Hello KDE people! I am researching management practices in open-source projects (University of Twente), and would like to know a few things from contributors / supporting staff of the KDE project. If you have a few minutes to spare, I would appreciate if you sent me the answers to the questions you know via email (d.r.osinga@student.utwente.nl), or Discord (drwr_).
Questions
General
- What is your role in the KDE project?
Marketing
- How does KDE ttract new maintainers?
- How does KDE attract new users?
Quality assurance (QA)
- There seem to be some QA methods used in KDE, such as (1) automated testing / CICD, (2) code reviews via PRs, and (3) bug tracking via BugZilla
- … are there any other QA methods that your project uses? If the project does (not) use a particular method, do you know why?
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Regarding communication: KDE seems to have quite a few communication methods, including (1) Matrix channels, (2) GitLab Issues/Milestones, (3) Mailing list(s), and (4) Guidelines (“KDE Culture”).
5a. How did this selection of communication methods come to be, and what problem do these methods/software solve?
5b. Is there any method/piece of software used that is not mentioned in the above list?
5c. Which problems were encountered in the project which caused amendments to the communication methods/guidelines?
Management
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How does the KDE project keep developers active in the project?
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How are developers rewarded for their work in the KDE project?
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How often are there debates/discussions? Where do these take place (mailing list, issue/bug trackers, GitLab, …)
8a. What methods are there to resolve these debates/discussions?
Again, feel free to send answers via email (d.r.osinga@student.utwente.nl), or Discord (drwr_).
Thank you in advance for participating and supporting research towards open-source!