Hi,
Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
Gregory,
The problem is that I have been saying "go there" but, as you say,
everyone has their own goals on this project. And that's proper
since it is an open source project. They are allowed to have their
own goals. It is very difficult to tell people what to do when you
are NOT paying them.
What I mean is that people can be asked to discuss their goals and to
mirror them with some "official" goal so they know how much they share
and support it. In my observation people often complain that they
don't know the "official" goal and therefore just have abad feeling
about the web pages (not the code) and everybody knows that it must be
improved, but nobody knows how it should be.
True, but actually this keeps the project alive. We do steer per-change,
per feature, not as a big goal. That's fine. That's open-source. It
makes of course difficult to make a website, but it makes us versatile.
I have thought a little more about it and it may be even more
fundamental that we have no overall direction. I for example don't
know if GNUstep is intended to be "the Desktop GUI toolkit" of the GNU
system. Or if it is just one of several free and open source projects
without any connection (we even use more llvm and less gcc), because
20 years ago someone did think it could be a useful mosaic stone to
donate the world an alternative to closed source systems like Windows,
NeXT, UNIX(TM). So if RMS did appoint you to be the GNUstep
maintainer, what does the GNU project expect from GNUstep?
What's the goal of GNU?
In business life every project has a rationale and is embedded in
higher level projects. The ultimate goals of an organization (company
or charity or religion or government) is defined by the "president"
(prepared by some strategy development committee). He has to listen to
the project members and understand their needs of course or won't be
elected again...
But this is not business, this is OpenSource. This is why it is so
difficult to guide, but this is alsy why it is so resilient. A business
would never have worked for almost 20 years on something like GNUstep.
Yet GNUstep is now something valuable, powerful and usable for many goals!
I am developing enterprise software and open source project that run
from small embedded boards (Raspberry!), netbooks to old and modern
laptops, even obsolete workstations, strange serves. This is mirable!
Few project manage to do that. And they remain around.
Be positive. Contribute. Enjoy.
Riccardo
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