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Pidgin Controversy Triggers Fork
paleshadows writes "Pidgin, the premier multi-protocol
instant messaging client, has been forked. This is the result of a heated, emotional, and
very interesting debate over a controversial new feature: As of
version 2.4, the ability to manually resize the text input area has
been removed; instead, it automatically resizes depending on how much
is typed. It turns out that this feature, along with the uncompromising
unwillingness of the developers to provide an option to turn it off,
annoys the bejesus of very many users.
One
comment made by a Professor that teaches "Collaboration in an Open
Source World" argued that 'It's easy to see why open source developers could develop dogmas. [...]
The most dangerous dogma is the one exhibited
here: the God feature. "One technological solution can meet
every possible user-desired variation of a feature." [...]
You [the developers] are ignoring the fan base with a dedication to your convictions
that is alarmingly evident to even the most unobservant of followers,
and as such, you are demonstrating that you no longer deserve to be in
the position of servicing the needs of your user base.'" Does anyone besides me find this utterly ridiculous?
I know some will probably tag this as a troll or a flamebait, however IMHO this is exactly why Linux will never be able to really replace either Windows or Mac OS X for desktop usage.
Too many people who think they know better than the end-users, and too much work being done by lots of people on different, competing projects. You need to unite your efforts, not work against each others. This fork is just another proof (and WTH is with that "premier multi-protocol instant messaging client" remark? Nobody uses that on Windows and Mac OS X).
The whole KDE vs Gnome debate is one of the things that keeps Windows on PCs.
Posted as AC because of Linux and OSS zealots.
All too often on software projects, I see someone spend several days figuring out a neat thing to implement that they personally think is a great addition.
...
And when it comes time to remove it they defend it. They may even realize that they were wrong thinking everyone would love it. But they just don't want to give up that code that cost them so much time to figure out and write.
Coding for several days only to realize that you need to throw everything you wrote away is one of the hardest skills for a developer to learn
My work here is dung.
"Does anyone besides me find this utterly ridiculous?"
Depends on what you mean. Do I find it ridiculous that developers are ignoring a sizable portion of their userbase and implementing a feature that many people would like to disable? Yes, I find it ridiculous. Not terribly surprising, but ridiculous nonetheless.
Do I find it ridiculous that it's causing a project to fork? Not particularly. This is supposed to be the one of the greatest advantages of open source; if you don't like the way people play, you can pick up the pieces and start your own game. Silly me, I had secretly hoped that the threat of something like this happening would keep software like pidgin from ignoring its user base. Guess I was wrong.
Just staying AC
But, yeah it's no joke... I gave up on being a test engineer for software after being let go (along with some others) at M.S. because I a would not pass a product with a clearly significant usability flaw. The development said it was by design and a feature. (Very similiar to the resizing functions mentioned above.)
I went and did the numbers and a full quality project, VOC data, etc. I presented my case at a later build. The developer, not having any actual evidence but his opinion, went into a flame war, trying to take me down. Effectively, I was insulting is 'intellegence' and want to 'undo months of work'. When that failed, he called me racist. He won, I got let go. I found out he was let go a couple months later over trying to defend the same 'feature' after a presentation with some higher ups, and insulted someone above him.
These flame wars happen all to much, I've found many programmers have 'control issues', perhaps that's what makes them good programmers; but lousy decision makers.
I'd take this fork as an extreme example of the Open Source world "growing the fuck up," as you put it. The original developers choose not to fulfill a need of their user base, so a new crowd with the wherewithal to do it decides to work on achieving that rather than exchanging flames with the old guard.
If the kid with the ball doesn't want to play fair, you either cry about it, or get your own ball and play like reasonable people. These folks did the latter.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
But if the software isn't written for the users, what is it written for? If it is just written purely for the author's use, then don't bother creating a community. By creating a community with feedback and interaction with the user base, the project is no longer "write a gaim replacement" it has morphed into "create a piece of software for my community." If you don't care about what the users think, don't release the software and build up pidgin.im with its forums and a promise of support and development.