so Ingo, in all his wilyness, got me into a debate on kde-core-devel over the new-ish address picker in KMail. turns out his REAL problem is that it is buggy. and he's right: there are several issues with it. some of it can be blamed on classes that were suposed to make it into the libs from kaddressbook that haven't, but there is some work that needs to be done, no doubt about it. getting me into a debate isn't all that hard (*sigh*) but the truly wily part about it: i've committed to spending some time on that dialog (which i didn't even write; hi Zack!) this week. huzzah! i suppose that's one way to get 3.2 into shape: debate people into fixing bugs 
on a more serious note.... KDE should openly court developers more...right now the OSS world is largely allowing developers to acrete around the various platforms in a more-or-less "natural" manner, which is to say there is little actual active developer recruitment. i'm not sure exactly how to go about this right now (he says 3 glasses into the bottle of wine), but i do know that we could learn something from Microsoft, Apple and Sun on this one. they all have developer programs, and at various levels they cost $. they all also have active developer promotion programs which they foot the bill for. this is, IMHO, definitely something for KDE's 5 year plan.
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More developers
While I generally support the need for more development effort being applied, I think that we really need to break any recruitment into two or three focussed efforts.
I see there are three groups of FOSS developers:
The "keen amateur" is probably the majority of Free Software effort programmers.
The "focussed specialist" is probably where most of the smaller applications are being developed.
The "day job professional" is probably where most of the bigger activities are being developed.
That is, most of the work on big projects is done by a small number of people who do it all day, every day. Most of the bug-fixes, most of the infrastructure, most of the big apps are the product of a relatively few developers.
A few specialist applications are the product of a single person who occupies most of their spare time with that product.
The "keen amateur" group (of which I see myself as part) tend to float from project to project. I've personally worked on kernel device drivers, ethereal, and a number of little projects. The key issue for most of these project is only having limited time, and relatively low experience with the infrastructure. Of course, "keen amateur" is a normal growth path to specialist or paid professional status.
So when you try to attract developers, it is probably worth trying to work the corporate angle (to get more paid effort) as a priority.
Keen amateurs don't work for cash (although building expertise in the hope of paid work in the future shouldn't be discounted - another reason for playing the corporate angle). They work for prestige, or just for the enjoyment of the task - all the things that ESR almost captured. To draw those people to KDE, we need a low barrier to entry, and a positive and rapid reward system. That translates to excellent developer documentation, no nasty treatment, and a fairly rapid release cycle.
We could certainly use a more cohesive documentation system. I was a fan of Ralf Nolden's idea for a new KDE book (and even wrote a tutorial for it), and was sorry to see it crash and burn before it even got started. Maybe a Wiki based system could help.
The Gnome people apparently had good success with Gnome Love - a beginner developer list. I heard of it when the tributes to Chema were posted, but a recent post by Malcolm Treddnick - see http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-love/2003-November/msg00010.html
captures it well. Worth a read.
We could also try some kind of "mentoring" approach for promising devels, but finding mentors may limit this.
Release cycles are hard to fix. Maybe we can do something about splitting out kdelibs into more stable sections and more changing sections, and do more frequent releases while maintaining core binary and source compatibility.
About courting developers...
We already have a place to support developers creating KDE software and encourage them to contribute to KDE itself: http://extragear.kde.org/ There already are more developers making use of KDE than just the developers working on KDE directly, so promoting the ability to move their KDE apps more close to KDE itself through Extra Gear will also encourage an increase of code exchange between KDE apps and should ultimatively help KDE as a whole. (The way of thinking being: As an 'outsider' you are more likely to wait for others to do the work or be positively/negatively surprised about recent changes, while when you get to see closely what's happening in CVS to the libraries you use you are more likely to contribute your own improvements.)
... an important piece of the puzzle
this is an important piece of the puzzle as it gives developers a place to call "home" while, as you note, getting them closer to the hub of KDE devel. i wrote an article about KEG when it first came out, IIRC.
but much more could be done, and perhaps with time it will. take a look at Microsoft's, Apple's and Sun's developer programs for some ideas =)
::coughs::
Well, to be honest, Aaron, the title had me imagining Ingo as Wily Coyote
Which I guess makes you a roadrunner. Meep Meep!
I do worry that restructuring for 3.2 might be a bit late in the game for this one, though. Can it be done in time without further breakage?
And yes, more developers is good. Soon ( < 6 months ), I'll be free of my PhD and ready to join in, especially in usability stuff.
not restructuring
well, i'm not going to restructure it. i'm just going to try and kill a few of the outstanding bugs. the UI is pretty good (the splitters being the most obviously questionable piece), it's really the code behind the UI that needs some final spit-and-polish. it's better to do that now than later, obviously.
p.s.: it's Wile E. Coyote. all good villians need a middle initial. =)
meep! meep! thup-thup-thup!
Heh
This reminds me of an issue of the Captain Marvel comic, when faced with a villain.
Marvel: "So, what's so evil about you?"
Villain: "I have an evil name!"
Marvel: "Really? How is Fred and evil name?"
Villain: *insane laugh* "Because I spell it with two D's! Fredd!"
Marvel: *gasp!*
You fool!
You've fallen victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well-known is this - "Never go in against a KMail developer, when a release is on the line!"
::grin::
Well, hopefully KMail will be in even better shape for 3.2.