[FusionComm] Truly disappointing

Thu Jul 5 13:00:04 CEST 2007

2007/7/5, Sam Spilsbury <smspillaz at gmail.com>:
>
>
>
> On 7/4/07, Alyssa Hung <deciare at isisview.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, July 3, 2007 8:03 am, RYX wrote:
> > > Hi everbody.
> >
> > Hello. Good to see some activity on the mailing lists again; though
> > endless debate may be a bit much, complete silence isn't that much more
> > savoury. ;)
> >
> > > Those people who cried for a combined community still prefer hanging out
> > > on oc.o and still aim at having their own community where they can be
> the
> > > kings - even though we finally agreed with nearly 100% of their wishes
> and
> > > requests. Nobody of the so called "beryl devs", except Danny, ever came
> to
> > > compiz.org for announcing new ideas or helping users - if they come at
> > > all, it is for bitching, nitpicking or correcting people.
> >
> > I am awaiting the proper setup and announcement of the unified forum.
> > Whether that is at forum.compiz.org, compiz-fusion.org, or elsewhere, I
> > believe waiting for an announcement would be wiser than making
> > assumptions, as many of us have been said to do in the past.
> >
> > Please don't interpret my patience as mere inaction. I am ready to act
> > on specific implementations of the details pertaining to the forums'
> > eventual future.
> >
> > > Users come to the compiz forums and tell me that they tried compiz and
> > > beryl but nothing worked for them, so now they installed "fusion" and
> want
> > > help with it - likely because of being misinformed by "other sources".
> > > Seriously, this mess has created such an incredible amount of
> > > confusion that especially the community has to be informed about what is
> > > going on. And before that, we should create some roadmap or targets to
> > > show them (hint, hint).
> >
> > I've been trying, and continue to try, to refer to Compiz as the one
> > project. There are several structural challenges that I haven't been
> > able to ignore, however.
> >
> > Most notably, when people make suggestions for plugins that are
> > currently distributed together with Compiz-Core, such as Cube or Rotate,
> > I can't help but think that the features requested may be be implemented
> > for quite some time; it has traditionally been the style of developers
> > who contribute to Compiz-Core to be patient and prudent about choosing
> > what to implement and how to implement it. The same goes for features
> > that may require Core changse to implement, such as being able to show
> > thumbnail previews for minimised windows.
> >
> > Bug reports pertainig to components distributed with Compiz-Core are
> > also tricky. Weeks ago, I filed a bug report to the freedesktop.org bug
> > tracker (Bug 11331) about inconsistent key binding behaviour in the
> > Scale plugin. The bug has not received any replies; was it received and
> > reviewed by any of the developers involved? Bug reports to oc.o aren't
> > always resolved quickly, but they _have_ been resolved.
> >
> > I was asked why Blur and Reflection won't work with the same hardware
> > that used to work fine with BlurFX in Beryl, and after going through his
> > configurartion, I had to admit that I honestly don't know. Maybe some
> > combination of Beryl's plethora of allowances and workarounds made the
> > hardware work without needing a "proper" fix, such as a driver-side or
> > server-side correction. Is Compiz-Core ever likely to implement such
> > workarounds...?
>
> I've debated with myself to answer regarding technical details, but AFAIK,
> workarounds such as these will probably be implemented in a separate plugin
> level (See GrisWorlds 'Workarounds' plugin). A lot of the methods used by
> beryl were somewhat slow and unstable. (Please do not take that comment too
> seriously because I do not know the technical merits.)
>
> Regarding BlurFX and reflection, they used something that avoided the use of
> pixel shaders (But BlurFX used pixel shaders where they were available). The
> problem with correcting rendering/ driver problems within Compiz-Core is
> that they can come and bite you in the back or break something else, because
> they are *workarounds*.
>
> Again, I'm not a developer, but this is AFAIK. If any developer wishes to
> correct me, please do ;-)
>
> > I want everyone to be happy with their compositing manager, and to show
> > that Compiz can work for everyone, but when I'm asked questions like,
> > "Why can't Compiz do ____ when Beryl can? Isn't Compiz Fusion supposed
> > to be better?" It's hard to think positively when there are still
> > feature regressions and compatibility regressions going from Beryl to
> > Compiz (seemingly directly caused by conflicting philosophies between
> > the past and the present), and there seems to be less developer presence
> > than ever.
> >
> > The divisions between Beryl, Compiz, and Compiz Fusion don't exist
> > entirely in the minds of misinformed people... To those with problems,
> > those with ideas, and those on the receiving end of stymieing bugs and
> > usage scenarios, the structural challenges that separate Compiz from
> > Beryl are very real.
> >
> > I _want_ this project to succeed, and _try_ to make it successful in the
> > ways I can as a user. I'm sure many users want a compositing manager
> > they can be proud of and really get behind. But wanting isn't enough...
> > As many suggestions as we offer and as much assistance as we provide for
> > each other, there's little we can accomplish without good faith from the
> > developers.
>
> Yeah, we need to post a list of current functional regressions and what is
> and what is not possible. (Technically) There is already one on
> obby.opencompositing.org and functional regressions are few and far between.
> I'm not a developer, but I do sort-of know that by adding hook-interfaces to
> core-plugins, we can actually add these features in separate plugins,
> instead of destablizing the core plugins. Hopefully, most of these will be
> corrected soon.
>
> > > Let me ask you one question: what do you all expect to happen once we
> > > have a combined website for the combined project? I'd (still) really
> like
> > > to hear your answers on this ... We still have no goals, roadmap,
> > > merge-agreement or "peace-contract". Well, as long as we have ten
> > > different packages and a website the rest will come by itself, right?
> > > Sure.
> >
> > I expect for community resources such as wikis and packages to be more
> > cohesive.
> >
> > I wish to see more developers being accessible; whether that means more
> > forays into the forum, greater participation on the non-dev IRC channel,
> > a greater tendency to act on bug reports and feature requests, or
> > otherwise showing the users that someone is listening, and someone cares.
>
> Regarding IRC channels, #compiz-fusion should be split into
>
> #compiz-fusion (For general compiz-fusion talk)
> #compiz-fusion-dev (For development only) (i.e code)
> #compiz-fusion-support (Obvious)
> #compiz-fusion-web (For web-discussion, such as the blog / forums)
>

There's already #compiz-fusion-dev. Once things are setup, there's no
need for a #compiz-fusion-web, and any web-related discussion could
happen in -dev.
There's no reason for a -support because users would come in
#compiz-fusion first anyway and ask their question there before being
redirected to -support where they would find the same users/idlers.

> > I hope that users "misinformed" about the nature of Compiz Fusion may
> > truly be misinformed rather than being simply misunderstood.
>
> Announcements FTW ;)
>
> > I would like to see Compiz thriving alongside other compositing
> > managers, perhaps evolving beyond its scope as a mere compositing
> > manager at some point, instead of being killed by the first serious
> > competitor that comes along (read: KWin).
>
> KWin != problem IMO ;)
>
> > > btw: I still work on the new layout, but if it means that the
> > > compiz-forums have nearly no support whenever I am not around, it shows
> me
> > > how interested everyone is in a "combined community" and immediately
> puts
> > > my motivation back to zero ..
> >
> > Does that depend on which forum we consider the Compiz forum? I'd rather
> > not set the mood for unifying our communities against the backdrop of
> > this chilling distinction.
> >
> >
> > ~Alyssa
> > _______________________________________________
> > Community mailing list
> > Community at lists.compiz-fusion.org
> > http://lists.compiz-fusion.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> >
>
>
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