Denial is powerful thing...
Denial is powerful thing...
Posted Feb 23, 2012 11:50 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: Forced upgrades? by nim-nim
Parent article: Changes and complaints
Don't drink the Wallyesque kool-aid, sometimes the developer complaining (should I say boasting?) about the 'impenetrable wall' is even the same person as the packager that pushed the problem version in the distribution.
It does not make wall less impenetrable, sorry.
If you move users from distros to somewhere else the software won't be any less buggy or incomplete and the reports any less numerous.
Sure they will. People who consciously install and test nightly builds tend to produce much better, and more importantly, more timely bugreports.
The same upstream bugs that go unfixed for years are duped by Fedora people, then Suse people, then Ubuntu people, then Debian people, following the deployment calendar of the problem software versions in various distributions, you can see the waves of dupes that occur when an version is deployed by a new distro, and it has nothing to do with any particular distro and everything to do with plain unappealing software bugs.
Absolutely not. Most bugs are fixed pretty fast. What is not fixed are particular design decisions: should we merge this two dialogs or keep them separate, should we sort everything before showing on screen or should we rememeber old position, how this or that key combo should work. And by the time Fedora people, then Suse people, then Ubuntu people, then Debian people, following the deployment calendar of the problem software versions in various distributions start complaining it's always way too late: design decisions are approved and work is complete. You can try to fix them but then you'll get the feedback in a half-year or so when Fedora people, then Suse people, then Ubuntu people, then Debian people will start seeing new version. Which will trigger yet another wave of useless bugreports.
This is the same problem as with ISVs, really: nightly builds of the software are in the same position as out-of-the-tree ISVs software and since there are no easy way to deploy independent packages for ISVs there are no easy way to deploy in-development package for usually-in-tree software.
Solid projects are *happy* to see their software used in many different contexts since that helps identify difficult-to-trigger bugs (see this year's FOSDEM LibreOffice presentation, the many times Linus stated how happy he is to see the same kernel used on many archs and from embedded to big-iron, etc).
All projects are happy to see difficult-to-trigger bugs, no matter who finds them and where (they are especially happy to see reproducible difficult-to-trigger bugs, of course). What they are not happy to see is avalanche of pointless bugreports which question some design decisions long after the time of when these decisions were discussed, tested and implemented by a project. And distribution's main-in-the-middle role is important in breaking traditional alpha-beta-release cycle employed by developers of other platforms.
Posted Feb 23, 2012 13:16 UTC (Thu)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (5 responses)
ROTFL. I run rawhide at home. Sometimes versions are pushed to rawhide hours before they get pushed upstream (because the rawhide packager is also the upstream main developer, and the rawhide process is faster than the upstream process).
That changes zip in the way problem reports are treated. Instead of ”your software is too old” you get:
Instead of “the decision has been taken a long time ago, it's too late to change it” you get “real users that do not run development distros will think otherwise” or “you'll see the awesomeness of our design once it has matured” responses.
And when the same problem hit more stable distros, and users do not find the design decisions awesome at all, and point out the very same problems than me months before, do they get a “we should have fixed that before, it was reported a long time ago” answer? No, they get exactly the excuses you just wrote.
Please climb down from your ivory tower.
(And I should also point out that some projects do take into account early bug reports, and they are also the same ones that take into account late bug reports, or reports against another distribution, and you never see them complaining loudly that distributions put an impenetrable wall between them and their users. They are awesome, even if they never make headlines discussing why they are entitled to ignore their user's feedback).
Posted Feb 23, 2012 16:08 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (4 responses)
Of course. Why should it change anything? Now you have unstable, constantly moving system which includes god knows what. IOW: developers sensibly expect to see how their work behaves in isolation. This is how alpha/beta software was (and is!) always tested everywhere except in Linux world. And you are most definitely are not forced to participate in beta testing, but then, when the product is released, you are stuck with decision fixable at beta stage. Sure, integration testing is important, but this is separate issue. It's not a replacement for plain old testing. This, again, is separate issue. This is the question of what is better: CADT model of handling bugs or bugs open and forgotten for years. I myself prefer bugs which are open for as long as it's needed to fix them (just recently bug which I've opened on GCC tracker was fixed... five years after I've filled it), but different people have different preferences. Funny that users of other OSes (and there are more of them then users of all Linux Desktop goodies combined) don't think we work in ivory tower, only Linux people expect that we need to jump through 10 times more hoops to deliver software to 10 times less people. One example: check this instruction. See the supported versions? Right: five year old and two year old compiler. Brand-new half-year old one is not even mentioned (today it's over year old and is supported... in experimental mode). The same with Mac (half-year old Leon is not even mentioned) and the same with Linux (GCC 4.6 is not supported yet. You may run into some build errors (and patches are welcome to fix them). Please see http://crbug.com/80071 before you proceed.): an aforementioned bug is actually fixed but I suspect recommendation to use older GCC will only be officially lifted after release of Precise Pangolin. Distribution are supposed to help users with installation of software from the repo - and this process works reasonably well - but the fact that each release has it's own repo actively hurt ISVs (because there are no process for installing anything NOT in the repo) and the fact that some pieces developed by said ISVs end up included in the distribution does not change the equation much. In the end it hurts users as well because many of them just want one or two bleeding-edge pieces - but this is basically impossible to organize in the distributions-driven world. Some software is backported in various PPAs, but this is half-hearted effort at best: there are no way to even deliver software to Ubuntu users using PPAs unless you'll build 3-4 different packages and other distributions require still more work. As I've initially: I'm not saying that distributions are all bad, they certainly solve some real-world problems. But they also introduce some scalability problems with their "all or nothing" approach - and this hurts everyone: ISVs, developers of upstream packages and users. In fact this is why GNOME3-like upgrades are met with such hostility: in the distribution-driven world you only have two choices: In Windows world half-backed Windows ME and Windows Vista were just skipped and people went straight to Windows XP (after suitable hardware upgrade) and/or fWindows 7 - but they had access to all "latest and greatest" goodies in the meantime. In Linux we have huge flamefests instead. You said it best yourself: it is easier to shoot the messenger than to fix problems.
Posted Feb 23, 2012 19:11 UTC (Thu)
by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470)
[Link]
Posted Feb 23, 2012 20:05 UTC (Thu)
by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
[Link] (2 responses)
No, some developers want the luxury of dedicated tester drones, while rejecting for themselves the support constrains of traditional development houses. That's basically why the relationship sours now.
Everywhere except in the Linux world is where testers are paid to test instead of providing a free service.
Everywhere except in the Linux world is where desktop beta testing is opened to valued and respected customers – in the Linux world salespeople of paid-for distros will point customers to their community distro for beta testing, and then when they'll start reporting issues they'll get told by the developers of said distro “sorry, not good enough, go away”. In fact those developers seem to deliberately target a userbase that is nothing like the one that finances their employer, small wonder the whole thing seems to never go anywhere.
Everywhere else in the Linux or free software world, people try to do their best for their current users, no questions asked (and those users usually contribute bits back in some other part of the free software ecosystem, it's a a big family). But some projects that grew out of this ecosystem have decided things were better “everywhere except in Linux world”, with all the empathy a spoiled teen has for the rest of his family.
Posted Feb 23, 2012 20:46 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (1 responses)
Have you ever participated in said beta testing programmes? If you try to push changes of the magnitude people demand from Linux Desktop developers then you'll just be laughed out and perhaps excluded from future testing. If Microsoft decided to go with new interface then this is what you'll get and no amount of complains can change that. Sure, you can offer some ideas about how to make it better, but the big decision itself? Unchangeable. This is what the parent article is all about. Testers are usually paid when product is sold for $$. Free products don't always have dedicated testers even everywhere except in the Linux world. This happens elsewhere, too. When there are not enough existing users (or when their numbers is dropping fast) they often are abandoned and new, incompatible, offer is presented (usually to the loud choir of complains). Some of the changes are successful (think Netscape to Firefox transition, or MacOS to MacOS X transition), most are not (PalmOS to webOS transition or Sinclair ZX to Sinclair QL). Of course only Linux Desktop developers think it's good idea to do such major changes without offering coexistence period, but as I've pointed out before this problem is blown out of proportion because of "all or nothing" approach to software practiced by Linux distributors.
Posted Mar 2, 2012 17:34 UTC (Fri)
by wmf (guest, #33791)
[Link]
Denial is powerful thing...
> tend to produce much better, and more importantly, more timely bugreports.
– “I don't run a devel stack myself, please use old stable versions for everything but my own code and reproduce” (if you can't be bothered to run the early code of others, why do you insist users should run yours before you deign read their reports)
– “your software version is too new, we'll wait to see if there is still a problem later in stabler versions”
– “please retest or I close this report” months later (by someone who clearly never bothered investigating the first report)
Denial is powerful thing...
I run rawhide at home. Sometimes versions are pushed to rawhide hours before they get pushed upstream (because the rawhide packager is also the upstream main developer, and the rawhide process is faster than the upstream process).
That changes zip in the way problem reports are treated.– “I don't run a devel stack myself, please use old stable versions for everything but my own code and reproduce” (if you can't be bothered to run the early code of others, why do you insist users should run yours before you deign read their reports)
– “your software version is too new, we'll wait to see if there is still a problem later in stabler versions”– “please retest or I close this report” months later (by someone who clearly never bothered investigating the first report)
Please climb down from your ivory tower.
1. to accept new interface right away when it's not yet refined enough, or
2. to reject the change - and be stuck with obsolete versions of all other programs.
>>> In Linux we have huge flamefests insteadDenial is powerful thing...
It's easy to access brand new software, even when you use an old distro. I installed Debian Squeeze on my laptop but I use Firefox 10.02 and LibreOffice 3.5.
It's a one clic install.
Denial is powerful thing...
> This is how alpha/beta software was (and is!) always tested everywhere
> except in Linux world.
Denial is powerful thing...
Everywhere except in the Linux world is where desktop beta testing is opened to valued and respected customers – in the Linux world salespeople of paid-for distros will point customers to their community distro for beta testing, and then when they'll start reporting issues they'll get told by the developers of said distro “sorry, not good enough, go away”.
Everywhere except in the Linux world is where testers are paid to test instead of providing a free service.
But some projects that grew out of this ecosystem have decided things were better “everywhere except in Linux world”, with all the empathy a spoiled teen has for the rest of his family.
Denial is powerful thing...