[PLEASE VOTE] so what should we be working on

[Sebastian Kügler]

Hi,

First of all, I'm not dead, not even in the subsurface-sense. I still follow 
things closely, and my love to subsurface and the people making it is still 
burning.

That said, I'm not a rock-star at multi-tasking, I have a hard time switching 
between code projects often, and that means "putting an hour or two here and 
there into subsurface is just not happening often enough (well, hasn't been 
happening in a few months, and I feel bad about that).

I also haven't started logging my dives electronically, and I'm not even sure 
I want to to that. For me, diving is wonderfully analog, and I'm often using 
it as a balance from work. I work on Plasma, and an effect of that is that 
contributions to subsurface are very similar to "work-work", so contributing 
to subsurface doesn't actually take my mind off work, more often it's one more 
project I care about, but which I don't find the time as often as I'd want to 
contribute to.

I feel bad for helping Dirk too little to pull of everything needed to run a 
successful open source project, at the same time I realize how much work it is 
and how I can't really contribute a lot.

On Saturday 28 May 2016 14:37:26 Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> I have been focused on other things for a while (and the why and the what
> will become public fairly soon) and decided to use that chance to figure
> out what would happen if I just stopped paying attention here for a while.
> 
> Here's what I think I learned (correct me if I'm wrong)
> 
> a) no one cares about Subsurface-mobile. No bug reports, no code, no
> suggestions, nothing. So I guess we should call this a failed attempt and
> abandon it - screw the 500 or so people who use it.

Maybe no one cares, but I think it's more a matter of "no one knows about it".

> b) Miika continues to deal with any import bug that shows up. Awesome. Your
> patches have been pushed

That's awesome, and I think exactly what's needed.

> c) there continues to be a slow crawl of features, ideas, patches for the
> planner. Those have also been pushed (someone poke me if I got something
> wrong there)

Also good stuff. More often than not, this is the kind of development users 
love. It's a sign of maturity perhaps much more than a sign of stagnation, but 
could be both.

> d) no one cares about the dive site mess that we have. The current version
> in Subsurface 4.5.x is pretty much unusable and makes no bleeping sense. 
> No patches, some suggestions for improvement, no discussion, nothing.
> 
> In summary, this project is pretty much dead. I guess it does everything the
> formerly active developers wanted? Or everyone has moved on to more fun
> things? Or had children, changed jobs, built a house, lost their job, or
> one of a number of other life events?

I think it's all but dead, it's rather at a point where it's pretty complete, 
high quality and makes people happy. That's not something you hear much about 
on a developer-focused list, though, so from this point of view, it may well 
feel dead.

One thing that can be done about it is indeed breaking and rewriting it, but 
is that really what we want? Do we not rather want to make people happy with a 
mature piece of software that develops even if slowly?

> So what should we be working on...? Should we...
> 
> (1) just shut this down and move on?
> (2) move things to maintenance mode, abandon Subsurface-mobile, fix bugs in
> Subsurface whenever we find time but otherwise declare victory? It won't be
> too painful to track libdicecomputer and keep making 4.5.x releases for a
> while, I guess... (3) focus on Subsurface-mobile, release the iOS version,
> update the Android version and see if there is a single person besides me
> who is willing to invest time into that? (4) focus on Subsurface 4.6, fix
> the dive site management and create a list of prioritized features that we
> want to get in place? (5) focus on Subsurface 5.0, write a completely new
> UI and abandon what we have in 4.5?

(4) Change tactics and / or focus: more users

This is really not meant to take effort off of development, but I think a 
natural progression of a software product once it's left its infancy. I think 
it would be good to focus a bit more on making subsurface better know, work on 
promotion, get into more divers' minds, find out what's missing to make it a 
really smooth project with a large user-base.

This increased promo effort may actually be an excellent way for those "who 
are sorry to not be developers, so can't contribute in a meaningful way", a 
way of tapping into currently unused resources.

Seeing subsurface being popular and being made popular and more well-known is 
also going to increase developer motivation, since work put in seems more 
worthwhile, so it may mean a way of getting out of the sleepy slur subsurface 
has moved into.

> If your vote is for 3, 4, or 5 I assume that you are volunteering to carry
> some of the work that is needed to get there. If you don't vote, I will
> count that as a vote for 1.

I think it would be a great shape to declare it failed and move on. I do think 
this discussion is needed, though, so let's have it.

Also, and this hasn't come up in the discussion so far, but I feel it's an 
important thing to consider: We need a backup plan for Dirk. If we decide to 
"move bigger", it becomes unacceptable to rely on just one person, because:

- there's this risk of burn-out
- dirk may get hit by a bus

Neither is sign of a healthy project, and both may give dirk a break and do 
something fun on subsurface instead of just keeping people in line, merging 
patches, etc., he, too, should have fun doing subsurface, but also subsurface 
really earns a sustainable base.

In my experience, the kind of soul-searching we should be doing is best done 
in-person, so if a subsurface real-life meeting is still an option, I'd love 
to use it for this kind of thing, with an open end.

All that said, I'll try to find some time in the near future to get some 
improvements done again. It's always been a pleasurable thing to do, and I 
definitely need to get back into that.

Cheers,
-- 
sebas

Sebastian Kügler    •    http://vizZzion.org    •    http://www.kde.org