KDE Dev-Vlog 6: Punk Rock and Bug Reports

Contributing to KDE sometimes leads to a flood of negative or even insulting feedback. To not get disheartened by this it is important to correctly assess the significance of these comments. One possible stance to take towards these reports can be taken from punk culture.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://wordsmith.social/felix-ernst/kde-dev-vlog-6-punk-rock-and-bug-reports
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Konqi, you forgot to actually link the video! Don’t worry, I got your back. <3

(English subtitles should already be enabled if you follow that link.)

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How to voice your concern over a change in open source software:
Write a bug report saying “Update X changed feature Y. However, in my opinion this was not a good idea because… / this breaks the following workflow: …”

How to demotivate devs and make sure no developer will ever bother listening to you:
“KDE devs never listen to their users! Why are you making changes that are objectively worse? Anyone who’s half-way competent can see that! Do the devs even have a brain?”

Some people will never get it. It’s sad how often I see something similar to the second example everywhere from social media to this forum and Bugzilla to even GitLab discussions.
Yet they would never attack Microsoft or Google or Apple developers like that (who aren’t even volunteers like many FOSS devs are). People sure are frustrating.

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IMO they certainly would if these people’s personal work were public the way it is for us. But they are protected by the corporate shell. So instead people voice their negativity against the corporation itself.

Great video, @felixernst! Your flipbooking is amazing. And now I want some punk music recommendations!

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Great video, @felixernst! Your flipbooking is amazing.

Thanks! I made them as an early teen I believe. Took some searching to find them between my old stuff, but then I was happy that they were just as cool as I remembered them to be. So yea, I agree. :wink:

And now I want some punk music recommendations!

Billy Talent is overall my favourite band. Their second album “Billy Talent II” is definitely their best one but I like all of them, especially “Dead Silence” and “Billy Talent III”.
Not really punk, but Royal Republic’s first album “We are the Royals” is great. After that they are continuously getting worse IMO. Their second album is still good though.
I must mention “Die Ärzte” who have been very successful in Germany for over 30 years now and had a lot of influence on me even if I am not regularly listening to them anymore. They have produced a lot of great songs over the years. Not sure how much fun they are without effortlessly understanding the lyrics though. ^^
Honorable mentions to the bands “Kraftklub”, “Polkadot Stingray”, “Farin Urlaub”/“Farin Urlaub Racing Team” and “Madsen”.

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Open source developers aren’t anonymous employees of a corporation – they’re openly reachable via the Internet – and therefore “unprotected game” – „Freiwild” …
Just the same as politicians …
And, anyone else who writes text in public forums …

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