Michael Fair : ... (since) we are discussing choosing a leader for the
group ...
Alain : The leadership thing is mainly about assigning one person to
organize and galvanize the action of the part that this person is
"responsible" for. It insures that things will steadily progress
despite the asunchronous nature of our communication medium.
Michael Fair : ... I have qualities I would like whoever the leader is
to possess.
Alain : I am open to such a discussion.
Michael Fair : Life is a lot of fun when you let it be and a team who
includes fun as a required component to their work becomes a force to
be reckoned with. Have you ever tried to stop a roomful of kids who are
out there having fun? It's near impossible.
Alain : I'm having fun. In fact, I am working purposefully and
full-time on achieving my dreams! Seriously. I recently obtained a
small subsidy to pay for a consultant. We reviewed my WHOLE life
together to grasp my mission in life, and transform that into a
thriving enterprise. The whole thing revolves around the use of
computers for communication, collaboration, and as cognitive
amplifiers. All with the ultimate goal of augmenting people's
potential.
Michael Fair : So any leader we chose would have to be interested in
making this fun, and recognize that most of us are volunteering our
time here and that we have other commitments to keep.
Alain : Fun is one of my fundamental values too. It's a relative term
though. Achieving my goals ( some of them lofty ) is fun in my book,
despite the fact that it entails lots of work, some of which will not
necessarily be exciting.
Michael Fair : I do have a secret to confess. I would like to make
lots of money with this project.
Alain : Me too.
Michael Fair : I also plan on changing the face of programming as I
know it and aiding in creating a whole new business model for software
development.So it would really be a bummer for me to find out that the
leaders aren't interested in making some waves in the software
development world.
Alain : Innovate or perish, I always say. In the present state of
affairs, nearly everything needs to substantially re-thought and
re-done. We are in a "Software Crisis" that holds a lot of promise for
people willing to take the time to do it right. Proprietary software is
"pass�".
Michael Fair : I guess the last quality in the leadership I would want
to see would be a resistance to creating something from scratch.
Alain : I have nothing against (legitimately) using the work of others,
and concentrate my efforts on innovative ways to integrate these
different "components". BUT ... I am rarely satisfied with what is out
there, particularly the proprietary fatware that is offered on a
take-it-or-leave-it basis.
Michael Fair : The power of OpenSource software is its commitment to
opening up the source to be leveraged by other developers and projects.
It's almost a shame when we reinvent the wheel because we weren't
willing to steal from someone else first.
Alain : We are actually 3 groups. OODL is developing the application,
xTalk the scripting language, and the UFP is developing the end-user
products and authoring tools. I proposed PERL as the programming
language for OODL but it was dropped in favour of C/C++.
Michael Fair : Python, Perl, Dylan, wxWindows, TOM, GTK, Java .. all
have excellent stuff for us to steal.
Alain : Borrow-legitimately or whip-up-one-just-like-it, of course.
Nothing wrong with that.
Michael Fair : I have my blue sky for this project, and it won't
necessarily be the same for you ...
Alain : My conviction is that we can do MUCH better than most of the
software/systems currently on the market today. Power to the people !
Michael Fair : ...but the beauty of my experience with open source so
far is that usually the best person for the job is a pretty clear
choice, and in general people who know the problem well enough to talk
about the solution, are more interested in a good solution then they
are their egos.
Alain : I am sure that this is the case. We are more interested in
solutions than touting our horns. The leaders are there to galvanize
the actions of the group for the section that they are leading. It also
insures us that each important dimension ( collaboration, GUI and
programming, for now ) will not be neglected.
Michael Fair : Would it be safe to say that each of us wants a product
that we can be proud of, is cross platform, and fits nicely into our
current lifestyle?
Alain : Absolutely!
Michael Fair : I don't think that any one here wouldn't be interested
in some form of compensation for their work.
Alain : Yes, but this is a delicate subject. We are currently
discussing the OODL licencing issue, but we haven't quite resolved it
yet. I believe that any member should have the right to use OODL as an
authoring system to build end-user solutions that can be sold without
any licencing hassles. Similar to the licencing scheme for HyperCard
Standalones.
Michael Fair : I can definitely see the fear of one person dominating
the conversation, and not listening to others on the list, but let's
not create problems for ourselves. Does this group have a track record
of not listening to each other? If not, I wouldn't worry about it until
it became a problem.
Alain : What did you say ? Sorry, I wasn't listening ! Just kidding.
No such problem here. Incidentally, it is one of the advantages of
web-based collaborations vs in-person collaborations : web-based
collaborations are harder to dominate because they are asynchronous.
Michael Fair : Anyway, thanks for the ear.
Alain : Nice to meet you.
Michael Fair : I somehow think I just got myself into some sort of
leadership position on the group.
Alain : Jump in !
Michael Fair : Or I stuck my foot in the mouth and spoke up too early.
I was going to try and just get ahold of the source code and watch the
list for a while before I jumped in on any conversations, but the
opportunity to say something was just to good to pass up.
Alain : Live dangerously ! :-))
Michael Fair : Sorry if I stepped on anyone, or repeat stuff that has
already been said.
Alain : We are a resilient lot. Don't worry too much about it.
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