ext Ryan Abel wrote: > itT user free was kind enough to compile what basically amounts to a > changelog for 4.2008.30-2[1]
Thanks for the script. > (something Nokia has been promising to do > for 2 years now with zero results). (humble acceptance) > What I've noticed about these > changelogs is that many of them mention Nokia bug numbers in lieu of > actually providing real information on changes. Though typical of > Nokia, this is _NOT_ acceptable. This practice limits deciphering of > these changelogs to people who have access to Nokia's internal > tracker. While this is great for Nokia employees and contractors, this > is not an OK thing to hoist upon the community. Yes, you have a point. Internal bug numbers without description are pretty useless (even for internal use, as Igor points out). Probably what needs to be done though is what Marius recommends: use the news file in the deb package to describe what is really new and interesting for someone else out of the internal development process. > Now, there are a few projects that aren't so bad Let's list them and help getting the excellence they pursue. > but there are others that are about as bad as they could get. Let's list them too, and we will show them the previous list for reference on how a Nokia team can do things right. > I was considering how I might go about filing a bug in Bugzilla about > this, but the problem is too widespread and I don't feel like filling > a bug for each individual project that allows this practice Agreed. > (they'll > just be ignored anyway https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3442 > :\) An additional problem here is that AGPS is not part of the Maemo release but a component developed by another team with its own feedback channel: http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/tag/agps-tablet/ > and a wiki page about it wont accomplish anything. I disagree. Documenting what is good and what is wrong in a wiki page, fine tune the message, add links, summarize discussions... makes easier to push proposals internally referring to a single URL. > So I'm > appealing to this list and any Nokia developers on it responsible for > creating changelogs, or who have any influence over their creation. What is true is that this is one of those things where developers and project managers can improve as much as they want without depending on Nokia processes and whatnot. I have forwarded your email internally for wider distribution. > Please, try not to exclude the community even more from Nokia's > development process, and please stop degrading Nokia's image in the > community. It's bad enough as-is. Ouch. > Now, I realize some things are confidential, and can't be mentioned in > public changelogs, but this exception doesn't apply to open source > packages. At the very least, you could at least provide a bug summary > to go with the bug number (this can be scripted, so "too much work" > isn't a valid excuse), In a worst case, every bug number has a corresponding bug subject easy to copy&paste. > or go the extra mile and provide real > changelogs (perhaps with maemo.org bugzilla bug numbers when > relevant?). This is what probably could be handled better in the news file. > I thank you for your time and consideration. Remember: the community > wants to help, and excluding it is bad for you and bad for Nokia. :) Yes, the theory is clear. Thanks for your patience. > [1]http://p.quinput.eu/debfarm/changelog.html > [2]Actually, let me take this opportunity to CALL OUT the Modest > developers for very poor communication with the community for a > supposedly "open source" project. Their component on Bugzilla seems to > be virtually barren of real Modest-developer participation, and one > only seems to be able to elicit a response from any of them when > they're practically cornered on significant bugs. This is very > unfortunate for what I hope will become a very cool, lightweight, and > open source email client. . . . :( An explanation here could be a coincidence of factors: Dirk was the project manager and was quite open about the development, blogging and stuff - but he changed his role at Nokia and now is elsewhere. Most of the core development was/is done out of Nokia. Philip can answer for any tinymail related stuff since he is public upstream but the Modest implementation is upstream itself and open source, but developed through traditional contractual relations. Another lesson to learn here. If any Modest developer (or any Nokia subcontractor) reading this has ideas for improvement please let us/me know. Thanks again. -- Quim Gil marketing manager, open source Maemo Software @ Nokia _______________________________________________ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
