[TYPO3-dev] disenfranchising rant from the trenches :( (was: TYPO3 4.0 RC1 + t3skin_40)

[Michael Shigorin]

Kasper Sk?rh?j wrote:
> Please wake up and support Thomas instead of suggesting other skins.  
> Since newyear it has been official that we are going to put some  
> resources into creating a new 4.0 skin. Please don't tell us we  
> wasted our time!

Usually it's better to be told so than to stay in illusion.

> Go and support Thomas to make this 4.0 skin unique,  beautiful and
> usable instead. We are not changing horses in the  middle of the
> stream.

Argh.

Sorry, some rant from a person who invested a few months of time 
in TYPO3, advocated it a bit and even had to build one "commercial" 
site on 3.8.

I was very excited about TYPO3 upon discovering it (thanks Freshmeat,
the filter was like Web::Dynamic Content + Mature/Stable).  Even moreso
when looking at the community, development and "outer" progress --
started fiddling with 3.5.0/3.6.0-rc, then rolled out our corporate site
on 3.6.2, then used that for one and then several community sites; all 
of these are now migrated to 3.8.0 or 3.8.1 as appropriate (I did read
the changelog).

As a long-time member of ALT Linux Team (http://altlinux.org), I've seen 
quite a few moments of success and failure there and was very impressed
at how similar problems were handled within TYPO3 project.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now it's hard time for me to love TYPO3 because it seems no longer
blessed friendly home but rather something quite ordinary...

* TER is broken for current stable release.  People, if you did ship 
  3.8.0 with tt_news 1.x not to break installations, was it all worth it
  to break ter.typo3.org instead of bringing up ter2 vhost or doing
  non-intersecting infrastructure within one vhost? (I doubt the latter)

  It is crazy, there appears just no stable and extensible without
  significant effort release of TYPO3 since that!

* The new Corporate ID and in particular Logo are *awful* for the most 
  part.  Sorry to finally bring this here but it's better to be honest 
  and tell what you think instead of singing sweet songs of false.

  Many, including me, on typo3-russia@ have wondered what the heck and
  why this "logo" is so screwed?  The first association of alarmingly 
  too many people who have seen that was "omg, fallic symbol".  The
  reason to change colours "for printability" with whoosing orange and 
  green was criticized as plainly stupid by those who know their way
  around CMYK (I know a bit since my parents were/are employed at film
  technology and professional print).

  Classic TYPO3 logo was elegant, light and very conforming to what
  TYPO3 is -- complex but light and elegant building.  This one...
  sorry.  I don't intend to insult those who did it, even if I clearly
  intended to do so when spotting it for the first time (like, "morons
  who know nothing in design and people but who managed to **** my
  beautiful TYPO3!!!").

  It just might be like people who work hard to do their best but who
  really are doing their work for themselves... for their pride.

  New TYPO3.org design is quite hostile to my eyes, too.  It's
  irritating instead of being "welcome home", less intensive and
  aggressive palette like classic one was.  There are some nice features
  there though, I mean design.

* New BE skin, at least what I've seen following the announcement link
  on typo3.org, was also irritating -- too bright and eye-scary; others
  have noticed the lack of borders where they were due.  If there were
  any Windows XP fans responsible for that, please note that Windows
  2000's default color scheme was considered by many much less
  intrusive. (I'm using Linux and didn't follow design newsgroup
  so just a guess)

These are the most sad things I have to tell.  Folks, please don't take
it up to heart, I love you and what you have done but seems like the
process of doing things with love didn't scale this year.  But you can
learn from those who managed to carry on without Association, numerous
Teams and still create awesome thing.  You can do homely design and not 
a stupid overly official and not eye-friendly and mind-friendly one.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kasper, I didn't research whether you were doing democracy but honestly
again, it's way better for any large project I've seen to have
reasonable "benevolent dictator for life" whose word is final on any 
unclear topic like CI.  If you consider something going wrong, then
you *have* the right to tell so and not spoonfeed those who better break
dozen other things before coming to try breaking TYPO3.

At least God beats every son He accepts... and it's not for evil, 
it's for education.  And it works.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for being harsh, again.  I had to write this.  I'm no designer
to step up and propose anything better, but seems I can distinguish 
when "new and improved" stuff isn't stacking up against older one.

If I can help, please drop me a note; if following up, please Cc: me
being rare on newsreader these days.

Thank you!

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike at altlinux.ru>
  ------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/