On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 12:23:17PM -0500, Larry Stotler wrote:
On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 6:20 AM, Egbert Eich <eich@suse.de> wrote:
Let me say it this way: If you tell a free software developer working on a specific project you want this and that feature in the project he will most likely only do something for you if he cares about the feature too. If he isn't intereseted you are on your own - but hey, it's free software, you can do something about it.
You can if you are a programmer and have the time to do the work. Or you can HOPE that someone else will step up, which often doesn't happen.
Yes, indeed. [...]
Lack of ability is the biggest problem. At least for someone like me.
One thing that has always bothered me about open source(and this is something I'm dealing with now with a project to convert a business to open source & linux) is that the open source people promote it as being a better alternative. However, if I switch someone to openSUSE from Windows because they need program A or feature B, and then the maintainers decide they aren't going to update it anymore, then you've pushed away an important new user. Plus, a lot of new stuff like KDE4 just doesn't have compelling reasons for old timers. I totally understand the need to attract new people, but if you are pushing people away then you have an almost static situation instead of a net gain. Of course, you can't cater to everyone, but it is a problem.
Yes, I know how this feels. I've fought this battle quite often and lost. For a relatively small crowd (like us at openSUSE and Novell) it is close to impossible to keep things around if a much larger crowd decides to change or abandon them. On 11.2 SaX2 has been deprecated but it works (as good or bad as it did on 11.1). I doubt that making this announcement earlier would have changed the situation significantly.
Personally, so long as the alternative works, then I'm not complaining. BUT, when things are promised but not delivered it creates a problem for the community. KDE4 was supposed to need LESS resources than KDE3 and that evaporated real fast. Now everyone is just told to upgrade(which is very difficult for some people considering the shape of the economy in the world today). Some, like my son, like a lot of the new stuff in KDE4. Others like myself just see the fluff and don't see the point in it when we just want something that works and is stable. KDE4 is finally becoming stable and more usable, but it was a rough road and many decisions were made which hurt it(and not just by the devs. distros that pushed it out way too soon like Fedora should have known better).
In the end, an open source project still needs its community. The developers put this stuff out to encourage people to use it. If they aren't going to make a commitment to maintain it without a viable or better alternative, then they are in some ways hurting the uptake of open source software, and uptake is something we all want to see continue. That's why we are all here. Devs and users alike.
It often doesn't work that way. Devs often have high flying goals and discover in the end the hard way that they cannot deliver. Cheers, Egbert. -- Egbert Eich (Res. & Dev.) SUSE LINUX Products GmbH X Window System Development Tel: +49 911-740 53 0 http://www.suse.de ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org