
I don't see a problem with that. If they keep complaining but don't
want to actually say what the issue is, too bad for them. "Help me
help you" has been a favorite phrase of mine in such circumstances.

> ** Are you planning to produce a "User Experience Road Map" for GNOME? In
> order to help users see how they will be beneficied with GNOME's
> infraestructure and/or libraries. I mean, how, for example, Gtk+ changes and
> roadmap, is going to help users to get the best of their favorite Desktop
> Environment.

This is a technical matter and as such, not a job for the board.

> ** Are you planning to involve GNOME Foundation or sign an alliance with
> other non-profit organization, in order to support developers fixing users
> requested bugs/wish lists/fix beheavoir of GNOME related projects? Check at
> [1]

Now that's something the board can work on. It's a difficult topic
though, and I think a way to sum it up is that throwing money at a
problem doesn't necessarily fix it.

Even if an issue people complain about is technically fixable, that
doesn't mean you'll find enough users willing to spend money on it to
make it interesting to work on. Even if you manage to gather a pool of
users willing to spend enough to make solving a given problem
interesting, that doesn't mean you'll find someone who actually
qualifies, is available and wants to take on the task. Even if you
manage to find that person, that doesn't mean that the code they will
produce can actually get merged. These are just a few of the issues
that you'll face (and that others have face before).

To conclude while staying in the GNOME Board of Directors campaign
context, I'll say that this is definitely something I'm interested in
and I'll be happy to participate in discussions on this topic and push
the Foundation in the direction of "issues getting fixed, users
getting happier, and people getting paid to work on that".

-- 
Alexandre Franke
GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director