Before I respond to this post, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am quite calm ... at the moment ... and not responding from any anger, angst, personal animosity etc. Having said that, here we go "
one last time with feeling..."
ecomoney wrote:The top linux "just works" livecd/starter distro should be able to open Word Documents in a world where 98% of them are created with M$ Word.
Yes it should ... and it
can and does do precisely that! There must NOT be an overstatement of the degree of the problem, any more than a misstatement that a problem actually exists in the first place! That just deprives the devs of their right to choose what most needs their attention. Keep doing that and you end up getting no attention at all!
Consider this; Abiword in Puppy opens all versions of Microsoft Word document formats, from the archaic Word for Windows right through to Word 2003. The only one that Abiword in Puppy doesn't open correctly first time every time is the most recent, most hashed about format introduced by Microsoft - the Word 2007 .docx format. Heck, even Microsoft Word 2003 doesn't do that without a patch!
Sure, there was a problem in Abiword with some Word documents containing some changed fonts that was introduced without our knowledge by the Abiword team. Stuff happens. We addressed that issue immediately it was discovered and released a patch virtually straight away. There was a link to the location of that patch posted on the download page at puppylinux.org within 24 hours of it going up at the forum. How long did Word 2003 users have to wait for Microsoft to release the patch to allow them to open 2007's .docx format? Months! How big is their development team? You do the math!
ecomoney wrote:Whodo should spend less time denying there are problems, "shooting the messenger", and more time fixing them. I should spend less time feeling the need to respond to his repeated abdications of responsibility.
I have NEVER denied there were bugs in 4.2; heck I even started the threads to allow them to be posted and I started the thread where the patches and updates to fix them were posted! On the subject of fixing bugs, I have made it clear from day 1 that I am not a bug chaser or a bug fixer. I am a project coordinator, nothing more or less. How can anyone "abdicate responsibility" for something when they never had it in the first place?
ecomoney wrote:I understand you are a "newb" when it comes to software project management, for which you have no formal training, so the mistake is understandable. You should at least have some knowledge by forum ettiquette (and personal responsibility) by now. As overall project co-ordinator the buck stops at you, and you share both the pain and the praise. Thank you for volunteering.
Then your understanding of this issue, as with everything else so far IMHO, is entirely incorrect! I have never posted my resume for you or anyone else to critique. You are making assumptions that you have no foundation for in fact, as per usual in my experience. I will not be drawn into any silly debate about my qualifications, especially with someone whose track record of performance in the role here is virtually non-existent, despite repeated references to their alleged vast experience and seemingly impeccable qualifications for the task! Reasonable people will judge me on my actual performances for Puppy, and not by some arbitrary and presumptuous benchmark of whether or not I possess this or that qualification for the role.
ecomoney wrote:It was discovered in the investigation that many of the bugs in 4.2.0 had been previously reported in the Alpha/Beta/RC stages, including the abiword one that was included relatively late in the testing process. It was explained they were missed because the of the linear nature of the single bugreporting thread made it difficult to track the bug reports to conclusion/resolution.
Citations please. Who explained? Where did they explain? How many is "many"? Certainly there were reports of some bugs in the development stages of 4.2 that weren't resolved by the time that 4.2 Final was posted. That can certainly happen, but it had nothing to do with "
the linear nature of the single bugreporting thread"! I certainly don't recall ever making that excuse for any of my perceived "failures" where 4.2 is concerned.
The fact is that I made it my practice to troll through each and every one of those Bugs & Fixes threads, post by post, checking off bug reports against fixes provided, before posting each subsequent release. Could I have missed some? Sure! OTOH, most were picked up, patched up and sent packing! I filled a notebook with my checknotes in the process. If any bugs didn't get fixed it was most likely because they weren't on any of the dev's radar at the time. How is that possible? We are a team of volunteers. Volunteers do what they can when they can! We are NOT Canonical, Red Hat or Microsoft! We can't swing in a team of expert developers to handle a specific problem any time we feel like it!
ecomoney wrote:Ttuxxx had the (IMHO excellent) idea to switch to a "thread per bug" approach as one of the conclusions of that investigation. This makes it easier to track the bugs and tick them off when they are completed, so they wont get released with the distro.
Well it MIGHT, but only if people post "bugs" and
nothing else. No-one wants to wade through pages of complaints to find the one genuine problem that can be addressed. Flooding the "bugs" forum with what YOU or your users consider are "bugs" is NOT the way to win friends among the terrific crew of developers who volunteer their time and expertise to fix such things for us.
I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall trying to get you to see that what you are doing is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE to the very aims you claim to espouse! It is not what you are saying but the way you are saying it and the annoying frequency with which you repeat things! The "squeaky wheel" philosophy only works for a very short while before the mechanics get fed up with greasing it and condemn it to the scrap heap!
ecomoney wrote:I would suggest, as this section is designed simply for bugs, the following notation
[BUG=1/10] Bug, and the perceived severity of that bug (on a scale of 1-10) from a "Linux Newbs" point of view.
I'm sorry but that is patently absurd. Why would a developer pay any attention to a "Linux Newbs" assessment of bug severity, assuming the "newb" even knew what a bug was? Time and again you have proven the point that what YOU perceive as "critical" someone more experienced may consider relatively "minor".
And before you start tugging at people's heart strings and trotting out the old stories of how important Puppy is to your poverty-stricken clients, and how opening .docx files could be a life and death problem in Scunthorpe, this isn't about
perceptions its about
reality! The time any of our devs has available is always, ALWAYS limited, but you want them to effectively waste what little time they have with something that can be easily resolved by applying a quick patch or a modicum of education, while other problems that may have far greater overall impact remain untouched?
Let's take a case in point; the so-called "mouse wheel bug". We all know that is nothing more than designed behaviour on the part of the JWM window manager, not a bug at all. But your "newbs" THINK it's a bug, and that's what matters, right? So you want a talented dev like Patriot to spend what little spare time he has to donate to Puppy in recompiling JWM-2.02 to remove that "feature" simply because you don't think your "newbs" should have to learn how to deal with it? Tell me you can see just how ridiculous that is!
Now to recap: I have responded to your post thoughtfully, have I not? I have not resorted to any form of personal abuse, isn't that so? And despite your clearly unflattering characterisation of me, my experience and my willingness to accept the responsibility of my position as Coordinator, I have not retaliated in any way, shape or form, isn't that so? Assuming you can accept the facts of that, please stop trying to drop forge the role of Project Coordinator or me into
your particular idea of what is right or ideal. No-one can measure up to that level of "perfection", and I have no intention of even trying. Take it or leave it; your choice.