Soft, It is not clear whether Linden Lab wants an open source community. The impression from this side is that Linden wants help fixing bugs, but not fixing features, but if that requires importing a feature or two, then it's worth the trouble.
It is also quite clear that Linden does not want any help in design. The user experience office hours haven't been hosted by Lindens for more than a year now and Lindens rarely attend the extension of those meetings now being run by residents, particularly Jacek Antonelli. (Thank you Jacek. I'd nominate you for a Hippo Award if Linden still gave Hippo Awards.) You spoke of "understanding each other's needs." I would wager that there is a near unanimous view in the community that Linden does not understand the needs of an open source community. Certainly threats of "throttling" are not among them. Lindens usually speak as if the failure to understand is entirely on the side of the contributors, and Lindens are not at all at fault. You say "a totally healthy open source project usually can be developed completely in the open," but this project has never been developed completely in the open, and the trend is strongly toward closed development. If we understood how we were being "obstructionist" and "in the way of business," then a conversation could develop. I, personally, don't know what you are referring to. At the moment, the SL open source community is very close to taking the 1.23.5 code, pulling in a few features from 2.0, and permanently forking from the standard viewer. I don't think that's good for anyone. Mike Soft Linden wrote: > This is a company with an open source project, not an open source > project with a company. If the community becomes obstructionist enough > to get in the way of business, the open source part will get throttled > back. If the community's being largely helpful, open source > involvement is advanced. I spoke up because this conversation was > looking a lot like something that could lead to throttling while > accomplishing nothing. >... > A totally healthy open source project usually can be developed > completely in the open, and in a way that's aligned with everybody's > interests. But that takes an active commitment on all sides, both in > terms of composure, and in understanding each others' needs. _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
