[openbeos] Re: Openness
- From: Michael Phipps <mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 16:19:27 -0400
Thom -
You totally "get it".
Anyone out there who wants more say in Haiku, feel free to help out. I have
lots of non-coding jobs. I have posted them forever in the FAQs as well as
on this list.
The only thing that the community doesn't know about that the admins do
know about is stuff that is "in process" - things like where WalterCon will
be this year. When the decision is made, we will post it.
Michael
Thom Holwerda wrote:
It feels like to me this is about openness for openness' sake.
You have to look at when does openness stop being functional, and does
it become a roadblock? Sometimes, it's better NOT to be open about
things or decisions, simply because that same openness hinders the
actual goal: to make a decision.
I have a very clear example At OSNews, we are currently in the process
of a redesign. The website has been rewritten from the ground up, to
accomodate new features, have cleaner and leaner code, which leads to an
alround performance increase.
From day one, Adam, our web designer/coder/etc., has been very open
about all this. He posted his progress on his blog, posted stories on
OSNews to poll interest in new features, that sort of stuff. These bits
of openness were very valuable, and we learned a lot on what our readers
would expect from OSNv4.
But then stuff went pear-shaped, as soon as we decided to be even more
open. We allowed our readers to use the work-in-progress v4, so that
they could make comments on it and provide us with input. However, no
matter how often we emphasised that it was all in fact
*work-in-progress*, and that the artwork was *not* final, people went
all mental. A vocal minority started threatening to leave the site, just
because they didn't like the (work-in-progress!) logo! We hoped to have
an informative, well-reasoned argument with our readers about what OSNv4
should look like, and how it should function. We thought our openness
would be appreciated, and that it would help us in developing v4.
It didn't. It became the most heartless flamefest I have ever seen; it
has now driven us to close the development down altogether. We don't ask
our entire readership for input anymore about v4. We just show it to
people we know and people we can trust to provide us with *valuable*
input. When it's done, we will make it go live. Whether people like it
or not.
What I am trying to say is this: you should not be open in a decision
making process just for the sake of being open. You want openness in the
decision making process to *improve* this process, *not* hinder it.
OSNews is a voluntary project, and everybody can join in/participate,
but that does NOT mean it belongs to our readers. OSNews is owned by
those who spend the most time working on it. The same applies to Haiku.
And if that group of people who spend the most time working on it
believe being more open than they are now hinders the decision making
process, I can do nothing but trust them. It is their prerogative.
Thom Holwerda
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Managing editor at http://www.osnews.com
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