LinuxMCE Forums

General => Users => Topic started by: chipppy on September 20, 2009, 04:20:49 pm

Title: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: chipppy on September 20, 2009, 04:20:49 pm
Good Eveing

At the risk of being nuked I would like to ask a question relating to the base distro that LinuxMCE is based on.
Please correct me for my misunderstandings and mistake, but in a constructive manner.
I ask this question in the hope of helping the LinuxMCE development team of producing big and better version in as fast a time frame as possible.  i also want to free up the valuable developer tim for developing the really cool, bleeeding edge stuff that you guy do instead of bogging you guys down in the more mundane stuff that has already been completed by others in other distros

Firstly full respect to all that have worked hard to get LinuxMCE to where it is today.

Your try to release a new rev every 12 months.  I feel that this is hard to achieve, due to the size of the development team.
Why not base you rev's on the LTS from the Ubuntu team.  this means a longer 18months between major releases but these are supported but the ubuntu team longer and therefore you have more chance of getting a super stable release over time. 
This will allow LinuxMCE to develop a name as a super stable projec that is super reliable (eg Debian distro type respect)

Also
LinuxMCE is based on Kubuntu the KDE version of Ubuntu but doesnt use a huge amount o the KDE desktop features.
LinuxMCE has a small developmen team, when compared to other projects (especially the Ubuntu team).
                This help people to understand why LinuxMCE is a couple of releases behind the Kubuntu release version (9.10 very shortly)
LinuxMCE used a fair few components from MythTV, as far as I understand

Is it possible to use the Mythbuntu distro instead of the Kubunt distro.  This would mean that the Ubuntu team has already completed a heap of the MythTv intergration into ubuntu for you guys.  I dont know what percentage this would reduce your work load by but anyamount is more time on the cool features.

Anyone i hope people take this the way it is intended.
As a possitive couple of questions, with the intent to create positive discussion to help the development team.

Anyway here hoping

Cheers
chipppy
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Marie.O on September 20, 2009, 05:01:32 pm
nuke

The current release is so much behind the Kubuntu release, as this is the first release which 100% community created. We had to understand a lot of things, and provide a lot of infrastructure, before we were able to really do any work. Especially Zaerc has invested a gargantum amount of time to understand the build system, and provide a structure that we can now rely upon for building stuff.

I strongly believe after 810 is out, the next release will not be as much behind as 810, and might even be faster than the 710 release.

Basing on the LTS version of (K)Ubuntu is not a good idea, as especially the media area of Linux changes quite rapidly, so it makes sense to be as close to the latest version as possible.

Initially, Kubuntu had some windows management APIs that we use. That's the reason, why LinuxMCE is based upon Kubuntu.

I hope this clarifies a few things.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: chipppy on September 21, 2009, 04:10:52 pm
Good Evening

Thanks for the info.

Cheers
chipppy
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Ray_N on September 22, 2009, 02:56:03 pm

Is it possible to use the Mythbuntu distro instead of the Kubunt distro.  This would mean that the Ubuntu team has already completed a heap of the MythTv intergration into ubuntu for you guys.  I dont know what percentage this would reduce your work load by but anyamount is more time on the cool features.


What about the Mythbuntu aspect of his question? I haven't played w/Mythbuntu yet, but it seems like a reasonable question...
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: chipppy on September 22, 2009, 03:22:40 pm
Good Evening

I agree with above.. What is people thoughts about using the Mythbuntu distro instead of Kubuntu.  This has the possibliity of reducing development time and therefore reduce time between releases.

I was thinking about the LTS side of things.  I agree with trying to keep up with the latest developments in Linux world.  The only thing is I have read alot of bad press about LinuxMCE simply because of the old distro and therefore the 'instability' of it.  I think this is a misnoma because of the age of the base distro is the instability issue. 
While LTS is another 6 months between distro upgrades it is always possible to add special patches in if there is the mass benifit in doing so.  Eg a kernel upgrade due to specfic support for problem hardware that is super popular.
I refer to the name that the 'Debia' distro has.  It has a rel period of 12-18months and is renown for support of older hardware and being super stable.  The super stable and support is the key point here.
A lot of people just want a HTPC that works.  Once it is setup they dont want to have to touch it again, unless they find a new 'toy' to add or it breaks. 
It breaks can be hardware or software.
We all know the mean time to crash for windows systems.  Linux has a great name for massive uptime and support for older hardware.  It would be great is we could build on that name with a system that is support for many years (6 years for LTSreleases)  remember Windos XP is 8+ years old and most people are still using it today.  Ask any office work what window OS they are using today XP or Vista?

People like the fimilar beast.  It makes then feel secure. 

Remember
1 happy customer tells 3 people per year
1 unhappy customer tells 10 people per year.
happy X 6 years =18 new customers 

While not strictly true this is a business, we are selling a product/service.  We need to promot LinuxMCE in it best possible light.

Anyway thats my 2 bobs worth

Cheers
chipppy
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: totallymaxed on September 22, 2009, 03:43:11 pm

Is it possible to use the Mythbuntu distro instead of the Kubunt distro.  This would mean that the Ubuntu team has already completed a heap of the MythTv intergration into ubuntu for you guys.  I dont know what percentage this would reduce your work load by but anyamount is more time on the cool features.


What about the Mythbuntu aspect of his question? I haven't played w/Mythbuntu yet, but it seems like a reasonable question...

Well its still the same MythTV version in either so I cant see any advantage at all...Mythbuntu is a great Myth distribution...but its does not help in anyway with what we have to do to integrate Myth within LinuxMCE I'm afraid...believe me if the Devs thought that would be of any help...they'd jump at it ;-).

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Marie.O on September 23, 2009, 07:37:18 am
While not strictly true this is a business, we are selling a product/service.

I don't know about you, but I am not selling anything. I work on LinuxMCE to make LinuxMCE better, more stable, more PnP friendly.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: totallymaxed on September 23, 2009, 09:13:36 am
While not strictly true this is a business, we are selling a product/service.  We need to promot LinuxMCE in it best possible light.

I'm afraid your comment isn't even vaguely true...this Forum/Community 'sells' nothing. In fact we give 'away' our time, effort, code, expertise and openly accept anyone who wants to join us. Simple as that.

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: ShamIAm on September 23, 2009, 10:27:50 am
Oliver and Andrew,

Stop jumping on the Open-Source horse.

Quote
this Forum/Community 'sells' nothing

I would have to say that this forum, and it's illuminati, frequently sells the pros/cons of LinuxMCE. Selling does not require the exchange of money, sometimes "selling" just means getting someone to like an idea. The orginal poster is obviously implying that we sell this great idea, and all the work that has been put into it so that we can broaden the user base and thus hopefully the development base.

Quote
openly accept anyone who wants to join us

The forums have gotten better since moderation, but the fact that this is being said means it probably isn't completly true. For instance, when someone makes a suggestion that they think would help lighten the load they should have that question addressed, not some missinterprettation of a corner of their post rode. Point posts like this in the right direction, why won't the Mythbuntu help? Is it a KDE thing?

I apoligize for further devolving this thread, because I don't have any answers either.

Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: tschak909 on September 23, 2009, 12:26:39 pm
Those of you not working on the code base, if you actually jumped in, and dug in, you would understand that going to MythBuntu is basically moot, because:

(1) we also use VDR.
(2) we have an entire plug and play system that overlays the underlying distribution, with massive sets of setup script to support it.

These mechanisms would not change in any shape or form simply because we transposed things. Keep in mind, that we have to extensively test changes to see how they affect the surrounding subsystems, because we integrate things in ways that "media centers" do not even begin to think of.

-Thom
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: totallymaxed on September 23, 2009, 01:18:47 pm
Oliver and Andrew,

Stop jumping on the Open-Source horse.

Quote
this Forum/Community 'sells' nothing

I would have to say that this forum, and it's illuminati, frequently sells the pros/cons of LinuxMCE. Selling does not require the exchange of money, sometimes "selling" just means getting someone to like an idea. The orginal poster is obviously implying that we sell this great idea, and all the work that has been put into it so that we can broaden the user base and thus hopefully the development base.

Quote
openly accept anyone who wants to join us

The forums have gotten better since moderation, but the fact that this is being said means it probably isn't completly true. For instance, when someone makes a suggestion that they think would help lighten the load they should have that question addressed, not some missinterprettation of a corner of their post rode. Point posts like this in the right direction, why won't the Mythbuntu help? Is it a KDE thing?

I apoligize for further devolving this thread, because I don't have any answers either.



No 'Horse Jumping' going on here at all....read Thom's post above... he actually writes an enormous amount of code for all of us here...and therefore he knows intimately how LinuxMCE is architected and coded.  You actually need to spend some time reading the code and understanding how LinuxMCE works 'under the hood'...then you would understand why MythBuntu is not going to help at all.

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 04:37:51 pm
.....Basing on the LTS version of (K)Ubuntu is not a good idea, as especially the media area of Linux changes quite rapidly, so it makes sense to be as close to the latest version as possible.......

On the basis of my limited understanding, I'm going to disagree with that.

What matters most to someone who has successfully installed a system - that it continues receiving security updates and keeps working, or it supports more and more hardware (that that person probably doesn't have access to)? Sure you want the system to support as much modern hardware as possible, but you want it to be secure first and foremost - especially as the system is designed to use the core as a visible device on the wider internet.

My situation is unusual, when I setup my system it wont be easy.  At home I need to support two different networks (one work based, and one for linuxmce). Currently we only have seven months security support left for the operating system on which the development version of linuxmce is based.  This is a system that hasn't been released yet.

My network will need to be secure. It will be linked both to my home work network and also to a critical work network at a larger site. I do not feel that I can entrust routing and security of my home system to linuxmce in its current form.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: tschak909 on September 23, 2009, 04:41:37 pm
Then help us improve it. Or are you too busy for that?

I'm seriously tired of people who go out of their way to do insane customizations and requirements, yet they CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO HELP US MELD THOSE REQUIREMENTS INTO THE SYSTEM FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS.

-Thom
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 05:18:13 pm
Then help us improve it. Or are you too busy for that?

I'm seriously tired of people who go out of their way to do insane customizations and requirements, yet they CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO HELP US MELD THOSE REQUIREMENTS INTO THE SYSTEM FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS.

-Thom

I'm sorry if I have somehow offended you, by stating my opinion.

How would you have me improve it?  I'm certainly intending to contribute everything that I learn during my install - which hasn't started yet, and to further contribute particularly in areas like KNX integration which is a specific interest of mine, and any other areas where I can add to the collective knowledge already available.

In the short term, I'm not going to be able to help so much.  Partly because I am building a house in my spare time so time is an issue (as well as me being an employer of nearly fifty people in manufacturing in the UK - a sector already under immense pressure, as am I, at a time of global recession), and partly because I'm trying to learn what I need to successfully implement a linuxmce system - which is non-trivial given the state of the documentation, the application itself, and the generosity with which the asking of questions is sometimes greeted on here.

Please do not see every stated opinion as an affront to your dignity. Feedback and help from users is often considered of value to projects such as these.  If you discourage them you will lose the benefits of this feedback, and wonder why nobody with slightly varying opinions is interested in helping you at all, when all you do is shout them down.

I have broadly a hundred questions about linuxmce and the specifics of what I want to implement. On the whole I'm trying to determine the answers myself, rather than ask.....because having slightly non-standard needs, or asking technical questions on here (except for a small number of generous respondents) is often met with enough frustration and aggression to encourage people to seek every possible alternative, rather than getting more deeply involved.

.....for the record, for even a technically adept user, the quality and structure of the documentation isn't good enough to get even close to encouraging people to join the project.  I will do so because I am thick skinned and interested in linuxmce for its technical merits rather than how friendly the community is.  I shall contribute back to the project with every piece of knowledge that I verify first hand, that I cannot find here elsewhere.

I don't think it's very nice the way you express yourself in this matter, and it certainly wont be something I'm doing as a response to your crude apparent lack of understanding in how open source projects grow and evolve.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: jimbodude on September 23, 2009, 05:20:25 pm
trentend: The documentation is in Wiki format for a reason - if you'd like to contribute for it, that would be great for everyone - go for it.  ;)
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 05:27:19 pm
trentend: The documentation is in Wiki format for a reason - if you'd like to contribute for it, that would be great for everyone - go for it.  ;)

I am aware. I will address it. As I explained, I haven't started a linuxmce install yet, and I'm not going to add any information that I can't verify first hand. I've been following the project since before it sprung out of pluto. I've spent many hundreds of hours researching both pluto and linuxmce, in detail. Simply the documentation does not exist in any comprehensive sense. Until I have first hand experience any direct contribution that I might make is likely to be more misleading than helpful.

Still it continues to amaze me that this community seems more interested in antagonising potential users than encouraging them. The way users develop technical knowledge and become involved in development is a matter of diminishing returns....for every hundred who look, ten might use the system and one might contribute back. Of those ones who contribute back some become deeply involved and make a substantial difference.

The more of those looking that you turn away, the less chance that you'll end up with people giving substantially back to the community efforts.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: tschak909 on September 23, 2009, 05:39:57 pm
You seem to misunderstand the source of my frustration, it's very simple. I am very tired of this growing attitude that i've seen in the last 10 years, where users of free software increasingly think of themselves as customers, entitled to some form of support.

You may want to step back before you criticise my understanding of free software communities, I've been in this world for almost two decades in various capacities.

There is only so much that I can do as a developer, and I've had my hand in virtually every single aspect of this community, from having my hands in virtually all of the stack, to helping out with support, and documentation, as well as acting on behalf of public relations. If you notice, my reactions are all reacting to the same thing, this festering sense of entitlement.

-Thom
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: hari on September 23, 2009, 05:55:04 pm
heya thom, still feeding the trolls?
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 05:58:34 pm
I understand your frustration, but it is destined to only give you stress.

If you do not wish to constructively address an issue raised by someone with less knowledge than you, and I'm accepting that might well be everyone, and that all such questions may be quite stupid, then it is surely better to say nothing than to antagonise them?

I know that I, for one, am appreciative of what other people do to enable exciting solutions ion the modern computing world. I know that if I want to see projects grow I have a responsibility to contribute as much as i am able. This doesn't preclude the possibility that I might hold opinions with which you disagree, and have questions that you may consider stupid.

Let me ask you a specific question regarding the development of 8.10. Given that it isn't released yet, and that security support for Kubuntu 8.10 ends in 7 months, and the advice is to allow the core to perform the routing and dchp for the whole network, will this leave internet facing installations of linuxmce open to potential security issues?


heya thom, still feeding the trolls?

I object to that as well.  On what grounds do you identify me as a troll? I am attempting to be constructive and address specific issues that I consider to be important, and doing a lot of work, both on my own and with help from those minded on here to provide it, to move towards an installation for my home automation system using linuxmce.  Are you saying that I'm not welcome?
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: tschak909 on September 23, 2009, 06:01:23 pm
We expect that the actual release lifetime of 0810 to be very short, as we will immediately start to push to 0910 after its release. The system is designed to be upgraded upstream, so your concerns in this context are completely unwarranted.

We do have other security issues that we need to address, but these will be addressed with time, and we try to keep the critical parts of the system secure, while we harden other bits, while working on other features, keep in mind, this is a massive system, there hasn't been anything this big before, and there are only a few of us actively working on it.

-Thom
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 06:08:55 pm
Okay, so if I am to understand that it would seem that the operation of linuxmce is not intrinsically linked with the specifics of the version (otherwise upgrading upstream would likely break things).  Is it possible to make linuxmce version independent (so that I might choose a LTS for long term stability, someone else might choose 9.10 for latest hardware support)?

Will 8.10 be out of its security update support lifetime, before 9.10 is ready for showtime? Might 10.4 (I believe an LTS release) be a better target candidate?
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: jimbodude on September 23, 2009, 06:14:02 pm
Version independence is unlikely.  Too much maintenance for too few developers.  The LinuxMCE team is not the size of the Ubuntu team - this project really can only support a single version at a time realistically.

One release at a time please...
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: tschak909 on September 23, 2009, 06:15:41 pm
Currently, no.

Given the fact that a number of things change internally from distribution version to version, this is not possible. We have to often adjust our plumbing to match.

To give an example,

the Hardware Abstraction Layer daemon (hald) changed from 0710 to 0810 in several ways. This essentially broke plug and play for virtually every hardware device. We had to modify our HAL device and serial port scripts to handle the changes.

Another example, is that xorg went through massive changes between 0710 and 0810, in relation to how human interface devices (HID) and video output devices were implemented, because this system was ahead of the curve in many ways when it started, a lot of infrastructure was put in place to handle things like PnP, network configuration, input device management, etc... Now that these functions are more and more being taken care of by distribution services, we are trying to peel them back, to make them more neutral. I hope that eventually the distribution WON'T matter, but do keep in mind that we are trying to make this an appliance, and we have to be slaves to many other projects and their development tracks. There are many things beyond our control, and myself, I have at least 5 different codebases in my head at this moment for this project alone, and I need to know more in order to fix some bugs that we experience.

I think you are being way too cautious with things like the security updates, etc.

-Thom
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 06:24:25 pm
Okay, that seems reasonable......and for me makes it seem a better bet to focus on LTS versions for support only.

Get the LTS versions stable and secure, and allow for longer development time between releases. Then those of us who have an interest in supporting hardware not supported within those releases would need to develop them and contribute back to the project - it would also allow for longer periods to establish better documentation, and more resources to assist would be developers in contributing hardware updates between releases....which in turn would make the development cycle for the next LTS less onerous.

I understand that you have your own reasons for targetting 9.10 after 8.10, but rather I urge you to consider going for 10.4, and only further LTS releases, in the future. That extra stability, and longer development cycles, are better suited for a project with large complex code bases, and small numbers of skilled developers.  Instead of constantly chasing your tail, resulting in the frustration that you currently feel, it would be more conducive to developing documentation, encouraging developers, and consequently better community contribution.

The way you describe your involvement with the project currently it's unsustainable.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Dale_K on September 23, 2009, 06:41:28 pm
On the topic of contributors and/or a lack thereof:

I've seen this topic raised many times, by Thom and others.  It's an interesting argument in which I can see both sides.  Devs I'm sure feel under appreciated and somewhat alone in their efforts as they see dozens of 'regular' people utilizing their hard work and in some cases criticizing it.  

On the other end you have users that most likely feel initially overwhelmed with the complexity of a system they barely understand and feel like they can't or shouldn't ask questions for fear of being chastised.  To me, the fact that the original poster's title is "pls dont nuke me, I have a question" speaks volumes about how the average user feels about this forum and it's a shame.

From the perspective of a technically computer savvy person, yet not savvy with Linux or Programming at all, I can tell you this; I'm attempting to learn about the guts of LMCE while simultaneously trying to learn how to program so that when I am able to contribute it's not horrible code to be made fun of.  I have already contributed a little with a couple of wiki's and trying to help out others, but it's not the big dev help we need.

So, what's the hold up?  As I've said before, LMCE's boon is also it's bane.  It's a HUGE, COMPLEX system.  For my part, I simply had no idea where to start.  I don't have a solid understanding of Linux let alone the complexity LMCE adds to it so I had to start at the bassist of levels and it's very slow going (I, like everyone here, can only work on it in my spare time).   The main issue is the 'where to start'.  If we had available to us some sort of specific overview of the mechanics of LMCE it would go a long way toward inciting users to 'dig in'.

An example of this is the Video Looping (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Video_Playlist_-_Enable_Looping (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Video_Playlist_-_Enable_Looping)) article I added.  90% of the time I spent trying to make that work was spent just trying to find out what part of the software was responsible for the playing of video.  A forum post had some suggestions that didn't work, IRC was helpful in terms of the mechanics of building a dev environment, compiling code, etc., but no one knew definitively where to look for looping video.  That part was pure trial and error on my part.  The process was literally one of me staring at the dev files and opening anything that looked like it dealt with video then searching the file for anything that looked like it might pertain to looping, eventually stumbling on the xine file in the article.  I'm sure everyone will agree that if that were the process necessary for any dev improvement even the most staunch supporters would become discouraged.

So, what's the point to all that rambling?  The people that 'know' need to help the people that don't understand the system.  If there were more information about the construction and interaction of the different systems in LMCE, I think more people would be inclined to 'dig in'.  I'm not talking about setup help, I'm talking about dev information, i.e. What exactly is DCE and how do the different subsystems interact with it?  When someone plays a movie, what systems are engaged, in what order do they engage?  

I think if we as potential contributors had more information on the workings of the system we'd have an idea of where to start and where to start is often the most difficult part of any undertaking.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Zaerc on September 23, 2009, 07:02:49 pm
Okay, that seems reasonable......and for me makes it seem a better bet to focus on LTS versions for support only.

Get the LTS versions stable and secure, and allow for longer development time between releases. Then those of us who have an interest in supporting hardware not supported within those releases would need to develop them and contribute back to the project - it would also allow for longer periods to establish better documentation, and more resources to assist would be developers in contributing hardware updates between releases....which in turn would make the development cycle for the next LTS less onerous.

I understand that you have your own reasons for targetting 9.10 after 8.10, but rather I urge you to consider going for 10.4, and only further LTS releases, in the future. That extra stability, and longer development cycles, are better suited for a project with large complex code bases, and small numbers of skilled developers.  Instead of constantly chasing your tail, resulting in the frustration that you currently feel, it would be more conducive to developing documentation, encouraging developers, and consequently better community contribution.

The way you describe your involvement with the project currently it's unsustainable.

There's nothing stopping you from grabbing the source and doing just that.  Should be a piece of cake for an expert on "how open source projects grow and evolve" like you.  Unless you're just to busy flapping your jaws in here of course...

Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: trentend on September 23, 2009, 07:16:29 pm
There's nothing stopping you from grabbing the source and doing just that.  Should be a piece of cake for an expert on "how open source projects grow and evolve" like you.  Unless you're just to busy flapping your jaws in here of course...

It's attitudes like this that make me think that I'm wasting my time here. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that, and it's a real shame given the spectacular ability of the system that has been developed from its roots in pluto.  With the mindset of the influential people on the project where it is, it is destined to disappointment and hardship.  The statement you have made is nothing but mean, vindictive, and unnecessary.  If you had analysed what I had suggested it was a way to reduce individual workload, not a request for more for nothing.

I do very little flapping of my jaws here.  Less than some of you who are so busy that you only have time to abuse people interested in your work, rather than engage in a constructive dialogue - however misguided inexperienced people might be.

I'm happy to say nothing more. If the responses that I get here, and I observe other people getting elsewhere on these forums, are representative of the leadership and direction of the project I'm happy not to entrust the operation of my home to it.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: hari on September 23, 2009, 07:36:34 pm
Quote from: Dale_K
To me, the fact that the original poster's title is "pls dont nuke me, I have a question" speaks volumes about how the average user feels about this forum and it's a shame.
err, wrong. I question the intentions of the initial poster. Starting a topic that way is not the best introduction. See, many ppl here get help and answers to their questions without "getting nuked". Follow the netiquette, do some effort on your own and ask serious questions. Plenty of people here even spoon-feed newbies. How do you think you are qualified to judge the "average user feels"? Just because a few people try to start flame wars - like in every other forum - it would be foolish to say people fear to ask questions. Look how many answers are provided _every day_, without anybody fearing "to get nuked".

The answer was given, we've considered LTS plenty of times, we will reconsider in the future. trentend was trying hard to drive this thread into an off-topic flame war after we've explained the facts from our side.

Hari
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Dale_K on September 23, 2009, 08:03:37 pm
Quote from: Dale_K
To me, the fact that the original poster's title is "pls dont nuke me, I have a question" speaks volumes about how the average user feels about this forum and it's a shame.
err, wrong. I question the intentions of the initial poster. Starting a topic that way is not the best introduction. See, many ppl here get help and answers to their questions without "getting nuked". Follow the netiquette, do some effort on your own and ask serious questions. Plenty of people here even spoon-feed newbies. How do you think you are qualified to judge the "average user feels"? Just because a few people try to start flame wars - like in every other forum - it would be foolish to say people fear to ask questions. Look how many answers are provided _every day_, without anybody fearing "to get nuked".

The answer was given, we've considered LTS plenty of times, we will reconsider in the future. trentend was trying hard to drive this thread into an off-topic flame war after we've explained the facts from our side.

Hari

I think I have to disagree.  Yes, a great many people get help in these forums, myself included.  But, even if the ratio of helpful vs. disparaging replies is 50:1, the one will and does discourage posters and incite users to say things like "don't nuke me".  I'm willing to bet I could search these forums and link at least 20 posts with ease in which the poster was addressed with sarcasm, insults and/or hostility in some form, including this one.  You have to be honest, I'm not the only person ever to make this observation.

Again, as I stated in my original reply, I see both sides of this situation.  But I do feel like the few people that are entertaining the idea of contributing might be discouraged by the minority of posts that are met with hostility.

Also, after re-reading this entire thread, I don't really see where trentend tried to "drive this thread into an off-topic flame war".  It seems to me that he responded to replies with reasonable suggestions/questions.  It may be that he isn't well enough versed in the project to fully understand it's limitations, but that's why people ask questions isn't it?
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Marie.O on September 23, 2009, 08:09:25 pm
The answer was given, we've considered LTS plenty of times, we will reconsider in the future. trentend was trying hard to drive this thread into an off-topic flame war after we've explained the facts from our side.
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Also, after re-reading this entire thread, I don't really see where the OP tried to "drive this thread into an off-topic flame war".

Noone accused the OP of anything. The OP has been quiet for a while now, after his question had been answered. That could have been the end of the story.
Title: Re: pls dont nuke me, I have a question
Post by: Dale_K on September 23, 2009, 08:13:29 pm
Yes, I'm sorry, not the OP, trentend is whom the comment was referring to.