Kmenu and KDE4

[Derek Broughton]

Clay Weber wrote:

> On Sat December 20 2008 4:00:26 pm Billie Walsh wrote:

>> I don't know. I would think that if I was poring heart and soul into
>> something for others to use I would like to have some sort of
>> indication of their feelings about what I'm doing. If I'm not going
>> in the direction that is most beneficial then I would like to think I
>> would take it that direction. It's kind of a customer service type of
>> thing. If your a retail business and you stop listening to the
>> customers needs and start dictating to the customer, well, there's
>> another store just down the street. I've already seen many, at least
>> threatening to, jump off the KDE ship over this new KDE. There's
>> another interface available.
> 
> Unfortunately, that is a bad analogy as the 'customer' and 'retail
> business' concepts do not really fit,

It certainly does.  Many of us in corporate life have had the whole 
concept of "customer service" drilled into us even when we don't have 
identifiable customers, and there's a good reason for that - the model 
works.  

> as each individual person who contributes (in
> whatever capacity) to an open source project does  so for their own
> personal reasons, even in a project as large in scope as KDE. They are
> not necessarily tied to 'customer service' if you will.

They are invariably in it for _something_.  Even if it's only personal 
gratification, where's the gratification in doing something that nobody 
wants?

> Where/how do non-contributing users properly and sanely voice their
> concerns where the developers can easily see them?
 
It _has_ to be places like this, because the developers _can_ easily see 
them.  Otherwise it's too awkward for the users.
-- 
derek