On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:32:11 +0200, peter sikking <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:> Raphaël wrote:> > I would like to temper this a bit (not agent provocateur as gg,> > but maybe devil's advocate): a team that is too rigid about its> > vision and never adapts it over time runs a real risk of> > becoming irrelevant after a while. On the other hand, having> > no vision at all or ignoring it and running like headless> > chicken is usually worse.> > I agree that a product vision, like a national policy,> should be reviewed every, say, 5 years. Do realise that> when you chance the the vision, that you restart, from zero,> a process that takes about 5 years. And thanks for saying> that ignoring the vision is worse. We also have to be humble and remember that writing down the currentvision only took us a couple of hours, not 5 years (basically one hourof discussion at LGM plus some e-mail exchanges while we werepolishing the minutes). Again, I am playing the devil's advocatehere, just trying to counter-balance your argument: I agree with thevision and I think that we should all follow it; however, I also wantto be realistic and not see it as a sacred thing that is cast instone. > > But one should always balance the interest of the few who are> > targeted by our product vision with the interest of the> > majority of the users who are not necessarily part of that> > vision.> > Few? there are millions of users within our vision out there.> And if we work to make GIMP represent this vision coherently> in the UI, then GIMP will become a viable, natural choice for> the people we want to use it. Sorry, but I have to disagree here. If you just look at the part ofthe product vision that says "GIMP is ...", then it could apply to alarge number of GIMP users. But if you look at the context of thevision (which is not explicitely written in that section, but is partof the "Targeted user base" in the meeting minutes and the "userscenarios" + "expert evaluation" on gui.gimp.org), then it is clearthat the vision is targeted at experienced, professional users. Thisis at best a small percentage of the current GIMP users. As I wroteelsewhere, our current vision is rather elitist (the vision itself orhow it is usually referred to). Again, there is nothing wrong withthat because this is usually the only way to have real progress. Butwe have to acknowledge that the vision (or the way we use it) istargeted mainly at a minority of users. This minority is almostcertainly the most interesting subset of our users, but it is aminority nonetheless. > And I thought that we all understand that there is a> choice of several free software programs out there for> users who want to do simple red-eye removal from their> holiday jpegs. Unfortunately, until that choice really exists this is a moot point.Basically, there is currently no good free software alternative toPhotoshop Elements or even to the simple program (proprietary,Windows-only) that was delivered with my camera and allows one toquickly browse images, correct red eyes, exposure or color casts,crop/resize images and view/edit metadata. F-Spot comes very close todoing all that, but still has some weak spots that require you to useGIMP, Krita, mtPaint or Paint.NET for adjustments. Many of the quickactions provided in Photoshop Elements (which comes bundled with somecameras) are not available in any free program yet. Again, I am not saying that we should do all that and try to solve allproblems in GIMP. I prefer to stick to the current vision. I am justcontinuing my devil's advocate role and stating that you should notclaim that there is a choice when the choice does not really exist. > > In other words, a decision that provides a small> > improvement for the target users but implies a significant> > regression for all other users should be considered very> > carefully.> > Actually in this case it the other way around. There is> a significant improvement for target users, with clarification> of image degradation of everyone, and little or no regression> for the lossy-jpeg users. We seem to disagree on that, but maybe it is better if I address thispoint in a reply to your previous message. > > Again, to temper things a bit: this was only a subset of the> > developers present at LGM last year (GIMPCon 2006, see the> > minutes at http://developer.gimp.org/gimpcon/2006/ and read> > the section "GIMP Vision").> > This is a slippery slope. If anybody can excuse themselves from> the vision when they personally do not like the logical outcome> of applying it to a hairy UI design question, and bang in their> "yeah, but what about me" feature into svn, then we are back at> the headless chickens state. Unfortunately, you skipped the part of my message in which I wrote:"It is always possible for someone to propose someting that goesagainst the current consensus and hopefully convince others that thisis the right thing to do." The last part (convincing others) isimportant. Making controversial changes to the code withoutdiscussing them is stupid and counter-productive. Convincing othersthat these changes are beneficial and useful for GIMP is progress. Ifothers are not convinced that these changes are good, then they shouldnot be commited or they should be reverted. I am far from advocating anarchy, as you seem to think. But on theother hand, we should not be too rigid and have a blind faith insacred rules. If someone comes up with good reasons to do or not dosomething, then more power to them! -Raphael_______________________________________________Gimp-developer mailing listGimp-developer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
