Not to be a party-pooper but one thing that characterised my initial impression of backstage was disappointment at the number of things people were doing that were NOT open source, especially from some of the more prolific authors here. ---- I think there is certainly something very different about the backstage development community compared to other developer networks. Not a lot of code does get shared, yes I agree. But I don't believe the reason is because people don't care. Maybe the time just hasn't come up yet or even people feel Backstage isn't the place to get really into the code?
Yet, I see these little widgets & mash-ups go by, cool 'n all ... but no code, so who cares? A shame! (And soo last millennium). ---- The widget competition comes at a very interesting point in there conception. People are sitting up and thinking about what's actually possible with widgets and where there path into the future goes. So last millennium I would certainly disagree. There's also nothing stopping people from sharing the code of the widgets. Ideally when we first wrote the competition, we were going to post up the entries straight away, so everyone could discuss and learn from each other. But with the prizes and contest element to it all, it didn't seem feasible. We've learned from that, and you will found out on Monday 6th what were planning next. I certainly feel the next thing will make people collaborate more and who knows what might happen. But on a side point. I'm not saying collaboration isn't happening! I've seen examples where someone will take some rough and barely ready data source and wrap it up in something much more understandable. Then someone will write a prototype off that. This may not be the model your after? But I think the game has changed, this is the modern eco-system of development. I'm really happy to discuss this more if people are happy to? Ian Forrester || backstage.bbc.co.uk || x83965 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
