On 02/12/15 20:34, Ian wrote: > On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 2:24 PM, Victor Denisov <vdeni...@plukh.org> wrote: > >> This is very interesting, it is - but I'm afraid the true reason Freenet >> is struggling as a software development project is much, much simpler. >> If I can put my two kopecks' worth out there, my *personal* feeling is >> that the project has been lacking some sort of a "steel hand", >> Stalin-style, ever since Ian had stepped down. >> >> Basically, what Freenet had shown in that regard is that management "by >> committee" doesn't work for open-source projects just like it doesn't >> work in the world of commercial applications. You (developers) and we >> (users) desperately need a real *leader*, a person who will listen to >> different points of view and then make quick, binding and final >> decisions - which everyone will respect and adhere to, and which will >> end any and all discussions of the topic in question. You/we should >> choose *one* person and willfully grant him/her authority to make final >> unilateral decisions on all aspects of the project. >> >> I'm afraid that before that is done, Freenet is destined to be stuck in >> the development mire it currently is. > I'm not sure, I've definitely been very hands-off in recent years, but even > at the peak of development around 2000-2003ish I don't think anyone would > describe me as "Stalin-like", I always tried to act more as a > "facilitator", trying to encourage people to play nice and be an > independent arbiter. For a while that worked pretty well, perhaps > partially because the constant flow of favorable publicity provided a > constant flow of new, enthusiastic, and (often) competent developers > willing to devote their time.
IMHO we need to play the publicity game again. Maybe it will take a little while to get our pieces in place e.g. sort out the website. But we need to do something to get some attention, even if it's just calling it 0.8. > I don't think a "Stalin-like" approach will work for most open source > projects because unlike Stalinist Russia, people voluntarily need to want > to be part of your project or they'll just walk away. I agree, being too heavy handed means people will fork the project at best (which has happened to Freenet at least twice). At worst you lose volunteers, or at least they are less effective. This has certainly been a problem too. In particular, there are long-running disagreements about things like whether we should have opennet support. The iron fist approach is that people like Florent who don't support Ian's view (that we should have opennet) should just leave. That would not be helpful; Florent has contributed lots to Freenet since opennet went in. Or even worse you go down a blind alley and lose several years of paid development time (this also happened, but in retrospect "db4o is wrong" was far from obvious at the time). Of course it doesn't help if your few paid staff are obstructive and disobedient (no, I'm not talking about Xor). Especially when they're right. ;) We suck at keeping volunteers. That's a serious problem. I don't think documenting *the protocol* will fix it, but documentation and cleanup in general should help. Beyond that I don't know... > That being said, I do think the project would significantly benefit from a > new and much more engaged leader, ideally with project management > experience, but unfortunately such people do not grow on trees when you > need them to work voluntarily. Should we find such a person I would > support them in a heartbeat. > > Ian.
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