On 01/25/2012 03:53 PM, s...@highlab.com wrote: > I am not a board member or anything official, I'm just some guy who > hacks on linuxcnc sometimes. I speak for myself. > > I've been following this thread since the start, and there is a > disconnect between what people are asking for and how i think this > project works. > > People are saying thing like: > > "What's the road map of features for future releases?" > > "What features should/shouldn't I work on?" > > "Who holds the Treasurer position?" > > "How do you assign tasks to developers?" > > These kinds of questions make no sense in my mental model of the project. > > This is not a company and I am not an employee, so nobody gets to tell > me what to do. I'm a volunteer and I do this because I like our > community, and machining, and programming. I'm doing this for fun, in > my spare time that I could be doing other fun things of my own choosing. > > If someone wants to make a roadmap, or a list of features they want, > or a 5 year plan of what they think everyone should work on, that's > fine by me - but it doesnt really affect me, and it doesnt change what > I'll do tonight after i tuck my kids into bed. > > I have a list of things *I* want to do to the linuxcnc project, but > I'd never dream of telling anyone to work on them. It's not my place > to tell folks what to do. > > I do not publicise my todo list because I'm afraid that doing so might > make people impatient for the tasks to be finished, and the pressure > of that public expectation would diminish my enjoyment of doing the > work. I have enough schedule and pressure in my day job and other > parts of my life, I dont need any more! That's not what I'm here for! > > > I have never read the "Board of Directors Terms of Service", and until > people in this thread started talking about it I didnt realize we had > one. I will not go read it now, because I don't care. To me, this > project works well, and legalese bores me. > > > I run my part of our infrastructure on my dime because I happen to > have the equipment and skills and interest to do it, and i think it > makes our shared project better. I have no interest in trying to > untangle the expense of it from the rest of my household expenses and > requesting a reimbursement from a project treasurer. I dont know if > we even *have* a treasurer, and if we do i dont want to spend my > open-source hacking hour talking about bills. I'd rather just hack. > > > That's where I'm coming from.
Seb, Your feelings are understandable. I for one appreciate all the hard work and effort you've put into this over the years, and you've helped me on numerous occasions get over certain bumps in the road that I was struggling with. Thank you for that. I don't take any of the folks that have worked on this little corner of the world for granted. I mentioned the "Treasurer" idea mainly as having a way to maintain the costs of our web presence. You mentioned you maintain your part of the infrastructure on your dime, and I think Chris also mentioned that the costs for our web presence was coming out of his pocket. This has worked and worked well for us so far. But, sometimes life happens. God forbid that something might happen to somebody who is taking care of this, and leaves that person unable to keep that service going. Do we as a community have a mechanism in place to pick up the job that's currently being maintained that way? I think our community has grown to the point where a lot of folks are starting to depend on LinuxCNC "being there." We've got integrators out there who are making a living off bringing LinuxCNC to the industrial world, and folks like me who use LinuxCNC as part of our business. Without all the hard work and dedication from you guys as developers and leaders in the project, we wouldn't be here today. But as we grow, we need to look at how we are managing this. Do we need to have mechanisms in place in case something happens that could shut down the project? Do we need to more clearly delineate the Board's responsibilities, both the the project itself and to the community that both uses and supports the project? Do we need to have mechanisms in place to manage the resources we use? Lotsa questions, lots of things to think about. The threat of the lawsuit should open our eyes to the fact that we are getting big enough to be noticed out there in the world, and we need to have some kind of structure that protects our interests, and keeps the growth and enthusiasm in making LinuxCNC the software we as a community want it to be. Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
