[openbeos] Re: Progress reports

</LurkerMode>

So, the real issues is that you are frustrated by the lack of developers and, 
by association, the lack of progress with Haiku?

This is not a new problem. Haiku is far better known now than ever before. It 
has more developers than ever before. Progress is, in a lot of ways, faster 
than ever  before. The remaining issues are hard to find and fix. Back in the 
early days, there were lots of easy things to do. Now, that is no longer the 
case. Only a few people can solve some of the hard problems that are the last 
on the road to alpha.

That is not to say that there aren't things for non hard-core kernel folks to 
work on. There are a lot of things that need to be done. Including, 
incidentally, encoding of media, something that I personally see as show 
stopper. But the road to alpha is not quick or easy.

The team is doing a great job. Really. They need more help. But they are doing 
a great job.

Incidentally, personally, I think "I would like to help by" is far better than 
"You need to".  That is not aimed at Waldemar, who has done a great deal for 
the project over the years, but to some other folks who have made 
"suggestions". The work that needs to be done is pretty obvious to everyone. 
Finding people willing and able to do the work is another. Spoken by a man with 
a guilty conscience.

<LurkerMode>




-----Original Message-----
From: "Waldemar Kornewald" [wkornewald@xxxxxxxxxx]
Date: 05/15/2008 13:15
To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [openbeos] Re: Progress reports

Hi Stephan,

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 11:40 AM, Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
>  Waldemar Kornewald wrote:
>  > An active, "hands dirty" community and frequent progress updates are
>  > probably a great way to attract more developers, but of course you can
>  > just be a "lean back" community and maybe get your R1 in 2014 (I actually
>  > believe it'll be in 2012) and your oh-so-great R2 in 2025, so you can
>  > sway in nostalgia while other people already use Minority Report-like
>  > interfaces.
>
>  Oh you mean the one where you need to take a break every 3 minutes because
>  your arms hurt? And then need to take another break every 30 minutes
>  because you need to sit down for a change? :-)

I just tried to find a popular example. I wouldn't want to work that
way, either. Though, I'm sure it's great for your muscles. :)

>  :-) What if some people think that making these progress reports is not
>  "relevant" enough to attract actual developers?

I'd rather have someone tell me so than not get any reply.

Anyway, the point is that progress reports would be great for
increasing interest in Haiku and if interest grows then my hope is
that this indirectly increases attention among developers.

> Instead, I believe that
>  Haiku will have to do this for itself: We seriously need the first alpha.

Of course, but I doubt that this is the only way to attract more
contributors. Having a working product (i.e., proving that Haiku is
feasible) of course is an essential foundation, but there must also be
increased awareness of Haiku. How many people in our forums report
something like "This is the first time I've heard about Haiku ..." or
"Wow, I thought BeOS is dead!"? Participating in open-source
events/conferences is great for increasing awareness. Progress reports
could help, too (which is why I suggested it ;). Also, showing more
stuff that makes Haiku unique would be great (e.g., make the RFCs more
accessible to show what the future might look like; BTW, I improved
the Installer RFC). Otherwise it's just another one of those OS
projects that add no real value compared to Linux, OS X, and Windows.

So, does anyone have a few ideas on how to increase awareness and
emphasize on Haiku's uniqueness?

BTW, if someone disagrees with this, then feel free to reply. ;)

Bye,
Waldemar

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