Compromise

Posted Jun 8, 2009 20:39 UTC (Mon) by kevinbsmith (guest, #4778)
In reply to: admonition systems by zooko
Parent article: Okular, Debian, and copy restrictions

I'm disappointed at how many folks here have either taken the absolutist stance "It must be removed or disabled by default" while many others take the opposite absolutist position of "No change needed or desired." Where is the compromise? (Kudos to the several people who have advocated some middle ground).

I read (much of) the bug thread, and see that JohnG (the original bug reporter) did agree to the compromise of having an advisory dialog with instructions for how to disable the feature. The KDE maintainer (Ana) said no, and actually explained why doing this would be somewhat difficult technically, at the package maintainer level.

So in my mind this compromise clearly should be pushed upstream. Oddly, neither the Okular user web page, nor the Okular KDE web page seem to have any links to any sort of bug tracker. So I can't tell what the upstream developers may have said about it.

If a reasonable effort has been made to persuade upstream to compromise, then I guess I would favor Debian taking action. The most reasonable technical action seems to be disabling the option by default. However, the maintainers disagree with that. I'm no Debian expert, but that seems to leave two options: Live with it, or create an alternative package with new maintainers.

It's frustrating when an issue like this is painted in stark black and white, when in reality there seems to be a very reasonable compromise available...and when some folks on each side seem uninterested in being reasonable.

Compromise

Posted Jun 8, 2009 21:23 UTC (Mon) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (5 responses)

But the Okular application _has_. Help->Report Bug.

And, of course, it's bugs.kde.org, which is the place where all KDE
applications track their bugs.

Never reported upstream?

Posted Jun 8, 2009 22:51 UTC (Mon) by kevinbsmith (guest, #4778) [Link] (4 responses)

"Of course". Sigh. As if everyone in the world knows that. I'm neither a KDE nor an Okular user, but perhaps someone could suggest that they update their web sites to have links to their bug tracker.

I checked bugs.kde.org and couldn't find any bug report for this issue. Perhaps I missed it somehow. If not, hopefully someone will create one. Seems like that should have been the first step when the Debian maintainers marked the issue as wontfix.

Never reported upstream?

Posted Jun 9, 2009 7:43 UTC (Tue) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes, of course. If you are a normal user, you use the menu to report a bug. You don't go traipsing
all over the internet in search of a bug tracker, since you don't know what a bug tracker is.

You, Kevin, are not an ordinary user. You are posting comments on lwn.net, you know what a bug
tracker is, you know that Okular belongs to KDE. Of course you are not really so ignorant that you
cannot think of going to http://www.kde.org and see find the link that is clearly marked "Bug
Database".

Never reported upstream?

Posted Jun 9, 2009 12:35 UTC (Tue) by kevinbsmith (guest, #4778) [Link] (2 responses)

Perhaps I would like to evaluate the Okular community (including bug reports) before deciding to install the application. Perhaps the bug I want to report is that the app won't even start up. There really are valid reasons for the project web site to link to the bug tracker.

As for thinking to look on kde.org: I was curious about Okular, not KDE (I assume is possible to run one without the other, as with other KDE apps). It honestly didn't occur to me to look on the KDE site. Apparently I'm more ignorant than I thought

And sure, I don't really matter because I'm not (yet) an Okular user. Clearly the best response to my suggestion for how to improve the site, as well as my suggestion for a possible way to resolve the frustration of many users while also fixing a public relations problem, is to insult me. Ok. If that's how the Okular/KDE communities wish to be represented, so be it.

Never reported upstream?

Posted Jun 9, 2009 13:08 UTC (Tue) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (1 responses)

You know, normal people don't feel the need to "evaluate" the community before installing an application, especially not "including the bug reports". That alone marks you as Not a Normal User, but someone who can be expected to be a little more flexible and knowledgeable. And no, that is not an insult either. (And if Okular crashes on startup, you also get a nice window that helps you file a bug report.)

If you really had wanted to make a suggestion instead of scoring a silly little point at the tail of a silly discussion on a news website, you could have, like, contacted the Okular team directly. There is quite a prominent link on their website to http://okular.kde.org/contact.php, which gives you plenty of ways to contact them and ask them to add a link to bugs.kde.org.

So, you could, very easily, have made just this little suggestion of yours, without resorting to phrases like:

" Oddly, neither the Okular user web page, nor the Okular KDE web page seem to have any links to any sort of bug tracker. So I can't tell what the upstream developers may have said about it."

Because it isn't odd -- it's just an oversight, most KDE applications don't have a link to the bug database because that's in the application menu. It is seldom needed. But it didn't make it impossible for you to figure out what the upstrream developers might have said about, because a) there have been links to their opinion as expressed in blogs and b) you could easily have reached them because the means to do so are prominently displayed on the okular website.

Never reported upstream?

Posted Jun 12, 2009 6:41 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

> You know, normal people don't feel the need to "evaluate" the
> community before installing an application, especially not
> "including the bug reports". That alone marks you as Not a Normal
> User, but someone who can be expected to be a little more flexible
> and knowledgeable.

I recognize that you are not trying to be insulting by insisting that people such as me who do this are abnormal. However, you are being insulting.

There's nothing wrong with researching something you're going to invest in. It is a matter of thoroughness, care, attention to detail, and of course interest and available time, rather than normality or the lack thereof.