On Tue, 22 Feb 2011, John Veness wrote:
On 22/02/2011 12:58, Gabriel M. Beddingfield wrote:
What slows things down (IMHO) it the
community whining about how (a) it was all done in secret,
(b) how they haven't released it publicly, (c) how there's
no public repos, (d) how it's not integrated to
bugs.meego.com.... blah blah blah.
Wow. So the problem is the community whining, not the fact that all those
things happened?
Community says: Why did you not develop this in an open
manner?
Answer: If they did, there probably would not be a
pre-alpha preview, yet.
Why? Instead of working on code, they have to set up the
project with a mailing list, a forum, community meetings, a
category in the BTS. Then they have to work out issues with
the fact that Swype is not FLOSS... but that they want to
use it. People would accuse Intel of betraying open source
because "USING SWYPE IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR MEEGO!!" After
getting all that crap worked out... THEN they can start
working on the code?
Whatever.
If the community is such a valuable part of shipping
products on time... where is the community's tablet UX?
You're taking things to extremes now just to make a silly point. Designing a
It's not a silly point. The point is: more community
involvement means longer time-to-market.
The extreme of this is Debian, who doesn't even set a
release date because they know they can't meet it while the
beaurocracy works things out.
But that doesn't mean that community input is useless, and doesn't mean that
I agree: community input is not useless... and is indeed
useful.
designers cannot make their initial plans public and allow the community to
comment on them. This isn't design by committee, and the designers don't have
to do every little thing the community says, but valuable feedback.
So, then... what was the pre-alpha preview? Oh, I remember!
They were inviting the community to comment on it. :-p
I don't know. I thought MeeGo was supposed to be about open development, not
just open source. If it isn't, then we might as well just join Android or
similar communities, where the source is published but development is done in
secret, with "big reveals" for each new version or UX.
I thought MeeGo was about shipping devices.
I thought MeeGo was about freedom: freedom to make your own
UX if you want to... and not have to ask or tell anyone that
you're doing it. Freedom to develop as a community and
freedom to develop (and even distribute) in private.
I thought MeeGo was about cooperation: that by adhering the
the MeeGo compliance spec... apps written for the Handset UX
will still run on the Tablet UX or the WeTab UX or
anybody-elses-meego-ux.
I thought MeeGo was about business: Businesses buying in to
the idea that open-source is an effective way to reduce the
bottom line and speed time-to-market.
I thought MeeGo was about community: businesses and FLOSS
communists working together without laying guilt trips on
each other.
I'm not saying community is bad.
I'm just saying: Jeez! Lay off Intel for the Tablet UX.
What they did was good... and also provided leadership to
show business that you don't have to have all your code in
Gitorious in order to be MeeGo.
-gabriel
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