Cristian Driga wrote: > Why are people neglecting the current To-Do's which exist in every > project they participate and instead jump to propose only changes to > existing work ?
Any kind of ideas are shot upon sight. This is not the way to form an active community. My experience at OOoAuthors is an example of how a distributed development, where peopole can take action quickly, actually does quite well at getting To-Do's done. > What are the chances to achieve the goals and fulfill that mission if > nobody tries to enroll first in doing the TO-DO list's tasks ? This is not a company, you can't assign volunteers to tasks. You have to let people work on what they are motivated. If you want them to work on something, the best you can do is try to show them why it's interesting and why they would find the experience rewarding. Please listen to my talk on INREACH, I discussed this issue precisely. > Anybody can easily discard what others have built and come with a new > to-do list and strategy. You see, letting people try out ideas easily is not the same thing as discarding the to-do list and strategy. Making a freakin business card is not a strategy change. You can't treat every idea as if it where a major change in policy at OOo. If you do, you get a stagmant project. > What if they all wished to implement their own strategy at once instead > of taking a task and put their fingerprint on it and on how well it is > done ? You have missed the difference between a strategy change, and a really minor project idea. This is precisely the difference that I've tried to point out on the native-lang list. Something that involves a change in marketing strategy should go through a long and delicate process. Something that is simple and minor shouldn't. > Frustration comes when you want to see immediate changes, and I feel it > may also come when you cannot show to your friends and relatives: "Hey, > I did that". No, that's not my motivation. Furthermore, trivial changes should be easy to do. You can't treat every change as if it is a major shift in global policy. > But how does it feel when the next day somebody else comes > and want to change the same thing having a better idea after he/she sat > and lurked at how you did it ? Fantastic. This procedure works WONDERS at OOoAuthors every day. Linus also testifies that it works really well at the kernel, and Larry Wall is insistent that it is the key to Perl's success. Thank you for bringing that up. > OK, see if this does not contradict with the strategy and then fight for > your cause so that you see them added to the To-Do and then try to find > members who would like to help you in accomplishing the task. Isn't this > the right way ? No, it isn't the right way. Not at all. Not in the slightest. I'm sorry, but minor changes should not be cut down in arbitrary layers of bureocracy. The procedure you suggest would be understandable if you were talking about a global change in marketing policy. But to do what you just said every time anything at all is done is a guaranteed recipe for failure. Btw, I notice you didn't add "posting an email to the list" to the To-Do list before sending your post. > How would you feel if you were to manage this Community for a single day > and how would you keep the overal direction of this ship straight ? > (This is a question for those who have been around long enough) Please consider the insight offered by Linus Torvalds (Linux), Larry Wall (Perl), Brian Behlendorf (Apache), and closer to home, me (OOoAuthors). Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
