Hi Timothy, list,

There are a few things that I think should be discussed with respect to the 
planning and project management in general. OpenGraphics is probably the 
first proprietary/open hardware/software co-design project in existence. That 
means we need to think a little about how to organise it most effectively.

Ultimately, control of the project rests with TechSource, since they have 
Timothy, and just as important, source for both hard- and software. The more 
help they get from the outside, the less the development cost, the more 
successful the project.

So, we need people who want to help, and we need them to do things that are 
useful to the project. The standard open-source strategy for that is 
release-early release-often, but in this case some parts of the project can 
not be released. To keep outside interest going and focused where it can do 
most good, we need to have at least the planning out in the open, and we need 
to have some kind of idea of what's happening, even if the end product is not 
released. I realise that that is probably a departure from what TechSource is 
used to (and maybe more than you're willing to do) but I do think it is 
important.

The wiki is quite nice for documentation, as it is easy to edit things, and 
they are always available for everyone. So I would like to propose we use it 
as much as possible. Having a page with progress and other information for 
each task would give a nice overview of the project's status, and it would 
give us a place to write down the results of discussions on the mailinglist.

I have just edited the Planning page on the wiki 
(http://wiki.duskglow.com/index.php/Planning) to be a bit more organised, and 
I think it would be a good idea to make a separate page for each task as 
well, with a progress indication and perhaps current issues. That would make 
the whole project much more transparent.

Last, I would like to ask Timothy to give us some kind of regular update as to 
the status of the project. As an example of how effective that is, Armadillo 
Aerospace was one of the most popular teams during the X-Prize race, even 
though they never got close to winning, simply because John Carmack wrote a 
bit about the previous week's work every sunday night, and all the fans read 
that and identified with it. Having such a thing for the OpenGraphics project 
would translate into more interest and brand loyalty, which means more 
developers helping, and ultimately more buyers and more profit.

My 2 eurocents. Thanks for listening.

Lourens
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