[Compcomm] Forum Decision

[RYX]

Am Freitag, den 11.05.2007, 02:11 +0200 schrieb Kristian Lyngstøl:
> Replying in private because I don't want to participate in a flame
> war, feel free to reply in public if you're positive :)
I hope you really don't mind that I do :)

> 
> On 5/11/07, RYX <ryx at ryxperience.com> wrote:
> > What happens to compiz.org? Is it now deprecated? I don't understand how
> > exactly the new forum is meant to integrate with the compiz-website - if
> > it is at all. If it isn't - what do compiz users do if they want
> > support? Go to the opencompositing-forums? That is a highly
> > unprofessional presentation of compiz and its greatness.
> 
> I'm not sure what will happen, but the need for a new site concept
> seems obvious. Integrating a site and a forum isn't really a big deal;
> It takes time and effort, but it's not something you (or others) will
> have a problem with, I'm sure.
> 
> As you know, it was agreed to use a new name for the common project.
> We should have choosen this ages ago, but people were too bussy
> fighting :(
Yes, that's true.

> 
> > And what do we do if the community has finally chosen a new name? Move
> > everything again? Rename all forum topics? Rename the entire folders,
> > files and comments in git? Rename all packages? The name "compcomm"
> > appears so often that one could think it is meant to last forever.
> 
> I forsee us using opencompositing.org for a while. What the final name
> of the product will be, is hard to tell, but switching a domain isn't
> a big issue, if you really think about it. As for CompComm, right now,
> it looks like by not taking a discussion on a name, we're being forced
> to use a temporary name which will lead to one of two things:
> Confusion when we find the "real" name, or the temporary name
> becomming permanent.
> 
> Either way, this won't really have any long-lasting effects; The most
> important point in the naming-discussion is to get a name ready well
> ahead of the first release. Most users won't use our software until we
> have a release ready.
I am pretty sure that you won't be able to stop the packagers from
packaging what they can get ;) ... The problem I see is that everything
in the git repo is named something with "compcomm" - all that stuff
needs to be changed later and it could have been avoided by simply not
using compcomm in every folder/file-name and comment. However - I
appreciate the work of all people involved in setting up the
developer-infrastructure.

> 
> > On the one hand people talk about no duplicated effort and on the other
> > hand they do things over and over again - that is not the type of
> > organization this project needs. The git-repo is a total mess, too.
> 
> People don't allways agree...
> 
> As for the git repo, it's fairly easy to use from a developer point of
> view. There are a lot of repositories, but users aren't expected to
> use them directly; developers are.
With mess I mean that there are personal repos, plugin-repos, app-repos
and more mixed up in one folder. Maybe I am a little bit pedantic when
it comes to sane folder organization (I'd propose to at least put the
personal repos in a subdir).

> 
> > I know that you see me as the unconstructive troublemaker anyway so I
> > don't expect you to understand my point. I just don't agree that much
> > with your future vision of the project. Compiz as a project has (had?) a
> > somehow professional attitude while "compcomm" doesn't appear much like
> > that in many areas (not in all).
> 
> I don't see you as unconstructive, I see you as frustrated, and we all
> feel that way. I can understand all your concerns, but I think it's
> important for us all to step back and look at the bigger picture, at
> what the vast majority of our users think. And the vast majority isn't
> even aware of the merge yet. Most of the users are still confused by
> the difference between Xgl, AIGLX, Compiz, Beryl, GLX and TFP....
Nice to see someone understands my feelings :) ... I guess stepping back
and looking at the bigger picture is what I do all the time - and
currently this bigger picture is looking worse than it should (at least
from my viewpoint).

> 
> As for how proffesional the compiz community was, all I can say is
> that you had it easy. The compiz community never had to deal with the
> issues of the Beryl community, like a serious trashing on the forums
> (this is not meant as an offence, or to belittle your efforts). Most
> of the people working on Beryl were focused on code and functional
> services for the developers; We never really used that much time on
> the web site, wiki or forum (Err, the web-guys might disagree, but
> would guess that you personally have used a lot more time than the
> Beryl guys working on the web and wiki). As such, the wiki was a mess
> (in my opinion, please don't quote me too harshly on that ;).
I guess "professional" was the wrong term - let's say "solid". And maybe
a bit more mature than the beryl community. But I didn't meant to
compare the communities - that is up to everyone's personal opinion.

> 
> The compiz site was/is tied better together. I still wouldn't consider
> it too good; None of the sites are clean enough for me to actually
> like them, but this is personal preference. I like simple sites and
> I'm no easy customer if you really ask for criticism... But if I had
> to choose, I'd pick the compiz site any day of the week.
:)

> 
> > I don't want to complain all the time but I can't understand why we
> > should simply accept getting a "compizified" beryl-project as new
> > replacement for compiz. The current state of what some people refer to
> > as "compcomm" is by no means acceptable as a full replacement.
> 
> Patches are welcome.
> 
> That's really all I can say. Until the compiz-people start actually
> working for this merge, you can't really complain about the result.
> And I'm not talking about the forums or web page...
> 
> I don't really mean to be offensive, but the fact is that the beryl
> team has done and continues to do far more code-related work than the
> compiz team (minus david) ever has. This will obviously have an effect
> on the result, but I wouldn't consider it an alternative to just not
> do anything.
I think you underestimate what Mike and I silently did in private
because we have no shared repo (and are only two people anyway). 

We (maybe Mike more than me) are heavily working on the python-plugin
and I think we have at least 10-15 example plugins ready. The
python-plugins can do virtually anything the C-plugins can and they are
NOT noticably slower. The loader only works with the git-version so
there is no stable release yet, otherwise we would have setup a git-repo
for it ...

Further I am still working on the compizutil-module for python - the
metadata-change introduced some bugs I will hunt down as soon as I have
time.

The basic problem is that we can't and won't simply adopt all stuff from
the old beryl-project and then use it instead of our own stuff because
we have quite different ideas of what is good and what is not. That
leads to some kind of permanent disagreement from our side because I
feel ignored in some way ... It's just that the beryl-devs are not the
only ones who spent a lot of time thinking about their various solutions
to actual problems.

> 
> If you're unable to code, I suggest participating in the new forum,
> and using the "compcomm" code and making constructive comments on what
> you are seeing. So far, I've seen very little of that, and it is a
> good way to influence how the end result will be, specially at a time
> like this.
The problem is that we (i.e. the compiz-community devs) generally had
plans about the settings-system and how to handle the lack of
settings-tools. The beryl-devs have their own idea of that. I accept
that we have diverging ideas but both sides are way too stubborn to come
to an agreement. This leads to the situation that I either drop my work
and use the (formerly) beryl-code or silently continue with what I did
before (which leads to more confusion and duplication). I don't know
what's best in that case ...

> 
> A little example: I've never worked on the settings system, ccs or
> libbs, beyond small typo fixes. Using CCS, I noticed a lack of
> multi-screen support in the frontend. By mentioning this to Dennis, he
> ended up implementing it the very same evening.
> 
> That was just a little thing, but it's all these things put together
> that'll let you really affect the end product.
> 
> I guess what I'm saying is: If you want your voice to be heard, don't
> tell us what we're doing wrong or what not to do; Tell us what you'd
> like to see done.
I get the point and you are right in some way. But I'd like to see that
things are discussed first and then implemented well (that doesn't
really apply to smaller bugfixes or additions) - not implemented and
re-implemented and re-implemented until they work ...

I don't want to tell anyone what to do, I sometimes just want to stop
people from making wrong decisions.

> 
> We're all interested in this thing working out as well as possible,
> but there's a few points that some of us won't budge on; A new name
> and forum is one of them. As such, it won't help to complain about the
> cons of a name change, we all know there are a lot of them, but
> instead we should try to figure out how to do this best. It's not like
> some of us is sitting on all the answers, so your criticism is a
> little hard to handle (And I don't mean in a feeling-related way, but
> in a strictly practical way).
That's true - we need time. That's why I don't understand why there are
pseudo-announcements made that the compiz forums are wasted effort and
such (maybe I misunderstood the message). Unless we haven't completely
created everything we need for the new project we shouldn't think about
dropping a working forum full of valuable information.

> 
> We simply don't know the answer to all your question(s), because there
> isn't an easy one. We'll have to figure it out together, and you're
> one of the persons I hope will be able to help.
I never wanted something else, but sometimes someone has to take on the role of 
the "bad boy". 

I think if we two finally can talk in peace (which we actually seem to
do) then everything is possible ;) ...


Regards

Rico