lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/12/2011 04:03 PM, Lance wrote:

> "Please don't make extra work for our scarce and overworked developers :)"

> I've honestly wondered about that for some time now. While I'm no
> dev by any stretch of the imagination I have been involved in Ubuntu
>  iso-testing for well over 3 years, and recently the number of 
> "suggestions" regarding Lubuntu here at the mailing list have been 
> almost overwhelming.


Most of them have to be either ignored, or responded to with a short
response saying why they don't really make sense for this cycle, or
can't be done for lack of resources, or whatever.

> How much time has this taken away from fixing actual bugs or
> implementing meaningful change?


I don't know if anyone is measuring this.  Personally, I've been
deliberately staying off IRC lately, to try to focus on other things and
operate on my own schedule and my own priorities, rather than helping
others out when they need it.  That's a personal (and perhaps somewhat
selfish) response to increased work responsibilities, and to some health
scares that are lead me to try to take it easy and relax a bit more
outside of my work :)

Actually, though, my earlier statement about "don't make extra work" was
directed more at the "please keep me updated" request, than at the
actual suggestions themselves.  We can't afford to ignore our end users,
or ignore really good ideas from people who don't happen to be
developers.  There's a balance that has to be found in this.

I think Julien's idea of (re-)creating teams, including a "Comm Team",
which as I see it would help in handling both internal
(within-Lubuntu-community) and external communication (wikis, web, press
releases, etc) could help both maintain a sense that Lubuntu cares about
its users, and avoid asking too much of its (very few) developers.  As
currently envisaged, there would be four teams:

 * Dev Team (Packaging, Coding, Breaking)
 * Support Team (IRC, Documentation, Testing)
 * Comm Team (Communication, Blogs, Artworks, Events)
 * Translation team (Translations)

There is, to me, a somewhat unclear distinction between some forms of
support (IRC and online documentation) and some forms of communication,
which I think we may need to figure out (unless it is clearer to others
than it is to me).  I'm not sure whether helping out web forum users
would fall under Support or Communication (or both?).  But overall I
like this approach.

Jonathan