On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 9:13 PM, Soft Linden <s...@lindenlab.com> wrote: > On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 11:32 AM, Ryan McDougall <sempu...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> LL unilaterally designs and implements code behind closed doors, where >> it is accepted and merged then deployed -- all without any outside >> participation. In the linux kernel, design is discussed in the open, >> occasionally implemented behind closed doors, then discussed again for >> inclusion in Linus's kernel. >> >> The only nod to "open" is the GPL source, this impotent mailing list, > > The only nod to open source is the open source?
Perfect example of where your understanding is misplaced: no, open source license != open source project. An open source license only requires source code drops. A true community requires equal participation. It's the difference between apartheid and democracy. Let me know if you'd like a deeper elucidation. Cheers, > >> and an equally ignored wiki. The community is "poisoned" from the >> cognitive dissonance caused by not yet realizing they don't even >> exist. >> >> Let's face facts here: LL as an organization doesn't know how to do >> open source, and those who even *like* open source are limited to a >> handful stalwarts like Soft who mostly end up regretting their forays >> here. Community contributions, beyond some free labor donated to a >> for-profit company as bug fixes, will never be relevant. > > This is wrong. Lip sync, mini map features, additional language > support, the first pass on flexible sculpties (not yet out in the main > viewer, but not dropped), double-click teleport, 64-bit build support, > stand-alone build support, strong debit permission warnings, the list > goes on. Many non-bug-fix changes have come from the community. I > agree that the process has been painful and slow, and not as many > patches have come in as most would wish, though. That's the reason > Snowglobe was created. Much faster iteration and proving of patches. > Don't call that a failure before you've seen the last bits of the > viewer 2.0 development cycle put to rest. > > What I'm trying really hard to get across here is that keeping > discussions civil, focused and constructive will help foster community > involvement. Q is working really hard to make sure that a feature held > in the dark for business reasons will never hold the rest of the > project hostage again. I can't see a reason why another Viewer 2.0 > style dev cycle will happen again. > > We're also working on restructuring the project so we're working in > peer code bases rather than doing one-way exports and manual patch > imports. That's going to make us better still about bringing outside > work in. But these efforts are going to be wasted if the teams are > still put off of working with the community because of the garbage > hostility that's been a frequent part of the list since very early on. > > >> Open source is a meritocracy where those who make the code, make the >> decisions. Since the code of contributors is not welcome (outside of >> free QA), decision-makers are nowhere to be found, and what you're >> left with is whingers, bike-shedders, and blow-hards ruminating the >> same stale cud thread-in and thread-out. When will the lobster >> quadrille end? > > For a good example: Read back on the list for the kind of responses > the render team was happening in the open. The render branches were > published continuously, and the developers were quite public-facing > for most of a year. > > The result? There were some morsels of great feedback, almost none of > them via this list. But there was also an overwhelming volume of > griping about not supporting year-old video cards, people crediting > other projects for Linden work, grousing about that not being the most > important thing to work on, grief about the state of Windlight, > insistence that we abandon our own engine entirely, stumping for other > projects, folks from this list blogging Runitai's comments out of > context, on and on. > > Tons of counterproductive chaos when someone wasn't getting his way, > some good QA feedback, a couple good tech suggestions, and almost zero > code contributions. That's what we've gotten when the decision makers > are out in the open - you can't say it hasn't been done. > > The render guys still want to get their work out and in the open > again, because they happen to be fairly bad ass and have thick skins. > They think the QA and bits of good feedback are worth more than the > cost of that chaos. > > Other teams will be able to make that choice again now, just as they > could before Viewer 2.0. Work in the open with community involvement, > or merge branches after working in the dark? There's a lot that > members of this list can do to influence just how many teams make an > open choice. > > >> Even monkeys learn after repetition. > _______________________________________________ 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
