Hi!
Thanks for your replies so far.
There are two topics here that shouldn't be mixed up: The Haiku Inc.
organisation and the way of the Haiku project.
I understand that the stagnating Haiku project is - besides real life
issues needing time - the reason for the decreasing motivation of the
Inc. members. Alex talked more about the problems of the project he
sees than those of the Inc. They are motivationally connected, but
let's concentrate on the Inc. on this mailing list. Just so much: as
enduser I don't feel Haiku is left in the dust by the other OS.
Besides mostly annoying changes in the GUI, I don't see fundamental
improvements there... They do have ever better apps, though. Mostly.
Ryan mentioned bringing more members into the Inc. which may be a good
idea, if there is interest in that out there. It's not just that we
need any people with enough time to cast a vote when it comes to deal
with a contract. But people who can evaluate a proposal and judge the
progress of the work etc. and have the time to do so. Those are hard
to find.
Maybe, if another applicant for a contract comes forth, it would
already help to ask for input about the applicant's plans on the dev
mailing list. People that don't want to burden themselves with a fixed
membership at the Inc. may be able to help evaluating a proposal, and
even monitor its progress etc.
I don't see us 'magically' increase the Haiku dev base, but using
those communication channels and keeping them open would at least not
drive away the few existing ones.
Alex said:
"The position of the Inc. is to not dictate direction of the project
and only support the community..."
IMO, even if the Inc. wanted to dictate direction, this would only
work indirectly by financing those contracts where the will of the
Inc. and the rest of the project overlap. With one contract a year or
whatever, this is of course a fantasy.
"Democracy only works when you have "more than a few" people wanting to
steer the ship... "
I agree. Nobody wants to steer the ship, and if someone wanted to, it
wouldn't work (see above). At the moment we're not in need of a
captain on the bridge, but more stokers in the machine room.
See, I can do nautical, too, but that doesn't bring us on iota nearer
the iceberg... :)
Anyway, I don't expect the Inc. to solve the dev shortage. I just hope
communication is kept open, should opportunities for contracts,
fundraisers etc. arise.
Regards,
Humdinger
--
Did you know:
If half the Haiku supporters at http://www.goodsearch.com
made 10 searches a day, we could have a fulltime developer.
