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Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Preferences (topic was touched in "Eclipse smells kind of dead" thread)

+1 to what Doug is saying.

 

All the discussions that I have seen are either about being more responsive to the community (faster release train) or better understanding the community. This is exactly the type of the common good that Eclipse Foundation can and should help with.

 

- Konstantin

 

 

From: cross-project-issues-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cross-project-issues-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Doug Schaefer
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 12:50 PM
To: mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx; Cross project issues; 'Mickael Istria'
Subject: Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Preferences (topic was touched in "Eclipse smells kind of dead" thread)

 

Thanks Mike. Spot on. But I do have one comment with all due respect.

 

I'm not sure why we're always expecting companies to drop bus loads of developers into projects when we have a pretty healthy individual contributor community already at Eclipse. In fact, over half of CDT contributions of late are coming from individuals, not companies. And it's really coming from users who have the skills to contribute back and not only make their lives better, but others as well, and get rewarded by seeing their work on the big stage.

 

So really, the changes I'm talking about, more frequent release cycles, creating a list of features and bugs we'd like fixed, is aimed at attracting more individuals to the party. And I'm pretty sure there are some companies who would like to see the same. Create the buzz and companies may take another look.

 

And I can't help consider even the time people are putting into responding to this thread, that we do have resources available to move the yardsticks forward. And I think we already have…

 

Doug.

 

From: Mike Milinkovich <mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Organization: Eclipse Foundation
Reply-To: "mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx" <mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Cross project issues <cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, 17 July, 2013 2:58 PM
To: 'Mickael Istria' <mistria@xxxxxxxxxx>, 'Cross project issues' <cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Preferences (topic was touched in "Eclipse smells kind of dead" thread)

 

Mickael,

 

These are general comments, and are certainly not meant as a criticism of you or Red Hat. You guys are very helpful in a lot of critical areas. That said…

 

I could imagine the Eclipse Foundation doing something along these lines. But I am not really sure it is of much value if there are no resources to work on things. The status quo for quite some time has been that there are insufficient resources helping on the platform to make the progress we all want. Actually, it’s not just the platform: it is pretty much everything under the topic of code and processes involved in the “common good”. Has something changed in these areas to warrant the EF to make such an investment?

 

In addition to the above, it seems that a lot of the user issues I’ve seen are specifically related to the Java IDE. We can talk all we want about how Eclipse is a general platform and there are many tools and languages supported, but for the vast majority of users the Java development tools is what they mean when they say “Eclipse”. The Java IDE is another area which has felt under-resourced for a long time. Are there resources – including user experience resources – available to make significant enhancements there?

 

Complaining about the status quo is always good sport. Actually showing up with the developers necessary to make and maintain those changes is how we tell who’s serious around here. I am certainly not going to have the EF promote a bunch of changes to the release train process, the EPP packaging process, end-user feature analysis, etc. unless the people and companies calling for change actually commit some long-term resources for both the enhancements and operations needed. Or alternatively they can demonstrate that the people currently keeping these processes together are happy to make some changes.

 

If anyone wants to educate me about how there are new resources available, or how existing resources can be re-allocated to make some significant progress please feel free to contact me either publicly or privately. I would _love_ to see improvements in all of these areas.

 

Mike Milinkovich

mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx

+1.613.220.3223

 

From: Mickael Istria [mailto:mistria@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: July-17-13 11:53 AM
To: mike.milinkovich@xxxxxxxxxxx; Cross project issues
Subject: Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Preferences (topic was touched in "Eclipse smells kind of dead" thread)

 

On 07/17/2013 04:29 PM, Mike Milinkovich wrote:

If we’re looking for user feedback, reading the article and comments here[1] would be helpful.


Gathering the feedback and reacting to it based on end-users request is not something Eclipse contributors generally excel at doing. The main entry-point for contributors is Bugzilla, which doesn't reflect the real concerns of most users. I guess having the Foundation gathering such external feedback and create reports per project saying "Here is what people like and didn't like about your project in the last 3 monthes" could help project to identify what is critical for better adoption.
Is this something we could imagine the Foundation to provide ? Does it make sense?

--
Mickael Istria
Eclipse developer at JBoss, by Red Hat
My blog - My Tweets


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