FlightGear development has exploded to the point where it *really* needs a
full time manager or even a management team. How does that happen though in
the context of an open-source project where everyone is volunteering their
slivers of time and everyone has real day jobs and families and maybe an
occasional life outside of the computer world?
I'm not able to *volunteer* 100% of my effort to manage the flightgear
project. I have my day job, I have a family with 2 small girls. Outside of
that, my "spare" time is precious and limited. I sneak as much as I can for
FG, but there are real limits to how much I can do. I don't have time
review every patch idea, I don't have time to investigate every bug report,
often, I can't even read every mailing list message in a timely manner, I
certainly don't have time to weigh in on every flame war or rant. Is there
anyone or any group or company out there willing to step forward and talk
about funding a full time (or even 50% time) project manager? For what it's
worth, some of the paying tasks I do are a real drag. I'd be willing to do
more interesting paying tasks! I'd love to be able to dedicate more of my
day back to FlightGear.
As has been mentioned before, often open-source projects have a developer or
two that are funded to accomplish some specific task within the project.
That has happened occasionally on a very limited scope even with
FlightGear. But who would want to fund a dedicated project manager that
keeps all the lose ends neatly tied up and keeps the project heading in a
sane direction, pushes out releases in a timely manner, spends some time
marketing and promoting the project, etc. etc.? There isn't a direct and
immediate coding value to that. No immediate payoff to a company that is
focused on solving some specific problem for themselves and moving on to
other things.
Right now we depend on a precious few people who really know the code
backwards and forwards and just "get" the project so to speak. However,
there is so much work todo, that there is a very real danger that these
people will burn out and dissappear. What happened to David Meggison and
Erik Hofman? At some point people realize their jobs and their families are
suffering and they can't do this 24/7.
Do we want to talk about creating some sort of more formal organization like
a non-profit? But there again, it takes someone who understands the
process, and can devote a significant amount of time to managing the
organization and being responsible for tax reporting and all the other fun
stuff that goes along with a non-profit organization. That's pulling
someone away from managing the actual project development, not to mention
pulling someone away from actual coding.
Is there a way to make a leap from a hobby project to a full blown
non-profit with serious money exchanging hands? Maybe a paid organization
manager, a paid project manager? Where could we generate income to the
level of supporting a full time person or two? I believe there could be a
huge amount of monitary value in FlightGear, but how do you effectively
harness that since we give it away for free? Consulting? But then you
have to deliver a specific result in a specific time frame which works
against having time for larger project and organization management issues.
Without sufficient cash flow to support a full time person or two, how do we
move beyond the current situation where we are depending on slivers of
volunteer time to accomplish everything that needs to get done? And even if
we wanted to get smarter, it still takes significant time for someone to
come up with strategies for more effectively using the individual slivers of
time.
It appears that we have hit or are near to hitting some sort of "ceiling" in
the open-source world. Is there a way to break through to the next level?
Perhaps there is a company or organization or individual with resources who
has enough interest in FlightGear that they would be willing to help us grow
to a new level?
Curt.
--
Curtis Olson - University of Minnesota - FlightGear Project
http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/ http://www.humanfirst.umn.edu/
http://www.flightgear.org
Unique text: 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express
Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take
control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now.
http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/
_______________________________________________
Flightgear-devel mailing list
Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
