On Jul 26, 2009, at 9:27 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:
Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
I would also caution that, by their nature, standards projects are
not
quite the same thing as software projects. While the way HTML5 has
been
run is much more in the spirit of open source than many past Web
standards, I'm not sure all the lessons can be applied blindly.
I don't think that the lessons should be applied blindly... I think
they
should be applied selectively and with great care. We don't want to
destabilize the way HTML5 is currently being developed - but we do
want
to improve the process for giving feedback, get more people making
meaningful contributions, make the process of contributing more
harmonious and hopefully accelerate the speed at which features can be
developed. These are all direct or implied goals in the Restructuring
HTML5 proposal[1].
The lesson I would learn from open source is that finding people
willing to do useful work is much more important than tools or project
organization. While good projects strive to refine their process, my
experience is that people who start out by asking project-wide tools
or process changes to enable their contribution rarely turn into
valuable contributors. On the other hand, people who start out by
making substantive contributions within the existing process often
have excellent insights into how to improve the process and tools from
there. That's not to say this is universal - just what my experience
has been in ~14 years of open source development on various projects.
Regards,
Maciej
