Re: The Gnome-libs wars

[jacob berkman <jacob ximian com>]

On Wed, 2001-08-29 at 09:51, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
> The really, really easy solution is to post all changes to the list
> and discuss them;

this still doesn't address the issue christian brought up which nobody
likes talking about, which is the fact that there is no shared vision on
where gnome(-libs) should be going in the future.

people work on gnome for different reasons.  which is good, because that
means that some people like doing things other people don't (eg, i find
doing swedish translations quite difficult whilst i don't mind playing
with configure.in).

it's also bad, because people may just be interested in their
sub-project, or in the goals of their sub-project such that working with
them is difficult etc.

so, maybe we should take steps to arrive at a common vision.  this would
allow us to all work together better (does anyone actually enjoy the
constant bickering that plagues our project?), and also to have a better
"product" - since we can work *with* each other rather than against.

so, thinking about the goals of the gnome project, there's 3:

	a)  spreading the free software message etc. etc.
	b)  building a nice end-user desktop environment
	c)  building a nice development platform

i think we will all pretty much agree on these.  which one is the
highest priority will vary amongst us, but i think these are what we're
aiming for.  it's also pretty useful to build b) on c).

however, how we arrive at these things is not so well agreed upon.  

there are some people who want to push the bonobo vision of gnome, and
others who want to steer away from it (and i suppose there would be an
in-between ground also, and also people who don't really care).

these two views are at times at opposition with each other.
interestingly enough, people of both views consider themselves to be
working on and for gnome.  and this is really apparent each time the fun
gconf / bonobo-conf debates come up.

i don't know how these make everyone else feel, but i tend to get pretty
frustrated and depressed when they end up on the lists.  but eventually
they temporarily end, as people are tired of it, but the issues are not
resolved, which means they'll come up again and again, further wasting
time and causing bad feelings.

the suggestions for an RFP or discussion on mailing lists of individual
issues aren't going to help any, since the main conflict remains
unresolved.

please read that last sentence again, and try to think of a way to solve
the real problem here (i don't have one yet, but i'm thinking).



jacob
-- 
"OOH!!!  Look at me!!  I'm Jacob Berkman!  I have a witty .signature
 that nobody fully appreciates but myself!!"  -- Anonymous