> Yes, general thoughts and designs should be cross-platform, or rather, > should be platform independent, but once a concept is to be realized and > implemented, why not select the platform that best lends itself to the > success of the concept, be it Linux or Windows. I may be a Windows/.NET > guy, but I'm happy to concede some ideas are easier/faster/cheaper developed > on Linux, and vice versa. > > Why do we have to live in a vanilla world? Sometimes I like chocolate and > sometimes I like strawberry. Sometimes I like both. I don't agree with the > philosophy of trying to please everyone just to be nice. Let's do what's > best for the success of a given idea.
For that matter, the open source world has shown us the long-term viability of a software ecosystem that allows competition, even internally. It would be silly to enumerate all of the instances of this; I am sure that we all have our favorite examples. The point is, there is nothing wrong with creating multiple, differing, competing programs that perform similar tasks. On the contrary, this can be beneficial for all. I feel that for all of it's open source bent, this group is half-waiting for the Church to formally organize some cool projects so that they can work on them. While this might happen in some rare cases, I can't help but noting that this mindset is very similar to the central software development paradigm that the open source movement challenges. It is true that if the Church created an Official Open Source Project, there would be only way that it operated, and so decisions like this might need to be made. But in the freedom of our open source world, such central decisions are irrelevant. Some may use Java, some may focus on Windows, some may create web services. There are so many dimensions on which projects can vary that are only relevant to the people who decide to implement them. What we need at this point is not people to tell us what to do, but people to stand up, take some leadership, and start projects that they have been talking about or thinking about or waiting for someone else to start. At this point action is at a much higher shortage than good ideas. In saying this, I also recognize that we all have different talents and can contribute in different ways. While I personally feel we are lacking in actual projects created, I don't find myself in the position to create one at this time. :-) Rather I am trying to make my contribution as a Debian Developer by packaging open source projects that I feel could benefit members of the Church (and as part of that, please feel free to approach me if you want your new software packaged for Debian, which it must be noted feeds Ubuntu). Whatever the various contributions are that we make, I would personally consider this list a sad failure if in the end it's impact was limited to the mailing list archive. Charles -- Mom and Pop Are feeling gay Baby said As plain As day Burma-Shave http://burma-shave.org/jingles/1939/mom_and_pop _______________________________________________ Ldsoss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
