Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

I just follow this discussion irregularily, because it is repeated every one or
two years and rarely a significant result.

Am 19.12.2013 um 20:27 schrieb Doc O'Leary:

> They certainly don't seem to be leading to discussions that improve the 
> overall direction of the project.  

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Maybe not even intentionally.

I think you faithfully assume that there is an overall direction.

To be honest, as someone who is contributing a little to GNUstep for 10 years 
now,
it is a project of let's say 10 or 15 individuals who have all their personal 
directions
and goals.

So there is no overall direction.

Therefore it is obvious that nobody can work or improve the web pages etc. 
because
nobody knows what to write there in a way that it is a consistent story.

Everyone picks up some small fragment which promises the greatest fun (and 
learning
effect) and works on that. Therefore he can only write documentation for the 
fragment
he has been working on. So it is and remains patchwork.

The key problem IMHO is that GNUstep is missing leadership. Someone thinking
about AND defining the overall direction of the project *)

So if not one person is standing up an saying "go there", we need some other
means. E.g. a democratic one. Like an opinion poll and majority votes. Or we
do a vote to empower a trustworthy person to define the overall directions for
e.g. one year.

The kickstarter can also be seen as the attempt of Gregory to become elected
into that leadership role by user's votes.

Doing this would IMHO (if well prepared) give a much clearer picture of the 
"overall
direction of the project", than e.g. discussing whether we should support UIKit 
or not.
Or if the project should make MacOS X users happy or not.

Then, and only then the web pages can be updated.

But we have a hen&egg problem. Since there is no leadership, nobody will do
such a poll.

Just my 2 cts,
hns

*) compare with Linus who has the last word on every patch. So he has to be
convinced that some subsystem and change is good. And for deciding what is
good or not he must have dreams, visions, values.