UI Discussion

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 10/21/2009 04:10 AM, Owen Taylor wrote:

> But *not* so people can sit here and run down the list of planned
> changes one by one and debate them. (If you think there is
> secret cabal that does that inside Red Hat that sits and does that
> in a meeting you are wrong.) 

Why do you think people get that impression? I think the answer is
obvious. It isn't clear where these changes get discussed and who
decides to implement them.  A ad-hoc process doesn't scale well beyond a
set of people sitting in the same room. I remember learning to package
stuff for Fedora before our current packaging guidelines were published.
It involved catching hold of a Red Hat person in IRC and nag him till he
gives you some hints on getting started and then somehow get your
package building. If you want to delegate tasks or allow other people to
participate, a more formal process really is required. Yes, it is a pain
in the ass and takes a lot more time but that's the price you pay for
more transparency.

> If you want to be part of the Fedora desktop team, don't worry about
> whether you are being consulted on every individual decision. Nobody is,
> whether they have a @redhat email or not. Worry about what you can be
> working on to make the desktop better. If you doing cool things to make
> the desktop better and you are being ignored, and you aren't getting
> those cool things in, complain! And if you want to help, and have the
> time and skills to help, and its not clear what you should be doing to
> help, complain about that too.

Yes, it is not clear how people should help. The recent flood of UI
changes very close to the end of the development is suggestive that
people in the team aren't able to find time to work on this earlier.

Like I said, this in part a failure to spend cycles growing the external
community of people.  Simple things like asking for help if you are busy
can make a difference. If you are willing to cede some control over to
other people, then let me volunteer to do atleast the simple updates
that will free up people in the team to do other more important and less
boring things.

Rahul