On Wednesday 17 June 2009 06:24:32 pm Adam Treat wrote: > It would be nice if every change that is envisioned will eventually be > merged back into the official repository to be developed in the open, but > that is just not realistic given the commercial world we live in.
I would also add that in my personal opinion and experience the business reasons often cited for hiding behind a closed door during the initial development of a new feature are dubious at best and real hindrances (even crippling hindrances) at worst. Too often I think companies involved with Open Source choose to develop some new feature behind a closed door almost as an a priori default position. In my experience this often leads to a lot of headaches when interacting with the community much as we are starting to see here. Moveover, the actual business value of such initial closed development is often just assumed. I think it would behoove companies that are involved with WebKit to rethink these initial assumptions and actually make sure that whatever PR value they get from announcing there brand new swanky feature that has been developed behind a closed door, is actually greater than the negative repercussions that come from doing so. Cheers, Adam _______________________________________________ webkit-dev mailing list webkit-dev@lists.webkit.org http://lists.webkit.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/webkit-dev