Re: communication

On 23 Mar 2003, Owen Taylor wrote:

> I think perhaps the term "communication" here is not really representing
> the real problem. The real problem we've seen is perhaps one of 
> interest.
> 
> In general, beyond Keith and Jim (and to some extent Mark), I've seen
> very little interest among XFree86 developers in:

  That's because hardly anybody has these skills.  X developers
are not a dime-a-dozen.  It's not like XFree86 is a company
who can just go out and hire people to fill these deficiencies.

>   [...]
> 
> Now you might say that the current XFree86 people were too busy 
> with hardware drivers and general bug fixage to worry about this
> sort of stuff, and that nothing is keeping other people from
> getting involved.

   Yes I would say that.  It's also a the case of expertise.
I write graphics accelerator drivers and have experience in
X-server architecture, but strictly on the output side ( I
don't know anything about input drivers, or the loader, config
file parser).  This is what I do professionally, this is what
I do as a hobby for XFree86.  I best server XFree86 in this
capacity.  I am not effective at many other parts of the server
and I have to defer to the expertise of others there.  You
can't fault driver people for not participating in ICCMM (or 
whatever it was called) stuff (don't even know what it is). 


> 
> But the fact that nobody other than Keith was working on these
> issues and getting stuff into XFree86 makes one wonder about structural 
> problems; from my perhaps biased perspective, this stuff is really
> a lot more interesting than support for flavor-of-the-day of some
> chipset, so you'd think that interested developers would be 

   You've got to be kidding.  You think I write drivers because I
find them boring?  You think everybody finds the stuff that
you're interested in interesting?  


> crawling out of the woodwork. Perhaps the problem is that
> without current developers around to discuss, and review changes
> in this area, there is no way for developers to become engaged
> and eventually trusted.

   You have features you are concerned about.  Keith has the
ability to implement them.  That's good.  I don't think that
the fact that Keith is the only person who is an expert in
those particular areas indicates a structural problem.  It
just indicates how valueable and rare Keith's skills are.

> 
> Anyways, I just wanted to give some more details on where I see the
> problem; it's not necessarily that people are shutting their ears
> to the needs of the desktop, it's just that the needs of the
> desktop (other than for a working X server) don't seem an 
> interesting problem for the bulk of XFree86 developers. 
> 
> The desktop projects don't just need the assurance that they
> can mail [email protected], they need the assurance that there
> will be someone there paying attention.
> 

   I don't think organizational changes can make people more
interested in things that are beyond their expertise, or that
they find just plain boring.

   I understand the problem you are having, but it seem to
me that it's more of a problem of there being too few people who know 
this stuff, than a problem of people disrespecting the needs you have.


			Mark.