how to make things better(tm)

[John5342]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 16:20, Rex Dieter <rdieter at math.unl.edu> wrote:
> Mike McGrath wrote:
>
>> Alternatively, the KDE SIG could stop ignoring the problems that were
>> caused this week by the updates they released.  Even an "I'm sorry I broke
>> your desktop" would go a long way.  The update the busted my desktop
>> happened on a pretty vanilla install, I suspect lots of users experienced
>> issues.
>
> To be clear, no one is ignoring anything.  (What a silly thing to say?...
> well, maybe not so silly... means there's a bad pr/perception problem. :( )
>
> Like most any group making hard decisions, the KDE SIG bases them on the
> best information available.  Fact is, we extensively tested this new version
> for over a month, and every serious issue/blocker that was reported or
> identified was addressed prior to releasing this.
>
> Unfortunately, it seems there were more problems than what we were aware of
> when the decision was made to do the 4.4.0 (stable) update.  Yeah, that
> sucks.

Yes there is the odd regression and i have been bitten by the odd one
over time myself but in the vast majority of cases i have had no
regressions at all by the time the updates hit stable. If i wanted an
absolutely rock solid distribution and desktop there are plenty of
other choices out there but i have personally found the improvements
with each update to far out weigh the very occasional regressions and
bugs (that mostly includes the betas and rcs from kde-redhat too).
Keep up the great work.

> So here we are in a bit of a pickle, with many unhappy folks.  Brain dump on
> "how to make things better(tm)" (or for you glass half-empty folks, "how to
> make things suck less(tm)"):
>
> 1.  Improve communication.  Seems there's a bit of disconnected between kde
> sig plans/intentions and the expectations of some significant portion of
> other fedora contributors and user-base.  Also, continue to work toward
> making constructive feedback the obvious and expected norm.  Clearly define
> what this is, and it's intrinsic high value.  imo, folks like to know that
> they are being heard, and to feel that their constructive participation
> yields positive results.
>
> (dunno about everyone else, but this, to me, seems to be the biggest
> "problem" at hand)

A simple way to encourage constructive input from users on both the
state of play and providing more bug reports might be to regularly
(perhaps even daily as soon as a significant update comes along) to
post a list of all the bugs that are reported against the updates
(both blockers and not). That might encourage people to report bugs,
give people an idea of what kind of problems to expect during testing,
feedback from users about what they consider blockers and what not,
give users an idea about how close things are to being released. All
of this information would then be useful for during the meetings to
decide if the updates really are ready in the eyes of the end users.

> 2.  better and more testing.  Work more to tap into ongoing fedora
> qa/testing efforts.

That can never hurt although i would say the testing provided by users
of kde-redhat already provides more useful feedback than the qa team
probably has the resources for.

> 3.  adjust plans/policy wrt kde upgrades.
>  a. implement kde stability proposal as is (to limit 4.x type upgrades to at
> most one per fedora release)

If you do one update like that per release than you may as well do the rest.

>  b. simply do new 4.x versions only for fn+1?  pros: less chance to disrupt
> current installations.  cons:  pushes off the problems to users upgrading to
> fn+1.

I generally keep up to date with the latest release but i would say a
better balance might be just to implement everything in the next
release and kde-redhat as is currently done. Then in the latest
release and just perhaps leave the updates for the most stable release
in testing just a bit longer to make extra sure regressions are fixed
as best as possible.

>  c.  defer any sig decisions, wait for fedora-wide fesco policy/guideline

In my opinion most of fesco has lost it's mind even contemplating the
recent suggestions. Please don't destroy one of Fedora's greatest
strengths for the sake of some morons who want Fedora to be RedHat
with a different colored hat... I am getting fed up of Fedora's latest
identity crisis and if the KDE SIG just turns into a sheep then that
would be the last straw for me.

> ....
>
> 99. profit.
>
>
> -- Rex
>
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>



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