On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:32:34 +0100 Stroller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled:
> > On 22 Jul 2008, at 14:36, Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: > >> ... > >> Sorry to trouble you, but who are these designers, please? > > > > i'll let them speak up if they wish to be part of a debate on this. > > it's up to > > them. > > I'd be grateful if someone @openmoko could be a bit transparent about > this. > > > ... i have technical reasons why i think the > > move to remove any such manual control is a bad thing and have made > > them clear > > often enough. > > This is why openness would be beneficial to the community. > > After all the efforts that Openmoko have made over being open, I am > just amazed that design decisions that affect everyone are being made > in secret. > > >> I think many of us would like to contribute to the ASU, seeing as > >> how it's the future of Openmoko, so this would appear to be a > >> limitation upon community contributions. > > > > as such we are paid by openmoko to do what we are told to do by > > the design > > department and that is what we then do. you in the community can go > > and do your > > own themes and patches and packages and do what u want. > > Openmoko promotes itself as an "open" company soliciting > contributions from community developers. > > That's great! > > But if that means I can only develop apps that run ON the phone - or > if I want to code for core apps then I need to fork - it would be > great if they could say so. > > Sorry to use the alarmist word "fork" here, I don't mean it that way. > > But right now it appears difficult to contribute changes to the ASU > window manager (if I'm understanding correctly that that is the > component which is missing a manual keyboard toggle button). It is > pointless me doing so if I have to maintain this patch all on my own > and no-one else is going to benefit. If I want to add a manual > keyboard toggle button then that's exactly the scenario - if other > people want to use it I effectively have to "fork" the code, > maintaining a whole package or firmware image, simply so people can > download it from my website. it was in fact said that "the community can create their own packages" - so as such you are expected to fork - create modified packages with different config. as such only maybe 1% of the config e/illume has is actually accessible (in a gui) in a sane usable way. can't change wallpaper, can't choose a new theme, can't modify sizes of things, cache sizes, framerates.... this is a design decision, and thus forces you to fork. > >> Where are the design documents which say "no keyboard toggle button > >> should be included", please? If one wishes to contribute code or > >> patches to ASU then I guess it's necessary to know this, or one will > >> find patches rejected because they don't meet this design > >> specification? > > > > well design documents are pretty thin on the ground. i was told so in > > email/irc directly to do this. i had a manual button there > > originally and was > > explicitly told to remove it. > > Right. So right now there's no point in members of the community > trying to contribute patches to core features or functionality, lest > these patches get declined because the designers don't happen to like > them. Even worse is the prospect of you saying "great! this is really > useful, I'll add it to git" and then the community member feeling > disappointed (pissed off) later when you're told to remove it. correct. if you have problems with this - i am not the guy to talk to as it has been made clear that i am just a programmer here. > IMO it's crazy for you (the senior developer to ASU? you're surely > the most active?) to have his hands tied by these shadowy "designers" > who can interfere apparently on a whim. Especially when they're > coming up with crazy decisions that are technically poor!! welcome to openmoko. i get paid to program. i am not a designer (as i have been told) and thus am not qualified to make decisions there (so i have been informed). i am paid to program. so that is what i will do. > On 21 Jul 2008, at 19:47, Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: > >>> ... > >>> the problem is the designers decided that ASU is not to have any > >>> manual keyboard toggle button because it will disturb the design > >>> and/or confuse users, so all apps and toolkits need modification > >>> to talk a "protocol" to bring up the keyboard on demand (no > >>> manual controls). that is why you need to do this. > > They asked you to take out a simple button, in favour of a whole > protocol, when no protocol currently exists? Aside from the points > you make about porting existing (Gnome, KDE, whatever) applications > to ASU, what's the hard in keeping the button until this protocol is > later developed? > > Please would the "designers" speak up so we can flame them directly. > > Presently I think you're misnaming these individuals (this > individual?). A design document is required for a design, so that > everyone can see the rationale for decisions. Everything that's > implemented should have a reason (stated in the design document), and > that a button might "disturb the design and/or confuse users" is not > a rational reason for having broken apps which can't use a bloomin' > keyboard. Making ad-hoc demands for change after the fact is not > "designing" it is *meddling*. i'm keeping out of it. if design wishes to be part of the community, they can. if not - they can stay silent. up to them. -- Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
