distro nightmares ... can fdom help?

Dale Maggee antisol at internode.on.net
Thu Sep 11 19:35:51 CEST 2008


replies inline..

Franky Van Liedekerke wrote:
> Dale,
>
> I *know* the state of the software, but I don't claim to be a kernel or
> qtopia developer. I have some knowledge in linux (enough to maintain
> some companies with it) but that doesn't mean I can do kernel
> development.
I'm no kernel hacker either, nor am I capable in any kind of linux 
programming (with the exception of freepascal / lazarus). writing a 
small GUI in python is hardly kernel development. Think of it as a 
learning experience - I've become a much better bash scripter since 
getting my freerunner. One day I'll move onto python. then comes "???" 
and "profit!" ;)
>  I would fix the alarm issue myself, but qtopia is kinda
> chinese code to me. And for gui development: I personally am a console
> freak, but when you want your phone to connect to your car, I don't see
> myself typing half an hour on the console of my phone first to get
> things going, so I would like a basic gui (but no experience there
> whatsoever).
>   
Like I said, everyone wants pretty GUIs, but I think that getting the 
low level stuff working properly is probably a slightly higher priority. 
Personally I'd prefer to see reliable suspend / resume before pretty 
GUIs. if you're really desperate for a GUI for something like connecting 
in your car, write yourself a script and make a .desktop file for it
> I expect bug reports to be equally important than the fixes, and my
> bugs are just questions I'm looking answers for, nothing more.
> And I already did a fair amount of wiki search, testing, etc ...
>   
The wiki is known and accepted to be in a pretty horrible state. This is 
something you don't even have to be a python developer to fix. You're 
better off searching the mailing lists [1] and bug reports [2], and if 
no bug exists, create one.
> I'm very sorry not to be a developer though ...
>   
you're not the only one - I'd love to be contributing more!

My point though was more about the tone of your message. I also am not a 
linux developer, and I also was expecting the software to be in a much 
more functional state. I also was expecting a usable phone, which in my 
mind includes reliable suspend and resume functionality, but bringing 
negativity is not constructive and only serves to alienate the people 
who will be solving these problems for you.

-D

[1] http://lists.openmoko.org/nabble.html
[2] http://docs.openmoko.org/trac/search?q=




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