On Sun, 2 Apr 2006, Roland Wild wrote:

Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 04:00:35 -0400 From: Roland Wild
To: gimp-developer@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU Subject: [Gimp-developer] Plea for a new interface...

Carol,

I can't understand your response. (maybe a little because of the english language)
Carol, i think you minimize the importance of users opinions in the development of a software... or maybe it's me who maximize it.

I think it might be good to say that Carol has liked and used the GIMP for a long time and is concerned that changes others want might not turn out to be improvements, and is a good representative of long term users.

If you truely think that my intervention was useless I apologize because I made you waste your time.

Many people make many suggestions but very few help out. People who quite like things the way they are tend to get a little annoyed and not understand why people complain so much and do so little about it. It is very difficult for developers and existing users to be as nice to the first person as the hundreth person to ask the same thing.

Me, I'm not content with thing the way they are but things are improving (compare version 1.2 to now). There are very few good alternatives if you want to use GNU Free Software and complaining doesn't really help anyone. I would prefer if people were more willing to copy Photoshop unless there were specific reasons not to copy certain details, instead of the default position being to judge suggestions in isolation but I'll keep trying to nudge things along. (For example: I think showing the text labels on the palettes would make things easier to learn, and the bigger targets easier to hit. I usually have icons and text showing, or sometimes status and text a neat feature you might not have discovered yet. Might file a request later.)

and another where people could come and say how they are happy with the

Happy people tend to get on with creating artwork. Sometimes the feedback developers get might not be representative but hopefully things can be improved without upsetting existing users.

suggestions I made was interpreted as a critic (what I can understand because unlike in french the words review and critic are synonymous in english) I excuse me another time.

They are almost the same in Engish, we borrow the word 'critique'. The problem is probably more to do with it being difficult to express things in writing, I often find people on the internet to be rude and excessively blunt when apparently they aren't doing it on purpose (again and again and again).

I will continue to use and promote this program because I like it and it do me good turns. Actually as I said in a precedent mail others have answered to my questions (Robert, Alexandre, etc). I don't insist in this way (the "review" i proposed) anymore. I will try to made a little video to show if the suggestions they gave me can be "efficient". Another time I thank them.

Stick around, perhaps you can still suggest changes that enough people will like and maybe you could help out some way towards helping get those changes made.

If you truely think that my intervention was useless I apologize because I

made you waste your time.

You took the time to create a screen mock-up (example). You are in the minority, so thank you. However, I'm just a long time user and occasional bug reporter so my "thank you" carries less weight than the developers (IMHO), but don't be discouraged or overly sensitive about the reaction to your suggestion by some on this list.

You did not waste my time. I enjoyed your screen mockups - it made it very easy for me to understand your concept. On the other hand - others used to waste my time so much with their righteous indignation that I dropped off the list for a while. They have since toned down their rhetoric and I rejoined the list with a better understanding of the personalities.

All projects (that want to grow or survive) need new blood, even if they rehash old arguements.