On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:43:07 -0500 (CDT), lazarus.mramirez wrote
> Lazarus Foundation (pros) advantages and disadvantages
>
>
> Organization.
>
> By organization, I mean administration, leadership, control,
> resources. I see a foundation as a natural evolution of a open
> source community, examples:
Statements like this always seem to amaze me. Where did you get the idea that
Lazarus or FPC do not have administration, leadership, control, resources, etc.
> There's a lot of things where a legally established foundation can
> do, that a community may lack.
For me it would only add alot of complexity. The moment you need to
incorporate or create a legal organization it will get totally complex.
> For example, I surprised that Lazarus forums aren't updated as it happens
> to Borland's groups (Delphi and others) or M$ groups...
I'm not even sure what you mean by this. 'forums aren't updated'. What does
that mean?
> I find the mailing list/wiki very useful for bugs and improvements,
> but not good for common questions,
> (like what do I need to install it in certain Linux distribution),
> which I think it's better in a forum.
And most of those kind of things are in the forum. Aren't they????
> In fact, this topic, I think it should be in a working forum ;-)
So why don't you have it in the forums?
> I understand also that making a foundation work is not a trivial
> task, and it needs several things, in order to make it work.
>
> Many guys think that the FreePascal project doesn't need a
> foundation, but the complexity of Lazarus does.
What makes your think Lazarus is any more complex then the FPC compiler that
it sits on top of????
> Donations.
>
> Money is required for several things. Money serves a wildcard for several
> things like time (hiring developers time), material resources
> (like cpus, servers, merchandising/publicity)
This is thinking like it is a commercial product. It isn't. As was mentioned
in another email it is something we do because we enjoy it and it is fun. Also
fun to be part of it. If no one ever uses the product but us .... so be it.
Merchandising/publicity isn't really important. If people use it great. If
they don't, also great.
> As an example, a few months ago, Open Office development (version 2),
> a wide used open source software, has halted by lack of developers,
> until Google make a donation.
This is from the OpenOffice site itself.
"We strongly prefer that people become contributors.
In most cases, being a contributor will go much
further than a monetary donation."
They have the same problem Lazarus/FPC do. Developers who contribute their
time and effort into improving the tools.
> I guess that some of the guys around here have the same problem,
> and a set of full-time core developers could help a lot.
But most of the projects you mention don't even have full time developers.
> Lazarus was a must for me (not in US), since a few years ago,
> due to the high price of Delphi, lack of localization,
> and dificulty to port to other OSs like Linux, BSD or mobile,
> not just for cheaper OSs or money, but for technical reasons.
>
> Just check how many post are from people from outside US.
>
> A foundation can help on this and more matters.
How? You make this global statement but don't give specifics. How exactly does
it help?
--
==== Programming my first best destiny! ====
Michael A. Hess Miracle Concepts, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.miraclec.com
Phone: 570-388-2211 Fax: 570-388-6101
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