Why do we have brainstorm?
 

All my bugs or feature request that i monitored in bugzilla are getting closed with the comment:

"this is to big thing for bugzilla, only small bugs should be put in there, use brainstorm


I think this is just plain wrong.

Now we have 3 things where discussions are being done..

1> bugzilla
2> brainstorm
3> talk

And how can end users of the N900 when they have a bug or it could be a missing feature (how would they know??) know what to do? Open a bugzilla? but maybe it is not small bug or even a feature request.. then they should use brainstorm...
But how would they know?

Now i have to search all over the place to see where an issue that i have could be discussed.

Why not do everything in one place and that is bugzilla? You can discuss there just fine, you can vote. You can easily switch from bug to feature request, you can use it for planning (targeting this issue for a release)

then a special forum in talk can be used to discuss something before it enters bugzilla, or we could use BrainStorm for this. But bugzilla should in my eyes always be the end point, first maybe talk about it then go make a bugzilla entry where the fix or implementation is being tracked? With a link back to the discussion?

The nice thing about bugzilla and that kind of stuff is that when for example you use Eclipse and Mylyn you have complete integration into your development environment..

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

This discussion is already happening on the maemo-community list:

http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail/mae...er/003563.html

You're approaching this from the point of view of "if the enhancement request is small, well-defined and tightly scoped; why shouldn't it be in Bugzilla?"; I'm approaching it from a "good community technical solutions can't be divined by moving to a divisive vote" perspective.

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

just look at what the result of this is:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5300

that bug got resolved->moved
now it is reopend again.

Because it is soo confusing..

If you want to discuss in brainstorm then there should always be (or the result should be) a bugzilla issue. Pointing back to the brainstorm.

If somebody opens a bugzilla which in your eyes should first be brainstormed on. Then ok give it a state "brainstorm" or something pointing to the brainstorm topic (and the brainstorm topic should point to the bugzilla entry). So that when the brainstorm is done you go back to the bugzilla where the real stuff will then be handled in.

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

We have several tools to gather feedback from the people.

Forum, Brainstorm, Bugzilla, Mailing lists

Each of them has its own scope. We just need to figure out better which one serves better for that particular purpose.

From what I see them, forum and ML mostly overlap, it's just a matter of preferences of where you want to share your thoughts on a particular topic.

Bugzilla is clearly the tool for bugs and (to me) for small enhancements to already developed tools.

Brainstorm is the tool to propose brand new ideas. It clearly overlaps a bit with Bugzilla Enhancements but we can live with that and use common sense to move enhancements between the two.
For example I have proposed a different zoom gesture. It could have been filed in as a browser enhancement, but it clearly (to me at least :) ) belongs to Brainstorm as the gesture should be made available to all applications.

So yes, I think we need all of them, but we need to clearly state their purposes on a wiki page so that the boundaries between them are better defined.

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

What I don't get is all this fragmentation. Nokia expects enthusiasts and consumers to function the same way as developers and Nokia employees. Beyond getting things that should've been fixed or features that exist on every other computer/phone on the market, why do consumers even care where to go? Nokia is a big giant with a big maze of software and legal mazes to traverse, but isn't that someone they should hire to traverse and filter feedback through? Someone that understands both what consumers want and what software/hardware engineers need?

Nokia just got me used to using Bugzilla and now they want me to go somewhere else to improve their business. I'd happily do so if I was getting paid for it, but why am I helping Nokia make more money?

I know the maemo community will say, "Well, the whole process is just for programmers, developers, etc..." But if Nokia doesn't figure this out soon, step 5 of 5 isn't gonna make a difference. They need to figure out how to start interacting with consumers NOW and not wait for Maemo 6 to make that happen.

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

This isn't "Nokia expects". These are decisions the community have made; pointing the finger at Nokia as some demon on which all the ills can be blamed isn't helpful.

The question is how, constructively, can we balance the various requirements; and have we got those requirements (and the balance) right yet?

[snip rest about step 5 of 5 and other stuff which isn't relevant]

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

If the problem is ideas being filed in the wrong place couldn't we just make it a simple task to move them from one to the other, or maybe this is already the case?

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

@freppas: right now, any bug filed in bugzilla that seems like it should be brainstormed, is requested to be manually moved over to brainstorm.

@Jaffa: Yes, the community as of right now is made up of mostly technical people. The community is sponsored by Nokia, is it not? Eventually, if Maemo and Nokia are to succeed, the community will engulf a much larger group of users...i.e. mass market consumers. If the community and Nokia don't see this, then all of these exercises are irrelevant.

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

Jaffa is correct, and I want to add that a lot of what is being complained about is currently in the process of discussion, exploration and improvement-- including bug reporting and brainstorming.

There are distinct goals as anidel correctly pointed out but there's also no avoiding a degree of overlap. That is where human judgment and management come in.

Those participating in these efforts welcome input from the community and will do our best to implement what we can when we can. Just keep in mind change does not always come as quickly as some would like, and that absence of evidence (ie, activity) is not necessarily evidence of absence. Your patience is appreciated.

;)

Also, I'm inclined to merge this with the "ask your questions here" thread, where IMO it should have started.

Re: Why do we have brainstorm?
 

This was precisely one of the main reasons to push Brainstorm. Most of us agreed that bugzilla is not the most appropriate tool for non-technical contributors to propose and discuss feature requests. Then someone pointed to http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ and a long discussion and implementation process started. And still continues.