I’m glad to spark the debate and you raise some interesting points. >>Speaking as an engineer working on open source, there is simply too >>input to reasonably sort through in a day and still get work >>accomplished.
Well life is all about balance and I see your struggle in your words to get it right. >>I get hundreds of emails per day -- and that's after I've unsubscribed >>to all but the most central. I delete half without reading, skim the >>other half, and maybe seriously ponder only a couple. I have IM >>contacts, live IRC, IRC logs from when I was sleeping, bug lists, RSS >>feeds, research papers, hard-cover books, and code to read through -- >>and that's before even thinking of any form of writing. I don't think >>I dare add meetings in there. Adding a forum as a requirement on my >>time is a non-starter. That’s exactly the illusion that being busy creates, but honestly how long does it take to support a community? Do you recognize how many people posted some great responses without even much input from the core project programmers. Do you really want to be known as the team that wrote reasonably good software but didn’t give a crap about the people that used it? >>If you want a web forum, and don't like reading google groups web >>interface, then I suggest hosting a 3rd part forum on maxping for >>example. Antti might be able to find someone here to stop working on >>reX-NG long enough to reinstall and configure a forum solution, but it >>can't then be expected to be visited by developers. It'd be purely for >>community by community. I think the lesson from this is not the creation of a new forum or making another list, it’s the fact that the forum was axed without even really consulting or asking the people that used it. It may have had a bots problem or a spam problem but it certainly contained a dedicated group of people that ultimately would become your groundswell, pushing your solution. How long would it actually take to get someone to take one hour week and answer the best questions, tidy a few bots up and point people to the right FAQ? Why didn’t someone ask for some volunteers to man (or woman!) the board instead of just scrapping it without even asked the people that contributed to it did they think it was a good idea. >>I appreciate that realXtend appears to have lost momentum while we >>rewrite, but really it was do that, or slowly lose momentum due to a >>terminally ill code-base. I don’t think you do realize how much momentum you are losing, how many people tried to even get client running and find that about 60% of the graphic boards wouldn’t even run because of the OGRE was implemented. I think you overestimate the 5% of effort required that would show your team cares about the people who use the software. These are your customers any company (and ultimately any business) requires you hold onto as many of them as you can. >>Realistically speaking, it will take a while >>before reX gets good again, and by that time the community will have >>lost some members. We accept this as a necessary evil required to have >>shot at accomplishing the things we set out to accomplish. (And from a >>certain point of view, now is the best time possible to refocus, as >>the change in economy has put us in bottom of the hype-cycle, and >>there is not much else to do but bear down and wait for the tide to >>rise.) It sounds like you have convinced yourself of this without really thinking it through. The truth is you won’t be able to make the software good if you don’t have an active user group to push it for you. The early adopters need to be nurtured, respected and encouraged , You can’t afford to act like Microsoft until you have the 80% of market share that gives you the illusion you can crap on your customers. (And the Vista model of “if you build it they will come” should be a lesson to any grouping the business of writing software in a vacuum and not listening to its userbase, even if you are Microsoft.) >>I don't think the problem with the community is lack of a forum -- >>it's lack of cool software to play with, The community had a perfectly good forum that had some good contributing writers. Instead of "fixing" it without any real consultation with the people that cared about it you took the easy route and binned it. So go ahead and fix your broken code base, take long enough and no one will care. The people that will play and push realxtend 4.0 will push and extend Modrex and latest baby as well. Rex may be a bit buggy, currently it is a wonderful tool to build your own little private Eden, invite a few friends in to play without paying Second life a pound of flesh for the privilege. I think most realise it won't be a commercial option in it's current form. But your users will be able to build 3D worlds that they can take the assets they make with them into your next product... >>and that will only be fixed when developers are working on making software. >>An open >>source community is about give-and-take, and I hope people worried >>about the >>future of reX decide to give back -- instead of make a run on the bank >>of good will when things look a little cloudy Your forum was part of your bank of goodwill, read some of the advanced posts and you will see give and take, now Take a look at your list here and see how many of the original bullitin board contributors are not in the google dead pool? I don't write this in anger, I write it as someone who cares and if you get enough people passionate about what you do and why you do it and all your late nights, lost weekends and tight cashflows will make it worth it! The poeple asking questions about Rex aren’t sucking from your corpse, they love what you have written to date. I'm excited about the fact that you have realized rex might have reached its conclusion but you will be judged as much on your handover as you will be on your final product. Hey some of us are still here no matter how cloudy it gets, sharpen your axe a bit take an hour out a week to answer the choice questions, consider either reactivating your forum or giving Janis forum a good shake (or appoint someone who can!) and when the new infant pops out everyone will still be here to meet it! :-) Cheers, Monica --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend http://www.realxtend.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
