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So far, the Qt for Android project has been little less than a permanent source of delight for Qt programmers frustrated by Nokia’s lack of interest in the future of its platform – Bodgan Vatra, after all, did a superior job with the project so far.

Sadly, it looks like the switch to KDE’s infrastructure has raised major unhappyness with some contributors. The email below is from one contributor, with the italic answers from Bodgan Vatra:

WARNING! This post is a rant, expresses only my own opinion and feelings might be harmed during the course of this reading.

(RANT)

This post is a reaction to a thread on the dev list where Bogdan was lamenting on the lack of commitment to the project.
I found it both laughable and pathetic in the sense that NOTHING is done to make it a project you can be committed to, and I’ll expose, IMHO, why.

Until now I find your remarks very insulting …

1) This is a one man (and a half, sorry Ray), “benevolent despot” kind of project.

I’m not going to accept you to insult Ray ! Ray’s contribution is not half !
Because Ray dedicate his free time to this project, now 4000+ users can use this project on windows and mac ! What have you done for this project ?

Bogdan IS the project. Every single decision is made by him without discussions nor appeal. He has his vision for the project (that I didn’t find, but it could be hidden in one of the zillions places the project is scattered into. More on this later) and I don’t feel like he is open to discuss/challenge this vision.

I’m confused ! First you say that “He has his vision for the project that I didn’t find .. ” then you say “I don’t feel like he is open to discuss/ challenge this vision.” !
If you don’t know my vision, how can you say that I’m not open to discuss it, did we ever discuss it ?

We (you and me) had a few discussions before, but I don’t remember I have been that close…
We talk about menus and about look&feel plugin, I remember that we had different approaches on this topic, you wanted add android look&feel only to your QML, I didn’t agreed, because I still want to support class widgets.
It means that I’m not open to discuss? Please give me more hints on this matter !
BTW Android 9patch is more complex than the standard, so, you can’t use QML BorderImage (qDrawBorderPixmap) to draw the images !

This is human. AFAIK Bogdan created the project and feels he has all rights on it (which he has), but that prevents real involvement from others.
Fact is, if Bogdan is unavailable, the project just plain stops.

Every community project, is based on meritocracy:
You code/contribute, then you have the right to make decisions !

2) NOTHING is done to make it a community project.

I already ranted about this, but the scattering of the project resources is just plain ridiculous, laughable and a HOWTO not to make a coherent project.
Wiki on sourceforge, 1 mailing list on kde and 1 on google groups, 1 bug tracker on sourceforge and 1 on google code, unclear/hidden master repository, unclear contribution process, which leads me to:

If you search this mailing list you’ll find all the informations you
need:
- regarding HOWTO and other information: The sf.net pages was written by Damine Treg, sadly he didn’t had time to continue, so I asked may times for peoples help !
Nobody wanted to do it! I can’t do everything by myself !
- 1 on google groups – this is a high traffic general mailing list used by everybody.
- 1 mailing list on kde – this one is a low traffic mailing list used only by developers, I don’t have time to read all posts on google.
- 1 bug tracker on sourceforge and 1 on google code – it was discuss many times before, ONLY bug tracker on sourceforge should be used.
- unclear/hidden master repository: check http://community.kde.org/Necessitas/Repositories
- unclear contribution process, as I already said to you before is not may fault !

3) What the f… does necessitas has to do with KDE?

I only assume Bogdan and Ray are KDE devs and that it is easy for them to host necessitas’s master git and “contribution process” on KDE, but this is VERY wrong from a necessitas perspective. KDE might have its own contribution process but it is irrelevant to us and ridiculous for a necessitas contributor to have to register a kde account to be able to use reviewboard, itself, IMHO, a very obscure and complicated system for code contribution vs. what is existing in github or gitorious.
Obviously, all merge requests in the gitorious clone are ignored.
Pretty please, make gitorious the main repository, use gitorious merge request system and do whatever KDE stuff you fancy do in your own KDE corner.

It has everything to do with KDE! Necessitas *IS* a KDE project !
Again, searching this list will give you enough informations.
I’ll try to summarize: When I released first alpha I had to put Ministro libs somewhere, I used some free servers to put the libs, but it was not a good solution. I dedicated my free time to this project and I didn’t wanted to give also my money, so I had to find a reliable solution, back then Nokia just joined Microsoft, to fight against android, so, I had to join somebody, KDE was the natural choice, we share the same goal:
To keep QT free and powerful.

Regarding contributions: We want to upstream everything, the problems
are:
– Nokia doesn’t accept contributions without accepting and sign their contributors agreement,
– I can’t move the project to qt-project.org (they don’t want it yet because is not finished) so you can’t accept their agreement, when you publish your patch.
– The ONLY solution was to “force” contributors to release their code under BSD or public domain

4) Accept contribution, reject them, discuss them or ask for update, DON’T rewrite them.

Crying for contribution, then taking some parts of a patch to rewrite it you way, mostly incompatible with the original patch, is NOT the way to go to motivate contributors.

Again I find some of your remarks very insulting, I’m not “crying”
for contribution !
I’m happy to have more contributor, but i’m not crying !

Probably you are frustrated because I had to revert your last patch, because it was a fiasco, it made the applications almost unusable, is that my fault ?
Probably it is, because I trust your patch and I didn’t run and check all the tests before push it !
The problem is to run and check all the tests it takes too much (1-3 days).

5) The project is sloooooowwwwww.

Due to 1), 2) and Bogdan’s limited availability, necessitas is slow to progress in its own right. I kind of made my own necessitas fork to move on, and due to 4) it has diverged so much from the main trunk that I’m not sure I’ll bother rebasing.

6) Maybe related to 3), I don’t know if it is necessitas or KDE, but one should definitely learn about the “git rebase” command.

All the merges coming from I don’t know which branches makes the git repository unreadable. The proper way to merge upstream is to rebase and resolve conflicts. Merging upstream is pure lazyness.

WOW you are so good! We didn’t know about “git rebase” command !!!
Of course you forgot to learn that you can’t use “git rebase” command when more than one people is using that branch !
Check http://lwn.net/Articles/328438/ for more info on this topic.

Merging with upstream is NOT lazyness, is responsibility !

Bottom line:

Necessitas is NOT a community project.

Unless the issues outlined are addressed, It is pointless to whine about necessitas’ lack of contribution.
I suspect many of the more knowledgeable potential contributors will just take the trunk and adapt it to their needs, without bothering trying to contribute it back. Unless the project becomes more community friendly, I’m open to contribute to a potential fork.

(/RANT)

I’m open to discuss what is wrong with my vision !
I’m open to know other people vision, so, please share your vision with us!

To be clear: I’m open to discuss, but I’m not going to “cry” for contributors or to accept contributions with insults in the same box !

In the name of the entire Qt community, we can but urge all partners to find a peaceful common ground – if mediation is needed, the Tamoggemon team would love to come to aid…