[dev] Fwd: Re: Patch I submitted

[Conor Kerr]

Hi Amith,

> For the legal system there is (in most countries) the court system to figure out
> what laws are well conceived and which ones are not.  In the Horde/IMP Project
> all we have are the core developers and the rest of the user base.  

That's a good point but, despite the volume of text I've written about
this patch, this patch issue's really only a tiny thing so not much
input is needed, IMP's developer base is more than sufficient. :-)

> Occasionally someone on the list wants to commit a patch that breaks the RFCs
> for the sake of usability.  And while you have a point, that usability is
> important, I personally don't see tons of people agreeing with you or arguing
> your case.

Neither do I but then there is almost no discussion on this list, it's
very quiet.  Maybe it's not always like that, I don't know.

> I think one of the important goals of this project is to have an RFC
> compliant mail system.

I wouldn't ask to break a standard for just any old reason, I think that
should be quite clear from my posts.  The question I have to ask myself
is "do I want a RFC compliant system or a slightly uncompliant one that
is almost indistinguishble from a compliant one but is more usable?".
My own personal answer to that can probably be guessed! :)

> As Jan mentioned, RFC's are usually well thought out and these type of things
> are taken into account.  I personally would like to err on the side of the RFC
> and not do something "because everyone is doing it".

I am most definitely not saying do it "because everyone is doing it",
I'm open but I'm not a sheep!  I'm saying do it "because the situation
can't be changed by us in the near future, acceptance is the only
realistic alternative if it brings reasonable benefits with little
negative impact".

> The beauty of open source is that you can do whatever you want.  If you would
> like to change your install you should do it. 

That definitely is its greatest advantage... and as I indicated at the
end of my last post I'll be redeveloping IMP the way I want it for my
own personal use (and maybe release in a loooong time :) ).  I've been
thinking about doing so for more than a year now but it would have meant
losing any patches people had created since then... I suppose though
that IMP's probably in a sufficient stage now to be the basis for a more
usable webmail client (once it has been streamlined and brought up to
date with XML templated interfaces etc.).

Maybe it's not strictly necessary to say this here and now but open
source's greatest failure is its unaccountability, people with misplaced
ideas of software development can assert huge influences on a project. 
That kind of situation will become less prevalent if computer courses
emphasise usability but they haven't for 30 years so I doubt it's going
to suddenly happen now, you should see the GUI disasters being
constructed daily at my Uni by "the next generation"! :)

> However, I don't think the core developers want go down this path.

It doesn't look like it. ;)

Before anyone gets me wrong the last paragraph about Open Source there
isn't directed at anyone involved with Horde/IMP, I just can't say
something really positive about Open Source without stressing a negative...
a personal adverse reaction to hype I think! :)

Just to reinforce that fact, I think IMP's main mailbox GUI is pretty
good, very usable as far as HTML table-based GUIs go.  I want content
separated from code though... XML->XHTML|WAP|whatever is the immediate
future for me...

And with that I'll finish this post! :)

All the best...

Conor

--
Conor Kerr
Amiga Developer, Ceon Ltd., Northern Ireland
www.ceon.net  conor at dev.ceon.net