[compiz] Minutes of the Compiz Conference Call, 2009-01-21

[Kristian Lyngstøl]

Ok, first let me explain why I've been absent for two weeks. First my
PSU killed my computer, then I really struggled to find the motivation
to pick this up. It's that hard to work with. But I have spent too
much time and love working on Compiz and Beryl to let this die.

I saw the notes for the conference call, and it looks like it was
mostly just a rush to get as much information out of a man that is
incapable of using e-mail before he disappeared again. That's just too
sad.

The reality is that David has done tremendous amount of work for
Compiz, no-one, not even I, can deny that. However, he has been one of
the worst kind of project leaders we could've had.

Since the merge, David has held control over Compiz and let it grow
stale. Yes, there have been improvements, like Michael points out, but
they have been mostly bugfixes, while the major design flaws have been
left untouched.

Nobody, myself included, wanted to work on Compiz (the core). I was
working on it constantly in Beryl, so why didn't I continue to do that
after the merge? I've been telling myself that it was because I was
opposed to the merge, but that's not really true.

The truth is that I didn't dare. I didn't know when David was going to
announce or release the Next Big Thing, or how he wanted to move
forward. Nobody did.

So now that I cry out about this, someone drags David back into it.
And Novell. I know that the intent was nothing but good, but it was
wrong nevertheless. Compiz has had big community issues, and much of
that is associated with David, and because of that, Novell. Compiz HAS
to be a project that is run by the developers and the community, not
by David, who has never been able to communicate and definitely not by
Novell, regardless of how good the intentions are. We've already tried
it that way, and the most important thing we can do, is make sure that
we have control, and that it doesn't lay in the hands of someone who
can't work the community.

And nomad isn't really an issue yet. Even if we merge nomad now, and
everything is perfect, we will still haven't developed as a community,
instead, we're still being strangled.

I suggest that if David, Novell or anyone else wants to get Nomad
accepted, they do what Dennis did with Compiz++. Send a mail,
detailing exactly what the piece of code does. Pros and Cons. Plans
for merging, and how it would affect current and future development. I
don't care that parts of it was explained in a conference call, that's
not the way to work. We can't have a conference call every time we
need to make a decision.

Don't get me wrong, the only person who can do this, is the person who
did the work. Dennis explaining Compiz++, David explaining Nomad.
There's no other way, and you can't out source documentation either.

And frankly, we can have as many conference calls as we want, it's not
Mail as a medium that's "broken", it's the communication skills of the
people involved. Yes, I'm looking at YOU AGAIN David.

I will attend the conference call, because if I can't stop it, I might
as well join it now that I know ahead of time (that I missed it last
time was my fault, though). However, I still consider mail the only
real way to communicate. We have people living in different time
zones, and for most of us, it's hard enough to get time for Compiz as
it is.

I also want to note that time is relative. When a project is fun and
rewarding to work with, people tend to find more time for it. Which
makes it alarming how little time we find for Compiz.

- Kristian