Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com> wrote on 13.04.2007 04:23:24:
> Talden <talden@gmail.com> writes:
> > To improve this situation.
> > - Users need to stop complaints about as yet unfinished issues or
> > worse, suggesting that contributors are spending time on issues they
> > shouldn't.
> > - Project Admins need to provide a means for Users to express their
> > most important issues in a visible manner.
>
> Oh, I don't think anyone was complaining about where the developers
> spend their time -- at least, I didn't interpret it that way.
>
> But regarding your second point, I guess what I was trying to say is:
> We already know that these are important issues. This mailing list is
> a terrific information source, and at this point all the developers
> are surely aware that true renames, 'svn obliterate', and a few other
> things are at the top of the most-requested feature list. So if we're
> not working on all of those things (at least not all at once) it's not
> because we don't appreciate how important they are to users, it's for
> other reasons (mainly the need to concentrate on one thing at a time).
>
> If you complain about X but no one does anything about X, does that
> mean no one heard you? Not necessarily. Sometimes it just means no
> one can help with X right now. I think that's what's going on here.
Karl,
I couldn't agree with you more, and I think this brings us to the core of
the problem. AFAIR by your own words one of the most important aspects of
Open Source project is communication and acknowledgment, and I agree. But
I think that this should not only apply to open source developers, but
also to user. Now, many of us lurk on the developers list, and know what
is being worked on and how hard, but majority of users don't. Now, there
are a few manager roles on the dev list, so maybe it is time to include
another one - the "communication with the user base manager" position,
whose task would be that prior to each release (or once in a while) would
tell the user the user list:
- the planed features for the next release,
- what's being worked on
- why those features and not the others. What is hard and what is easy.
What takes lots of time and what not. What is (at the moment) important
and what not.
That way the users will know someone is listening and will not feel left
out.
Br,
---
Miha Vitorovic
Inženir v tehničnem področju
Customer Support Engineer
NIL Data Communications, Tivolska cesta 48, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Phone +386 1 4746 500 Fax +386 1 4746 501 http://www.NIL.si
Received on Fri Apr 13 09:00:33 2007