[josm-dev] JOSM map display bugs - I'm not related to this ...

[Dirk Stöcker]

On Fri, 1 Oct 2010, Ulf Lamping wrote:

> For some time now I maintain (more or less) what's get's on display on
> the JOSM map. But I'm not willing to take care of bugs others introduce ...
>
> Please provide me with a solution that seperates me from this
> unprofessional behaviour or remove me from the list of JOSM trac
> maintainers completely ...

Well, I'm maintainer which means I'm responsible for all bugs in JOSM 
whether I made them or not. I knew this before I took over this task and I 
also knew before what this means including a lot of blaming from different 
people for different things. Including users, developers and other people 
who never did something but know everything better. Not everything goes 
over the mailinglists and some comments and remarks have been really 
unfair and unfriendly.

Of the above 3 groups in my eyes last group has lowest priority and 
developers have highest one and I'm always sad when developers aren't able 
to detach enough from the tasks done and to be done. Nobody should take 
software development personal - you will be disappointed sooner or 
later when doing so.

This is OpenSource! Nobody owns parts of the code. People have different 
backgrounds and different experience and results have different quality. 
And nobody is paid for the work.

Actually the quality of our work is very good. I know little commercial 
"professional" software which has as high quality. But it is also true 
that approx 90% of every patch and code contributions I accept (or which 
Sebastian does most time now - Thanks a lot BTW) don't match my own 
quality standards.

Should this mean that JOSM should become a one-man show with high 
standards but no progress? - Well, I think no. So I accept stuff as well 
as the related bugs and we fix them step by step. Nevertheless even latest 
is a very stable piece of software. I usually only try to suggest the way 
JOSM goes and very seldom use my managing powers to enforce something, as 
this is the way which leads to best results (according to my current 
knowledge).

Oh, I got hopping mad after Karl destroyed most of the bug fixes to plugin 
code and the whole structure of plugin handling I introduced over half 
a year. But he also did introduce a lot of new stuff (and a lot of bugs 
which took a good half year to fix most of them). I fixed a lot of other 
bugs twice, because even the really good developers (no I wont say who I 
have in mind) can destroy working code when doing changes.

I don't like it when I loose good developers or component maintainers, but 
I wont change the concept because of "code ownership or new design 
approaches", as this would mean I would loose a lot more people. JOSM 
doesn't have a lot of active developers, but it has much more than other 
similar projects have.

Even if I got mad on Karl for killing good working code I would not have 
based decisions on this (he did not like the few cases where I used my 
admin role and finally he left JOSM totally). I didn't like him going and 
I would not like seeing you go, but there exist no privileges for 
developers. Who does the work decides! Ok - I have privileges, but I'm the 
boss :-)

Ciao
-- 
http://www.dstoecker.eu/ (PGP key available)