Urias McCullough wrote:
Axel wrote:If you are unhappy with what Haiku Inc. does, taking your part in their actions will work out much better than complaining about the work its members are carrying out voluntarily. From my POV, FalterCon evolved into just that - taking action to improve where others dropped the ball.Agreed - I think that's very much what FalterCon is about. There *have* been some strongly worded statements made out of frustration and dissatisfaction, but we're NOT out to destroy Haiku, Inc. If anything, hopefully we're raising the bar a bit (not sure if we can, but we'd like to try!)
I agree that FalterCon has now evolved into a very interesting event that I think is perfectly suited to the current state of the project, it's just a shame the name (though clever) was invented when there was still a strong feeling of being let down by Haiku Inc. It'd hard for Haiku to officially endorse it while that bad feeling remains somehow attached to the event.
I got into the now infamous Waltercon debate with Koki mainly because I felt it was the wrong time for a conference event in the life of the project. I wish I'd thought of an informal gathering plus advocacy at a Linux event during that discussion - that is perfect for where we're at now. The opposing view was that it was fine to have a conference providing the content was right. I have to say, I'm still sceptical.
DarkWyrm obviously put a lot of effort into trying to make WalterCon work. But simply starting the planning earlier for next year's will not make it a success. It's still important to be sure that a conference is the right type of event for the project - and as it's hard to know where the project will be in a year's time it is hard to tell the type of event needed now. Personally I'd vote for a few years with an event similar to an "official" version of FalterCon until Haiku is more of a commercial proposition for developers (when a dedicated conference makes more sense to me).
The survey Michael wrote to aid in WalterCon planning was unfortunately flawed from the first question as it asked something like "would you attend WalterCon this year or in the future" thus missing the key issue about whether a conference dedicated to a pre-alpha OS is really sensible.
And my final bit of constructive criticism about the WalterCon planning - while the event remains small with a target of people who already follow Haiku closely it makes sense to do the planning more openly as a collective effort between the people who are going. I'm sure many of the people disappointed this year would have been willing to help in the planning process. Again when a conference makes sense to me is when the OS is more mature, and we may then target people with less knowledge of Haiku, who would have a right to expect everything (hotels, conference suites) to be organised for them. But we're not there yet - lets not try to run before we can walk!
Good luck with FalterCon everyone who's going - it sounds like a great idea to me and definitely one I would attend if I was reasonably close by.
Simon
