On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 14:19, Rob Lembree wrote: > On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 10:56, Bruce Dawson wrote: > > On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 10:21, Rob Lembree wrote: > > > On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 10:06, Bruce Dawson wrote: > > > > On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 08:26, Ed Lawson wrote: > > > > > On 27 Jan 2004 22:13:06 -0500 > > > > > Bruce Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > We have the paperwork complete, and I am willing to donate the > > > $25 filing fee -- but I haven't done it yet because I've seen > > > a complete vacuum in people coming forward to help do things > > > with the group. > > Thanks for donating the fee - I never knew what was going on with that > > because no one bothered to post a message to the -org list. > I've sat on it because while I still think it's the right thing > to do, I haven't been able to invigorate the group to make it > a complete picture.
Ok. That explains that. But can you describe the complete picture and what's missing? (I was under the impression that only some signatures and claims to responsibility were required - which we had at one point.) > > > Case in point: I'm now doing the public library project all > > > by myself, because it's something I believe it, and because > > > nobody stepped forward to help out. I'm now afraid that if > > > I act as a leader, I'll end up doing all the work. > > I think you're doing the right thing - then advertise the effort to the > > GNHLUG group. Sure, solicit help, (which you did), and it'll come if > > there's sufficient interest. > > If enough good things are done in the name of GNHLUG, then people will > > start coming again. But we need to be careful that we don't overwhelm > > ourselves with work. > Well, ya, the core group can't do all the work, and by and > large, that's what we've done for quite a while now. I find myself asking the question: why don't people want to work with us? Either everyone has highly pressing jobs, or its too difficult to coordinate work. And its just not "fun" (a side effect of being a "geek social club" I think). How many of our "members" are on sourceforge projects? I suspect the answer is near zero. Rob: If you put the library on sourceforge or savannah or somesuch, do you think you'd get a better response? > > > > Seems to me, we just need someone to "take charge" and do it - if we > > > > don't like it, then we can leave. Sorta like what maddog did back in the > > > > early days - when things were exciting. > > > Do what? I wanted us to get out and do some good things for Linux > > > and ourselves, but failed to get anyone to help out. Sigh. See > > > what I mean? > > Do anything! Like the library project! Like the web site. Like the > > distribution disks. Like the booth at Hosstraders. > > It seems we have a problem coordinating things with multiple people > > (except probably drinking beer), so maybe we should just stick with > > one-person projects until someone comes along and shows us how to do > > things as a team. > Well, a long while back (a year ago), I wanted some "project leads" > to step forward to handle a number of ideas that I had. I got zero > response! I figured that if some of the "core" people took on > projects with people contributing, that'd be the way to make us > work as a team. The library work was a recent idea, but now I'm > not only the leader of the group, but the project leader for the > project, and the only contributor. It's not working. I do think > that apathy might be a part of it. Certainly, something's keeping > people from stepping forward to do stuff. I think we've all tried creating a "GNHLUG project". From Jerry's Business Show to my generally giving up on the idea due to lack of commitment. I was never able to overcome that. As for your projects, at that time, I was over-committed at work - and lately (and no offense) - library packages don't appeal to me. If someone were to pay me to work on them, then I'd probably consider it, but its not something I want to do on my own time. The projects I would work on have to be *very easy* for me to pick up and put down. They would most likely have to be based on savannah or sourceforge (if only those tools were more reliable) and they would have to be 90% coding and/or documenting. Specifications would have to be at least 80% technical, 0% style, and less than 5% political (getting buy-in on techniques). Projects meeting those specs are the only ones I can afford to work on - even Carole's projects have to meet them! I'm saying the above just to illustrate my minimum requirements for a project. And those don't include things like: interest in the problem, social involvement, benefit to me, how detailed my descriptions of problems have to be, ... But I suspect others might have similar requirements. And most people aren't familiar with the tools (hmmm: that could be a meeting topic), and if anyone else is like me, their experience tells them that coordinating a software engineering effort is harder than herding cats. > > Rob, I'm not intending to pick on you. Or your excellent and valiant > > leadership. Its just that the problem seems very related to the New > > Englander mode of "doing things"... Do it yourself and if anyone > > complains - well that's their fault. > I understand, and I'd agree with your "doing things" thing, except > that nobody's doing things, except those few of us who arrange > meetings and the hosstraders presence. ...And host the 'net services ;-) I don't mean to be discouraging here, but I've encountered this hill before (getting people to enjoy developing software), and I'm slowly realizing that it may be more fruitful to excavate the hill than get people over it. (ie: make better collaboration tools for distributed software development). But I know better than to try that! --Bruce
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