[Github-comments] [geany/geany] Geany needs spyware 🙄 (Discussion #2918)

[xiota]

> To be clear, I do not support software having spyware...

I've edited the original post to make clear that this is a strawman proposal for discussion.

> I don't know what legal issues spyware may have, even if its possible to turn it off.

Many programs "check for update".  Software from larger companies do more, but of course, they likely have more monetary resources than Geany does.

>  And anyway statistics tell you what people use now, not what they might use if it was added or an existing unused feature improved.

Agree.

> And really, Geany isn't guided by statistics, but by what people contribute. No matter how many statistics there are, if nobody contributes a change it won't happen.

Agree.  This is true of smaller open-source programs with limited funds.

> There are no paid directed developers following a master plan shaped by gathered statistics. Its all whatever people contribute, either their own ideas, or ones they get from feature request issues, or from issue discussions/arguments, or stolen from other projects, or whatever. Then the only filter on the contributions is if the (volunteer) committers have the time and interest to review test and merge changes.

Perhaps usage statistics would encourage committers to consider changes that they might not otherwise be motivated to consider?

> If somebody thinks a pull request is not suitable they may simply say so, or suggest changes, or totally ignore it, although getting _no_ response is rare for pull requests, but more so for feature requests. As people might have noticed one of my bugbears is people who want to effectively remove existing features by replacing them or simply deleting them. IMO thats like saying "I don't want it that way so nobody can have it" and a better approach is to try to add the new feature as additional functionality, or provide an option to select it (if it can't coexist with an existing feature) or put it in a plugin so the user can decide to include it or not.

People who ask for a feature to be "changed" would likely be satisfied with an option for their request.

Knowing the usage of a feature would help with determining whether an outright change would be acceptible.  Maybe "no one" is using the feature because it has wonky behavior.

> Of course as all volunteer time is limited, large changes can sit for a long time before anyone has the time to review, test, and merge them. Especially in these "interesting" times. So Geany tends to move in small steps punctuated by occasional lurches, which makes it fun but occasionally frustrating grin.

Maybe usage statistics could encourage more activity on large changes?


-- 
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/geany/geany/discussions/2918#discussioncomment-1447651
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.geany.org/pipermail/github-comments/attachments/20211008/daf96590/attachment-0001.htm>