The Okular team has never been all that big. Recently we lost Pino as the maintainer. His reasons are his reasons, but I can't say I blame him. I can personally no longer tolerate the level of abuse that we're seeing on bug reports. The latest example is Wishlist item 157284
I'm unsubscribed from the okular-devel mailing list. I'm not going to be in #okular. I'll still look at XPS bugs if I notice them.
It is difficult to leave. I really do care about Okular - I gave quite a lot of my time to improve it. It is a really nice application. However every time I looked at some bug comment insisting on a change (in something like the GUI that is subjective in the absence of actual usability study), I get disheartened. Even when I'm supposed to be working on something else, it gets to me. I've got better things to work on, where I'm not seeing that level of criticism of volunteer efforts.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in Okular, especially Albert and Pino for their maintainership, Piotr for the initial work, and Tobias for some inspirational work on the generator side.
Best wishes to Okular and its happy users.
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Thanks for your work!
I also wanted to say, that I love okular. Especially the navigation features! It's sad when a developer has to leave for such reasons.
I write myself a tiny plasma applet. Not much but its used by quite a few people. I've also got ranty requests (for binaries!) and a lot of duplicated feature requests in the forum (I have a bugtracker on bitbucket.org and linked it on kde-apps.org!). But I just ignore that. Features I don't like I don't implement. But if someone sends me a good patch that adds this feature as an option, I usually include it. Especially if its something tiny like making something hideable. Granted, this leads to a bit of a messy configuration dialog. Not very streamlined or adherent to HIG guidlines. The config dialog is actually to big for the eee pc (at least I got that told by users). I have to redesign it someday. Well, my applet is not part of KDE and so I don't have to worry about that.
I agree
If someone as a volunteer doesn't want to work on Okular, that is their perogative. I will thank them for their current contributions and not try to demand anything else from them. However, I really don't see that bug request as being abusive.
Someone kindly opened a bug request for a feature they wanted. Someone submitted a patch. Several people voted on it, and provided use cases (netbooks with 480 pixels) where the patch might be very useful.
Several users said they wouldn't be opposed to an alternate solution. They just wanted a means to go more full-screen when viewing content.
Considering KDE is also getting ported to phones, tablets, etc, and considering Aaron's comments on understanding the KDE SC is moving to a variety of devices, I think the request was very reasonable.
I don't see it as abusive in the least.
And for what it is worth, this is my #1 wish for a new Okular feature, .lit support.
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158113
What is definition of quickly enough?
First I do feel for the developers who are frustrated. As a developer albeit on a different platform I can understand the feeling of not being appreciated for the effort put in especially when that time was donated free of charge. My question though is, what IS normal implementation time for a fix? If someone is asking for feature changes and then complaining the code isn't being written fast enough I can see the developer being upset but in this case the original requester DID provide code. Isn't that what we always tell them? "If you don't like it the way it is then how about getting involved and finding a solution yourself.".....ok so they did that.....and 2 years later the patch is still not included and no alternatives are suggested. It's a given that in a commercial environment this would NOT fly but what processes are in place to get patches in that don't come from the "core developers".....at what point do enough people get frustrated and fork the project suddenly causing "okular-SSV" (Small Screen Version) to appear that DOES incorporate all these patches? Is it really ok for a obviously highly desired USER feature to sit for two years when the code was handed to you day 1?
I'll be honest and say I would have probably patched the codebase myself (it's not hard to apply a diff even for non coders) and uploaded it somewhere like "swiftfox" did to firefox......why did swiftfox come about? Because folks wanted architecture specific compiled versions of firefox....could firefox have provided them? Of course....opensuse build service will generate whatever versions you tell it to generate among other options.
In the end I have understanding of BOTH sides and my question is simply this....if this request was handled improperly (and I mean the original request...not all the followup posts) how SHOULD it have been handled to get it implemented and not ignored for so long? If the developers did not have time to implement the small patch what path did OUTSIDE developers have to do the work themselves and then have a code review? It looks to me like providing the patch WAS asking for a code review but maybe I missed something.
perhaps some answers?
"how SHOULD it have been handled to get it implemented and not ignored for so long?"
I honestly don't think that in this case that was something the reporters had much control over. Without becoming pro-active, joining the project and taking the lead (e.g. getting a commit account and working on the source code with other Okular developers) which isn't exactly realistic, there wasn't much more to do. There were/are other issues at play with Okular, including ones that have me personally very frustrated with various groups of people (no, I won't go into details on that here; it's neither the time nor place).
"If the developers did not have time to implement the small patch what path did OUTSIDE developers have to do the work themselves and then have a code review?"
Nobody has to do anything, but if you want certain results there are faster and slower ways of accomplishing it. Getting directly involved is often the faster way.
"It looks to me like providing the patch WAS asking for a code review but maybe I missed something."
Yes, it was looking for a code review. What is probably being missed here is that Okular was not in the healthiest of places (note the mention of another developer leaving in Brad's blog entry; that hints at things).
So then what, right? Well, if you aren't directly involved you need to either become directly involved, be as patient as required and show respect in the process (which didn't happen in that bug report) or walk away and vote with your feet for some other piece of software if it is really that bad.
Additionally, we need to ensure that projects like Okular don't get to the point where they aren't capable of handling such a simple bug report.
This is not made easier by the demanding, loud and often quite obnoxious users who circle around KDE's blogs, bugs database and news articles. It is made easier by the helpful and positive (if even not always in agreement
users who do.
So we all have improvements to be made, and in this case it was a situation of the people in the bug report simply not realizing that there may be more in the world of Okular than their particular need at that time.
I agree
I completely agree with you. It's sad that this matter ended with developers and some users frustrated but having read all comments on Bugzilla it seems to me that the original report and beginning or the discussion is respectful. Then, as you said, someone even provided a patch and lot of votes made clear that this particular feature was missed. Perhaps this could have been turned into an opportunity to get additional developers.
But after more than two years with the patch and demand for a solution no definitive answer was provided. I won't defend the lack of respect and violation of the code of conduct by some users and I understand the frustration suffered by the developers but I can't help but think the handling of this bug report wasn't appropriate. It really could end in users getting angry and/or forking. And no, I don't think appealing to good behaviour would change anything. People are people and you can't control how they'll react, so it would be better to be prepared to face situations like this in addition to trying to avoid them in the first place.
I'm sorry!
I love Okular, and I'm really sorry to hear about this loss (and I wasn't even aware of Pino's one). I left the development of okular many years ago but I'm still in strong love with it.
As a side note: CUT the Bugzilla <-> development-list link! It's noisy, it breaks the flow of development comments. I read the archives of the past months.. everybody can feel Brad's pain by looking at that, please separate the development mailing list from the bugzilla's rants.
Best Regards
Enrico
Agree and disagree
Thanks for all your work on Okular. I use it every day and love it! It's sad to see that some people (in the bug report) aren't as polite as they should. It's also understandable that you guys get fed up when criticism is all you get.
But nevertheless, I can't help that I also agree with kamikazow in his comments. I've read the bug report and even though it's not a big issue for me at the moment (don't have any netbook yet), I would love to have this feature implemented. I'm no user interface expert, but nonetheless, I have a good feeling of what works and what doesn't for me in some applications.
Even if not as bad as some of the other comments in the bug report, your comment isn't in any way polite either. "Opinions don't really count for much." Why write something like that? Just to get the report submitters angry? Just to indicate that you don't care what the users think?
"Do you have any usability research that evaluates this issue?" Yeah right, that's the right way to answer people who come with suggestions.
You could have written something like "I really don't feel this is something we should implement. We have done lots of usability research, and making it possible to hide the bottom bar doesn't fit into our current approach." It would still be quite controversial but it doesn't say "why did you even care to suggest anything, we know best, and we don't need any input".
In the end I would just want to point out that it usually is because someone loves or cares much about an application that they go through the trouble of submitting a bug report. A bug report's nature is that it point at something wrong or missing in the application. Therefore many bug reports can sound a bit harsh, and I don't think it's the right media to give credit to the developers? Keep also in mind that when pointing out something you don't like, it's easy to be harsher then intended. (I'm not defending those using indecent language, just trying to say you should interpret the comments in a positive way.
human limits
"I'm not defending those using indecent language, just trying to say you should interpret the comments in a positive way."
There are limits, and they can be reached over time through a continued abrasive contact with people. When added to the weight of a project that has other struggles to deal with (in this case Qt Printing being a huge one), people will reach their limits.
That's why it is important that we watch out for each other a bit more, I think. To catch it before such limits are reached. To ensure that there is civility on bug.kde.org (right now there is far too little of that).
I'd also suggest lecturing someone on how to be Good when they are feeling frustrated enough to leave is really poor timing. Let them get to a point where they aren't so frustrated _first_, and then maybe we can work on improving the interactions they are responsible for with them. Otherwise, the risk is that it just adds to the frustration already felt and the person hardens even more to the idea of ever being involved again with the project.
Thanks for the kind words
I was probably wrong to use an example. Its the pattern, not a single report, that did it to me.
Thank you!
Hi there Brad!
I was googling around for some pdf tools and bumped into your post.
I just had to register because I felt I needed to thank you for your hard work. It's very much appreciated. I use Okular every day at home and I love it.
Although I use Adobe Professional CS4 Suite on a Mac at work for everything involving viewing, creating and managing documents, I've never felt that Okular was inferior when it comes to opening and viewing documents!
So you should be proud, man! There are people around the world who appreciate what you and the other KDE people are doing/have done!
Greetings from Serbia!