[Compcomm] My ideas (for the record)

[Mike Dransfield]

Alyssa Hung wrote:
> RYX wrote:
>   
>> Am Samstag, den 16.06.2007, 13:28 -0400 schrieb Alyssa Hung:
>>     
>>> I was under the impression that Compiz-Extra was one project, and that 
>>> all non-core contributions and extensions to Compiz had to be a part of 
>>> the Compiz-Extra project in order to fall within the scope of a forum 
>>> hosted on compiz.org.
>>>       
>> Maybe that was one of the many choices during discussion, but I
>> personally wouldn't favor it.
>>
>>     
>>> Are you suggesting, instead, that Compiz-Extra is only what we call 
>>> non-core Compiz contributions in general for the sake of convenience?
>>>       
>> Yes, I think that describes it well.
>>     
>
> Excellent. I'm glad we agree on such an important distinction. ^_^ It 
> seems that Compiz-Extra can be inclusive after all, _if_ the people in 
> charge (whoever that may be) can agree to the definition of Compiz-Extra 
> as a term and not a project. Yeah, I'm nitpicking. But I really don't 
> like exclusiveness.
>   

I say we drop the compiz-extra term now and just use
'community contributions' or something else which is more
descriptive.

Its a good way to stop misunderstandings and we don't really
need it.
>   
>> I fully agree. And I think nobody wants to limit creativity or
>> communication in any way. People should talk and chat about things where
>> they like, but if they have some good ideas they should post them on the
>> forums so everyone can contribute and add suggestions.
>>     
>
> I wonder if we agree on when something should be posted to the forum?
>
> As you said elsewhere in your post, you and Mike discussed and 
> prototyped a plugin extensively before posting it to the forum with a 
> warning that it was still a work in progress. Am I mistaken in 
> suspecting that the pre-forum prototypes were private exchanges between 
> developers?
>   

Yep - There was no point in releasing something which
did not work (or only worked for very contrived examples)

We have first hand experience of how plugin loaders
which do not work can actually be worse than nothing
at all.

We spent weeks looking at and trying to revive the mono
plugin, but we found in the end that it needed much more
work to be useful.

We were both keen to make sure we ironed out the major
bugs before releasing publically.  It would have looked
really bad otherwise.

It also required a few patches to core and I only finalized
them a day or two before releasing it.  There was no point
in releasing the development patches I had because they
were not right plus it would have only led to problems for
users.

> Each developer has their own idea of when they're comfortable enough 
> with a work-in-progress to make it publicly available, I'm sure, so can 
> you really fault someone for making something available too early?
>   

No and for some plugins it does not matter.

As a user I remember the release of the widget plugin.  I
was very happy when I saw the screenshots etc, I was very
very disappointed when I compiled it and loaded it because
it was very WIP and it didn't work at all.

Those sorts of impressions last so personally I like to at least
give things a good go on my machine before releasing.  There
are always problems with other peoples setups though.

Like you say, its down to the developer, but it does not give a
good impression.

The sound effects plugin is a good example of something
which should not be in the public repo *just yet*
> You don't seem to like people who run with an idea before it's ready. 
> That's a valid concern, and you can certainly suggest for those people 
> to be more patient, but it's not right to STOP them only because you 
> disagree. Will there be power plays like that when the whole community 
> has moved on to compiz.org?
>   

Its not right, and theres nothing we can do to stop
them anyway.

I think if we had the special powers to mind control
developers, we would have used them before now ;)

I mean, how would we go about stopping someone
releasing something?

I seem to remember animation was at a fairly late
stage in development before it was ever released. 
How is python any different?

>> I again agree totally :D ... A good example is the python-plugin. Mike
>> and I discussed, tried and prototyped a lot (I guess it were hundreds of
>> mails we exchanged) until we finally ended up with using Mike's approach
>> and dropping my work. We likely duplicated effort during that, but it
>> was important to find out the best way. 
>>     
>
> That's beautiful. ^_^ It takes an honest desire to do things a better 
> way to concede to a competing solution.
>
> There's a bit of a grey area here, though. When is it preferable to have 
> one solution, and when is it preferable to have multiple solutions that 
> do almost the same thing? One could argue, for instance, that the 
> Application Switcher and Ring Switcher are functionally close enough to 
> be the same thing (and in Beryl, they were the same plugin). Is 
> duplication of effort acceptable then? Would it matter even if you 
> considered it acceptable or not?
>   
This is more of a technical good-programming question
and the answer would be that its always best to share
common code.

I think even Danny would agree that ring switcher and
the normal switcher could be combined.

I suspect that something like what has happened with
cube and scale will happen with switcher and ring will
share the important code with normal switcher.
> It would be really nice of you and other members of the Compiz 
> leadership--perhaps "collaboration" would be a better word?--to make 
> suggestions, but not demands.
>
>   
>> I can assure you that there is no compiz-"government" ruling over any
>> part of the community. Everyone is free to do what he likes and nobody
>> is forced to work in any kind of team. The screenlets are a good example
>> - they are somehow related, yet independent from compiz - I think it
>> would be quite insane if someone would tell me how I have to handle that
>> project (and not only because I am such a temptive type of guy :D ...).
>>     
>
> And I don't see any evidence that a compiz-government may be ruling over 
> the community. That's a good sign. :)
>   
>   
>>> You've seen what people have been saying about culture clash? Maybe it's 
>>>   not intentional, but a side-effect of the different people who 
>>> frequent each forum. But what if it IS intentional?
>>>       
>> I don't think it is intentional - it's just human. People are always
>> different and everyone wants to be accepted (or at least heard) and
>> nobody likes to be ignored or told to be shut up. Additonally we have a
>> wide range of different ages among all members, which can cause more
>> "clashes" ... It is absolutely normal that there are disputes and
>> disagreement. We just have to handle it by discussing things to the end,
>> even if it gets quite "hot" somtimes.
>>     
>
> Not only disagreements... It's really difficult to put into tangible 
> terms. Something feels different in the way people speak to each other, 
> virtually look at each other... It can be caused by a LOT of factors. 
> Colour. The fact that I'm not familiar with these people. The 
> (un)evenness of distribution of people across different threads. The 
> lengths of the posts, and how the content relates to those lengths. 
> Every forum has idiosyncracies like this. It may well be something that 
> I just need to get used to.
>   

I feel someone may have an intrest in philsophy ;)

I thought we were supposed to be the serious inward looking
ones...

> It's encouraging to hear your attitude toward disputes, though. I've 
> been to forums where threads have been locked and people have been 
> banned for less. All the better if Compiz forums aren't like that. :)
>
>   
>> Nothing about compiz is official, I guess (maybe except compiz itself
>> but I wouldn't call it like that). The compiz-community forums and
>> website "belong" to the community. Nobody will tell you what to do, you
>> just have to respect the general guidelines (which is pretty much the
>> same in any other forum in the world). There are categories/forums for
>> many different topics, if a category is missing there is no problem with
>> adding it by public demand. I am always open for suggestions.
>>     
>
> Haha, imagine that! The notion that Compiz is official is a great part 
> of what's been getting under my skin. That we must be careful not to 
> tarnish its image, that there are expectations for everyone to behave 
> themselves in a corporately-sanctioned manner, that there are rules that 
> aren't supported by the community...
>   
You notice that the opencompositing forum HAS rules.

We do not have any formal rules at all (or even informal
ones that I know of)

>   
>>> The disorganised chaos that we are currently purported to have fits like 
>>> a dream... Organised or not, it's comfortable. I pray that the 
>>> administration will not try too hard to rehabilitate us if we are to 
>>> move to compiz.org.
>>>       
>> What do you mean with "comfortable"? And, if I get you right, in which
>> way is the current compiz-forum uncomfortable then? Could it be that it
>> is only because of the difference between phpbb2 and phpbb3? That will
>> be changed once phpbb v3 is stable enough for using it (@all: please, no
>> discussion about the term "stable", a release candidate is not stable).
>>     
>
> It's hard to say exactly why forum.compiz.org feels uncomfortable 
> without being there. A combination of factors (see the bit about culture 
> clash, above).
>   
Its probably because you have never been there.  A new house
always feels unconfortable for the first few weeks for the same
reason.
> What I can say is that I don't feel obliged to keep up artificial 
> appearances on either opencompositing.org or #opencompositing. People 
> can be unprofessional and undisciplined and be no worse for wear. Nobody 
> has to project an image that other people will be likely to approve of. 
> I've personally responded to posts that got threads locked or got people 
> scorned, and felt perfectly fine doing it. It's almost like exclusion is 
> not only absent, but irrelevant.
>   
Hmmm, maybe you should have a look at the thread
started by Kristian about Davids coding style and the
mega-function.  The response was not exactly professional
or disciplined.

I don't think anyone has ever been banned or even scorned
for expressing an opinion.  If you are rude to people then you
are more likely to get it returned than be banned for it.

Threads are rarely locked unless they become so tedious that
we have to lock it for peoples sanity.  They are generally the
ones that went in circles.

>> Concerning the "rehabilitation" - as far as I know nobody wants to rule
>> anyone here. As long as people stick to the forum rules everything
>> should be alright. Or do you intend to misbehave? ;) ...
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Rico
>>     
>
> You won't like me when I misbehave. :P I should hope that I don't find 
> any reason to walk down that path.
>   
I don't think you'd like us if you misbehaved ;)

> ~Alyssa
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