X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2015 05:56:49 +0200 (CEST) X-X-Sender: igor2 AT igor2priv To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Debug: to=geda-user AT delorie DOT com from="gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu" From: gedau AT igor2 DOT repo DOT hu Subject: Re: [geda-user] GTK3, Glade interface designer (router, auto?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <1443975731 DOT 671 DOT 52 DOT camel AT ssalewski DOT de> <20151004191717 DOT bf8223417541a9306bfbd9ea AT gmail DOT com> <1443997480 DOT 2068 DOT 32 DOT camel AT ssalewski DOT de> <1444070851 DOT 1014 DOT 20 DOT camel AT ssalewski DOT de> <20151007135719 DOT 10977 DOT qmail AT stuge DOT se> <20151007161001 DOT 21379 DOT qmail AT stuge DOT se> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (DEB 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Thu, 8 Oct 2015, Kai-Martin Knaak wrote: > Peter Stuge (peter AT stuge DOT se) [via geda-user- > Ht4Cp5ncgjRBDgjK7y7TUQ AT public DOT gmane DOT org] wrote: > >> Evan Foss (evanfoss AT gmail DOT com) [via >> geda-user AT delorie DOT com] wrote: > >>>> Remember that the mailing list will only ever represent a very >>>> small subset of the full userbase. > > That's what we like to believe. But what if the full user base is not > that much larger than the subscriber list of the mailing list? Partly > serious. Are there any hints to realistic estimates? I have the same impression. We either have a lot of users installing from distribution packages without trying to seek _any_ contact with us. Or there are really only a handful of power users and probably a cuple of dozens "casual" users out there (judging subjectively from the mailing list traffic). Well, I know one user who is using geda (gschem, pcb, but not the simulation flows; he used to be on the list, is still using the tools weekly, but stuck with an old version). This suggests there might be such a "mass" of hidden users. It's pure speculation, but: - gschem did not have up to date windows binaries for some time and IIRC we didn't have windows installers; - in the same time major distros kept on having geda/gaf and pcb available as packages - not sure about BSD I'd guess those hidden users are more likely to be Linux (or BSD?) users than windows users. > > >>> Yes but it involves a lot of the more serious users. >> >> I don't believe that at all. >> >> Many on the list are big users, but all big users are not on the >> list. > > It is the classical "silent majority" conundrum. There is no way to > know what the silent majority is up to. Any argument which refers to > what the silent majority wants or does not want is inherently weak. I agree and I think it'd be nice to somehow reach at least a portion of those users and query them. If my above speculation is right, the only way to them is through distro packages, which makes this harder. Lately I found a Ruby packaging problem in Debian; I used debbugs to report it. I really liked how the whole thing just worked - it was driving me through the process, and I did not have to register in some web service for a one-time bugreport and it collected a lot of mechanical info (e.g. software versions) automatically. Maybe a similar mechanism in gschem and pcb (as a GUI menu item or CLI or whatever) could help. Regards, Igor2