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Re: gEDA-user: rant: pcb print from command line



Duncan Drennan wrote:
If the senior developers are fed projects and requirements, suitably
discussed and planned, they'd be more likely to work on them.  We
currently work on our own desires because we know what we want, to
solve our problems.

That sounds nice, but the reality is quite different (understandably).
Firstly, who feeds the projects and requirements to the developers?
Secondly, raising ideas for discussion often ends (quickly) in the
comment, "If you want it, just develop it yourself." In practice
developers work on their own projects (because it is fun and
fulfilling) and not on user requirements (unless they align). Someone
else's requirement is more like work - why do that in your spare time?
This situation is perfectly understandable, but it does raise some
questions, like,

How are projects identified?
How are important bugs and feature requirements identified?
Do non-developers have a say? (no is a valid answer, someone just
needs to decide)

yes and no. There are some areas where I have certainly looked for input from non-developers. But in the end, my time is volunteer and if I really don't feel like doing something, well...

What is the forum to constructively discuss ideas and requirements?
How should these ideas and requirements be presented? (i.e. raise the
bar for presenting ideas so that it is not as simple as sending and
email saying "It would be nice if...")
What motivates developers to work on projects that are not their own?

considering how much time I've had over the last few years to actually use any of these tools, I'd say pretty much all pcb and gaf projects I've worked on are not my own :( What gets me interested in doing any of it? It helps a lot when a lot of the legwork has been done. If I have to spend a long time trying to even reproduce a bug it gets less attention. If something adds new functionality that I think is useful and not at odds with how we'd like to proceed then that is more interesting.

-Dan






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