nyalldawson.net

Last week I posted regarding some thoughts I’ve had recently concerning what I perceive as a general confusion about how QGIS is developed and how users can successfully get things to change in the project. The post certainly started a lot of conversation! However, based on feedback received I realise some parts of the posts were being misinterpreted and some clarification is needed. So here we go…

1. Please keep filing bug reports/feature requests

I don’t think I was very clear about this – but my original post wasn’t meant to be a discouragement from filing bug reports or feature requests. The truth is that there is a LOT of value in these reports, and if you don’t file a report then the QGIS team will never be aware of the bug or your feature idea. Here’s some reasons why you SHOULD file a report:

• QGIS developers are a conscientious mob, and generally take responsibility for any regressions they’ve caused by changes they’ve made. In other words, there’s very much an attitude of “I-broke-it, I’ll-fix-it” in the project. So, if a new feature is buggy or has broken something else then filing bugs ASAP is the best way to make the developer aware of these issues. In my experience they’ll usually be addressed rapidly.
• As mentioned in the original post – there’s always a pre-release bug fix sprint, so filing a bug (especially if it’s a critical one) may mean that it’s addressed during this sprint.
• Filing feature requests can gain traction if your idea is innovative, novel, or interesting enough to grab a developer’s attention!

Speaking for myself, I regularly check new incoming tickets (at least once a day), and I know I’m not the only one. So filing a report WILL bring your issue to developer’s attention. Which leads to…

2. Frustration is understandable!

I can honestly understand why people get frustrated and resort to an aggressive “why hasn’t this been fixed yet?!” style reply. I believe that these complaints are caused because people have the misunderstanding that filing a bug report is the ONLY thing they can do to get an issue fixed. If filing a report IS the only avenue you have to get something fixed/implemented, then it’s totally understandable to be annoyed when your ticket gets no results. This is a failing on behalf of the project though – we need to be clearly communicating that filing a report is the LEAST you can do. It’s a good first step, but on its own it’s just the beginning and needs to be followed up by one of the methods I described in the initial post.

3. It applies to more than just code

When I wrote the original piece I focused on just the code aspect of the QGIS project. That’s only because I’m a developer and it’s the area I know best. But it applies equally across the whole project, including documentation, translations, infrastructure, websites, packaging QGIS releases, etc. In fact, some of these non-code areas are the best entry points into the project as they don’t require a development background, and eg the documentation and translation teams have done a great job making it easy to submit contributions. Find something missing in the QGIS documentation? Add it yourself! Missing a translation of the website which prevents QGIS adoption within your community? Why not sponsor a translator to tackle this task?!

4. It applies to more than just QGIS!

Again, I wrote the original piece focusing on QGIS because that’s the project I’m most familiar with. You could just as easily substitute GDAL, GEOS, OpenLayers, PostGIS, Geoserver, R, D3, etc… in and it would be equally valid!

Hopefully that helps clarify some of the points raised by the earlier article. Let’s keep the discussion flowing – I’d love to hear if you have any other suggestions or questions raised by this topic.