Thank you Brian, well put. I value the opportunity to engage with the members of the VPRI team through this list. I consider it a privilege.
This is a VPRI project. I have no "right" to make any demands on this project just because I am subscribed to this list, or a US tax payer, or possibly paying tax in a foreign country. I am however grateful the NSF funds this project. I am in no position to guide or cajole VPRI. I didn't create Smalltalk, ... or any of the myriad of technologies or approaches that have so fundamentally shaped the environment I have grown up in. The VPRI team have probably forgotten more about creating software than I will ever know, though I hope their work is helping to close the gap ;-) This is a great project. I wish the team every success, and the continuation of circumstances that enable those achievements. On 21 December 2010 00:42, Brian Gilman <brian.gil...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > No, I do not accept this. I do not think it is in the project's best > > interests, I do not think it is in computer science's best interests, > > and I do not think it is in the public interest. That is why I am > > "banging on the door" (nice phrase) and trying to persuade them > > otherwise. (Note: not "complaining".) > > > > You aren't banging on the door, or persuading anyone of anything, you are > coming off like an abrasive person with the social skills of a computer > engineer. > > Just because you believe that "Release early, release often" is the best > release strategy, doesn't mean that everyone at VPRI does. I work in video > game development, and it's a pretty much suicidal strategy for releasing > games. "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever." — > Shigeru Miyamoto > > It's very hard to shake bad first impressions, and there are times when > you don't want people to see something until it's polished, or you have > something cool to show. Otherwise the bad first impression will color the > public's perception of your project for the rest of its lifetime. > > I'm skeptical that releasing a bunch of source code for something that has > been described as being on "life-support", announcing to the world that > there has been a revolution in computing, and then have it not work on a > majority of machines, is really the optimal strategy for success. > > VPRI is getting public funding, but $5 million usd isn't a heck of a lot. > To put that into context, these days, that isn't even enough to make a bad > video game. That means that they need to make good use of the resources that > they have, which means keeping focus. Which means avoiding distractions, > like having to answer a zillion questions and unreasonable demands on > mailing lists. > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >
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