[haiku-development] Re: AboutSystem window credits (was: Testing the poll)
- From: "Ryan Leavengood" <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:41:37 -0400
On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 9:05 PM, Jorge Mare <kokitomare@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The credits list in the AboutSystem app is very inaccurate and
> misleading, and IMHO it needs to be rethinked. There two problems:
>
> 1) Team Leads list
>
> By the position in the AboutSystem window and the nature of its name,
> the "Team Leads" list gives the strong impression that includes the
> names of the most active and/or substantial contributors and that
> these contributors are the leaders of the project, respectively. But
> in reality, this is just a remnant of a team-based operational
> structure that the project tried at the beginning but that has been
> dropped many years ago; the list even includes people that have not
> submitted code in a long time, or that have even declared to have left
> the project, and in contrast is missing at least one very prominent
> and active Haiku developers that has been in a position of leadership
> for quite some time. I think the best would be to simplify this list
> as follows:
I agree with this very much and have always been a bit annoyed with
that list, since it is so out of date and no longer reflects the
organization of the project.
> 2) Length of the Developers and Contributors lists
>
> These lists are ridiculously long (and they can only get longer and
> more difficult to manage). People come and go, and there is always the
> fear of upsetting someone if names are moved or removed (this is what
> stopped us from making changes in past attempts to do so). I think we
> need to overcome this fear and in order to make the AboutSystem more
> manageable, we should move this lists online.
>
> To that end, I propose the following format/content for the credits list:
>
[snip]
>
> This would make the credits information accurate, concise, and
> manageable. The list of contributors online could be done in a number
> of ways (single or multiple pages, etc.) and edited over time as
> needed; that way, we would have the ability to present more accurate
> credit information regardless of what Haiku build/version the user is
> using.
>
> Hopefully there is the will to fix the credits this time. Not that
> this is a requirement for alpha 1, but the longer we wait, the harder
> it will become, so we might as well do it sooner rather than later.
>
> All IMHO and FWIW disclaimers apply. :)
I think there is a definite difference between a "contributor" and a
developer, so I don't like the idea of putting them on the same list
(though I don't know if you are proposing that.) I think the
developers with commit access who are reasonably active should have
some precedence in these lists.
I am also not sure about moving these lists completely online. There
is a certain amount of pride (and maybe some ego) in seeing your name
on these lists inside Haiku. It isn't that hard to just link to a
separate StyledEdit file or something. Plus I don't know if it is THAT
BAD having that long list inside the AboutSystem. That could be made a
separate popup window if you want to keep the main AboutSystem window
really clean.
I do think it would also be good to put these lists online, but
organized by release (like Ingo mentioned this list will likely change
between releases.) But the same lists should also be in Haiku. I'm
sure a fairly simple build system module could be made to help keep
the Haiku list and online list in sync. I would be willing to work on
this if people like the idea.
Ryan
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