Post by Harry portobelloHi all,
I've been reading the fvwm list for ages and recently subscribed
because of the article I'm currently writing - so although I've not
been on this list very long I feel as though I am no stranger to it;
mail archives can be a great thing, even more since a lot of them are
made public. :)
A few people have privately said to me lately that although they think
fvwm is a great program, they're not happy with the attitudes of the
most active maintainer, Thomas Adam. I won't be naming names, that's
not what's relevant here. But it's important to remember that words
are all we have in an email. There's no body language or tone of voice
to listen to. Sometimes the simplest of phrases might sound innocent
in person but take on a different meaning entirely when written down.
Some of this admittedly depends on how well the reader knows the
person whose text they're reading; like anything if one reads
something as cheeky it's because they know the person well enough to
accept that's how they are. But that's not so often the case on
faceless individuals who collaborate on a project together, where the
only communication is email.
Thomas, please give thought to how you phrase things because from what
I'm hearing you're endangering fvwm, scaring people away from
contributing. I hope that's not what you want - but it's the strong
impression I am feeling from certain replies. It's really important
that you stop and think about things because scaring people away just
isn't good enough.
Maybe things would be easier if we (as a fvwm community) knew more
about you, for example.
Harry
Hi!
I think, I should explain something here, and I hope, I will do
something useful with my explanations.
I too had technical discussions on this list one year ago. I discovered
fvwm relatively late, but, since one year, I use it every day. I'm so
glad that fvwm exists, because fvwm is much much better than KDE and
Gnome. My whole configuration is still a dirty quick hack, and I only
slightly improved it during the last months. But even with such a dirty
configuration I am running fvwm since August 2010, fvwm is much much
better than anything else what I ever had seen or used on a computer.
My productivity was increased to such an extend with my 144 desktops
(12 pages x 12 desktops to be accurate) and my keyboard shortcuts.
I even use fvwm to provide macros for my daily work: Position some
special applications on some certain desktops with the right window
sizes on the right position within each desktop when I press
<Shift>+<Ctrl>+<Win>+<F7> for example; fill out web based login pages
with test user and test password when I press a special hotkey
combination; automatically place a complimentary close at the end of
e-mail or bugzilla messages when I press one of my two hotkey
conbinations (one for German and one for English). There are so
much things fvwm does for me on daily basis that I never want to
miss it.
The persons on this list who cope with the German language, or
who are able to use tools like translate.google.de, can read
on one of my web pages about more details why I like fvwm:
http://www.jumping-blue-turtle.com/online-shop/debian/fvwm/index.html
Even some bugs (pager crashes sometimes when I do stupid things;
subject line of bugzilla bugs do not appear in window title bars,
because they contain UTF8 characters, ...) do not prevent me from
using fvwm everyday, because the obstructions of KDE and/or Gnome
are much much worse than that; and regarding fvwm, I always have the
chance to report these bugs sometime when I have enough time to create
easily reproducible bug reports.
I think, it would be a real pity if a project like fvwm would not
exist or would cease to exist.
When I had technical discussions on this list one year ago, I
noticed that the discussions with Thomas were not THAT easy.
But:
- I knew what kind of character I had to expect, because I read
some very personal revelations about Thomas that Thomas wrote
about his by himself on his web site "www.xteddy.org". Keyword
"Social Anxiety". Very nice that someone gives me the chance to
know what I have to expect before I start a conversation with
a person.
- He always tried to be helpful.
- He always tried to understand my intentions.
- I learned a lot.
- He showed me ways how I could improve my dirty configuration.
Unfortunataly, I had no time during the last 10 months, so I'm
still working with my dirty configuration. But as soon as I have
enough time again to improve my configuration, I will start
with all the advices from Thomas that I still have in my
mailbox.
There is one thing that makes a big difference between fvwm and
other environments like KDE or Gnome:
- When I have problems with fvwm, then I know that there are
solutions. I just have to invest my time to solve the issues,
but currently I have a clear plan, what I will have to to once
I have enough time:
- create easily reproducible bug reports to investigate the
current fvwm bugs
- follow the instructions that I received from Thomas to
make my configuration less dirty; more clean; more modern
I think, when I take the time to tackle these problems, there
could be a real chance that these problems could be solved
or at least be understood.
- When I have problems with KDE or Gnome on the other side,
then I'm pretty sure that these problems are unsolveable:
- KDE4 takes 60 seconds to start up? There will NEVER
be a way to make KDE4 start up within 2 seconds like fvwm.
- I need a keyboard shortcut for something that I'm tired
of searching for it several times a day via mouse and/or
cumbersome menus? I would have to lead long discussions
with the developers about the topic why I need shortcuts
and how shortcuts would make the system more complicated.
- I want to switch off something that gets on my nerves?
The same argumentation: Another option to switch some
annoying "feature" off would make the system more complicated.
So, why don't you get used to that "feature"?
- There is a major bug in KDE or Gnome that prevents me from
working? No problem! Simply upgrade to a newer version and
replace this one major bug with three other major bugs that
also will prevent you from doing things!
So, I hope I made it clear why fvwm is such a valuable piece of
software.
A little bit I have the sence that Thomas Adam's attitude
was, is and will be one of the causes why fvwm is that much
different than other environments like KDE or Gnome.
There is the hazard that when someone tries to adapt the
attitude around fvwm into another direction that then also
fvwm would change into another direction, for example to become
more like KDE or Gnome. And this is an important point:
I ran away from KDE and Gnome, because I am very frustrated
with the result what KDE and Gnome became. The philsophy
behind KDE and Gnome is not my philsophy anymore.
I searched very long for a replacement and discovered fvwm,
and at least I am aware that when I expect other results
from a piece of software than more common software, then
I cannot expect the same attitudes in the community that
is around that special piece of software.
This was the technical part of my explanation.
##################################################
Now, I will have a focus on the more psychological aspect
of Harry's observation.
I'm a person who was part of very different societies in
it's life. In some aspects of my life, I'm the technician
(I studied computer science). In other aspects of my life,
I'm the non-technician. I can work with managers as well
as with programmers, and usually I'm the one who writes
technical documentation or who does other things that
requires the ability to think like a customer (not like
a programmer), to be able to fetch the customer or the
reader where he/she stands and carfully lead him/her
to the technical world of software.
Not every person is feeling at home in different types
of society. Some persons are just technician, some other
persons are just non-technicians.
And what happens, when the world of a technician
and the world of a non-technician collide with each other?
I think, everyone knows ;-)
OK, to be honest, there are a lot more models of classification;
not always the reality can be satisfyingly described using
the model of technician/non-technician.
Another model is this:
- one society is dominated by diplomatic attitudes
- one other society is dominated by downright honest
attitudes
If a member of a diplomatic dominated society comes
into a honest dominated society, then this person
feels offended by the flood of truth that strikes
into his/her face.
If a member of a honest dominated society comes
into a diplomatic dominated society, then this person
may become bored of the prevalent beating about the bush,
says something more straight than he/she should do it, and
gets isolated, because he/she seems to be a very inconvenient
person in this society.
Yet another thing is that some people actually are offending
in their daily behaviour. I also met this kind of people in
my life and had to work with them. When I compare these
people with Thomas, then I have to ascertain that Thomas is
not offensive, not intentionally. I would classify Thomas
as a technician and as honest; as a honest technician ;-)
Is there a solution about the tensions that inevitably
occur when people with different views of life encounter
each other?
Yes! There is a solution. There is one term.
It is called "explaining"!
During the last years I found out a strategy how to deal
with offensive people in a team: I just have to wait for
the next offensive action. When it occurs, I analyse it,
and then I EXPLAIN the offender:
- why this action was bad
- how I felt on the other end of the channel that
transported the offence from him/her to me
- how this action interferes with the teamwork
(with the efficiency of the whole team)
- what more diplomatic kind of action alternative the
offender could have chosen to achieve what he/she actually
tried to achieve (if there was a reason for the offence
at all)
Some people simply do not think about the consequences that
their actions cause. When somebody very patiently takes the
time to explain them all relevant aspects of the consequences
and to show them the appropriate action alternatives, then
during the time, the offenders start a learning process in
their head. And gradually they change their attitude and
behaviour. And, this is very important! They do not change
their attitude and behaviour, because someone asked them
to do so! They change their attitude and behaviour, because
they UNDERSTOOD.
There must be a series of EXPLAINING and GRADUALLY UNDERSTANDING.
I use upper case letters, because I want to highlight these
important terms. Please don't feel offended by this ;-)
What does this mean for the people who are interacting on
this mailing list?
* If Thomas Adams wants to improve something (if at all),
then Thomas has the OPTIONS to explain his behaviour
a bit more and to be more diplomatic than usual. But
since Thomas' attitude seems to be a rather honest
attitude, rather trying to help than trying to offend
anyway, I think, there are not much things that Thomas
could do differently.
What we need, are concrete examples in the daily life.
I suppose that Thomas always wants to be as helpful
as possible. Nobody needs to explain him that it
would be better if he would try to be more helpful.
He _IS_ trying. This is a classic case that Thomas
is one of the nearly 6 billion persons on this planet
who are not a trained diplomat by trade. His job is
not to be the foreign minister of a country. He is
simply a brilliant technican. He became this, because
he specialized into something very useful.
* So, because Thomas already _IS_ trying to be helpful,
there is only the possibility of applying the priciple
of EXPLAINING and GRADUALLY UNDERSTANDING.
I encourage people who feel confused by something that
Thomas writes to think about this. This is not the
invitation to leave the community, but it is rather an
opportunity to make a conversation. A conversation with
an open end. Ideally, both partners of the conversation
will learn something. And, if there was actually something
wrong in Thomas' behaviour, then this is the chance to
do something useful for Thomas in return: Let him understand
an aspect that he didn't see in that point of view before.
Some people have more diplomatic skills than technical
skills, and they can use their diplomatic skills to
improve their technical skills. Some other people (like
Thomas) have more technical skills than diplomatic
skills, and when they teach their technical knowledge to
other people, then in this way they have the chance to
improve their diplomatic skills.
* When some people feel confused by some kind of attitude
in the fvwm community, then perhaps they are not patient
enough anyway, maybe they are not interested about the
difference between fvwm on one side and KDE/Gnome on the
other side. Perhaps, they are happy enough with KDE, Gnome,
Windows, Apple or whatever. Is it a goal of the fvwm community
to persuade the rest of the world to use fvwm at any price?
I think, if the price would be to turn fvwm into something
like KDE, Gnome, Windows or Apple, then the fvwm community
should rather focus on the task to keep fvwm what it is
and to improve it without making it worse over the next
decades.
I assume there is a coherence between the product of fvwm
and the attitude in the fvwm community.
* An idea that could make a difference for new people who
think about joining the fvwm community could be this:
- Someone should write an introduction for newbies
and put this introduction onto "www.fvwm.org". This
introduction should:
- EXPLAIN the difference between fvwm and other
environments
- EXPLAIN the prevalent honest attitude in the fvwm
community
- EXPLAIN the priciple of EXPLAINING and GRADUALLY
UNDERSTANDING
* (when two people are in a dispute, then the chance
to elegantly solve the dispute increases dramatically
when both persons try to explain and understand
each other)
- invite people to apply this principle when they
feel confused by something
And now, I have a job for you, Harry Portobello. Do you
want to to something really useful for fvwm? Then, please:
* Create an introduction for newbies like I described above.
* Try to design it in an appropriate style so that
someone from the fvwm community actually would put it
onto "www.fvwm.org"
* Try to phrase it as good as possible. Make it easy to
read and easy to understand.
* Then, post a draft in this mailing list, and let
the community discuss about it.
When your introduction is convincing enough, then perhaps
someone actually would take your ready introduction and put it
onto "www.fvwm.org"
Michael