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

[Doc O'Leary]

In article <mailman.10195.1387832754.10748.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 Gregory Casamento <greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:

> I believe part of the problem might be that no one takes the opportunity to 
> summarize some of these discussions at the end (i.e. take action items from 
> them and them figure out a plan of action on them).   I¹ve worked for many 
> organizations and where this was the practice and it worked quite well.  
> Perhaps something similar is needed on this project.   For each discussion, 
> if they want it to be acted on, they should summarize all of the points and 
> send that to the leads so that they can be considered.

I see no reason to wait until an "end", especially when such discussions 
can go on at length and branch out into many related issues.  And a time 
limit needs to be set on a response from leads.  Whether the answer is 
yes or no, it is worse for moral for things to be ignored with no 
explanation.

> The problem is that it is 
> unclear who should do this.  It¹s not possible for one person to do it since 
> they would, undoubtedly, need to digest many different discussions, 
> understand them and then come up with action items.  It might work if, when 
> someone knows

Such is the burden of leadership; if you can't afford to hire a janitor, 
you might have to clean the toilets yourself.  But I think it's not as 
bad as that.  I think that anybody and everybody would be willing to 
make the case to management, just so long as they know management is 
going to listen.  Every time you use the word "consideration", it grates 
on me because I've worked in too many places where such sentiments meant 
a way to ignore making decisions.

> Quite often when I have tried to set goals in the past and shown the 
> ³resolve² you speak of I have been alone on my endeavors.  This is not 
> something I¹m blaming anyone for, but this seems to be the nature of the 
> beast.  People need to be interested in achieving the goals that are 
> determined from any given discussion.

If you don't want to go it alone, the burden is on you to communicate 
your goals in such a way that other people agree with them.  And if you 
send the right message, *new* people can express that interest.  How 
different might the Kickstarter campaign have been if it were directed 
outward instead of inward?

> Actually the reason I believe we should work on a UIKit implementation is 
> because UIKit is the most widely used ObjC API at this point in time.  
> iPhones and iPads far outnumber Macs (per Apple¹s own filings with the SEC).  
>  Building a UIKit implementation would bring a large number of developers to 
> GNUstep and could serve to spark further interest in GNUstep¹s Cocoa 
> implementation.

And that's the flat-out reality of it.  All that needs to be done, 
really, it adding "hot air" to the right places that either fit it into 
GNUstep's current goals, or alter the goals so they fit the reality.  As 
I have said, I still think GNUstep has a *lot* of changes to make 
organizationally if it wants to be attractive to people who mostly use 
Macs to mostly develop iOS apps.  No doubt such changes will be 
unpopular, but in should be obvious that GNUstep as a whole benefits in 
the long term.

> There are significant differences in how UI and NS classed behave.  UI based 
> classes expect touch events and gestures whereas NS based gui classes are 
> looking for mouse movements, clicks and keyboard events.   There are method 
> differences, delegate differences and so on.   There are similarities in some 
> ways, but the differences are significant enough to make it necessary to come 
> up with UIKit as a separate GUI implementation.

I'm still not convinced.  Abstractly, event handling is event handling.  
It certainly might be easier or cleaner to start with a fresh code base, 
but I wonder if that actually serves the bigger picture.  I mean, 
fundamentally, if GNUstep is going to allow both UI- and NS- classes to 
be used alongside each other, there *must* be some commonality that 
merges the two.  Whether that's done in a base class or tacked on as 
categories or via proxies or whatever, I don't see the goal as just 
duplicating what Apple has done.

> >> Until you do something productive.  You're only hot air to me.
> > 
> > Nice way to express seeing value in discussions.
> 
> What I mean is.. while I see value in what you¹re saying, on an open source 
> project it is a meritocracy.

I maintain the problem remains how you assign merit to things.

> Like it or not many people on this project who 
> have been committing for years will view what you say as nothing more than 
> hot air unless it is obvious that you are invested in the project in some 
> way.

And they are *wrong*.  To the point of having an unscientific method.  
If you're building a perpetual motion machine, you are just plain wrong 
to ignore the views of people who aren't "invested" in your delusion.

> To date you are not invested in any way other than to come here and 
> tell us how wrong we are.

And you are *wrong* to demand that I invest anything more.  Until you 
fix that disfunction, you will *continue* to be wrong.  And you will 
continue to drive away people who would otherwise be interested in the 
types of things you're doing.

> While you may be right on some points, it is 
> difficult to listen to you or to take you seriously when you have nothing 
> invested in this project personally.  Sorry, but that is how I see it and how 
> many others will as well.

Change your thinking.

> The easiest act by far is to walk away.  You¹re correct.  The BEST act is to 
> put your money where your mouth is, find something that you believe is 
> interesting and champion it¹s improvement.

That's why I'm still here.  The burden is on you to realize there *is* 
money where my mouth is.

> I took the initiative years ago to take over Gorm and make it functional.  I 
> championed that cause, and continue to do so, and it made GNUstep a better 
> project.   Gorm is now a reliable and functional GUI builder.   In doing so I 
> also took the initiative to flesh out many of the classes in GUI as well as 
> the general mechanisms which are used to load gui model files (gorm, nib, 
> model and xib).  Because I took responsibility for these things it improved 
> the project. 

Sure, but that doesn't that all improvements come in the form of code.  
It doesn't even mean that the *optimum* priority should be code.  Anyone 
experienced enough with development projects knows how much necessary 
effort goes in both before and after the coding is done.  Hell, one look 
at the Kickstarter shine-jobs that get millions in funding will tell you 
that the ability to get the job done hardly even registers as a blip.

> So, I believe that the perception 
> you have that the project is ³walking in a random direction² is just thatŠ a 
> perception.

And that *is* my point.  It's not just my perception, but the perception 
of most people who are on the outside looking in.  You have a great 
project that hardly anybody uses, and it has been that way since at 
least 1996.  If you want to change that, things will have to change.  
Things other than code.

> My point is, quite simply, help us by becoming 
> part of the team.  It is not up to us to try to be good enough for you or to 
> live up to your standards.

It kinda is.  I, and people in general, can volunteer to be part of all 
kinds of teams; more than you can shake a stick at in open source these 
days.  If what you're projecting is needlessly hostile (and it is), it 
should be no surprise that I'm not eager to jump in to be part of that 
kind of team.  I like the technology, and I like the goals, but you *do* 
still have a ways to go to be "good enough".  Once you can frankly admit 
that to yourself and make meaningful changes (based on nothing but hot 
air), then you'll be getting somewhere.

> By saying the above I am not discounting any of your statements regarding 
> what you believe should be done on GNUstep.  I¹m saying, quite simply, put 
> your money where your mouth is and help.  

That you don't see the contradiction is telling.  Let me know if that 
ever changes.

> I have been trying to determine what the larger community wants from GNUstep 
> for a very long time.

Why?  There is ample evidence to determine which directions should be 
given the highest priorities, both in the long and short terms.

> Some people want a full 
> desktop, some people want a UIKit clone, some people want just a plugin that 
> will allow them to compile for windows (al la Cocotron).  Some people don¹t 
> like the license LGPL.  Some people don¹t like it because it¹s associated 
> with GNU or because they hate RMS.  There are a myriad of sensical and 
> non-sensical reasons why people, even developers, act the way that they do.  
> I have spent a long time trying to please everyone and ended up pleasing no 
> one.

Don't bother trying to please wrongheaded people.  It's as simple as 
that.  Face the reality of things, and structure the project in a way 
that satisfies that.  I tried to do that in a top-down fashion by 
kicking out a slogan.  You can either break things down in that way, or 
go with a bottom-up approach.  Whatever you do, you need to have a 
meaningful message that is easy to communicate.  From that position, it 
is easy to address all the people pulling in different directions.

> Instead of continuing to criticize, please make this discussion productive 
> and give some constructive criticism where you see the problems.

I have.  The problem remains that nobody wants to go anywhere with it.  
It's all so much "show me some code" or "no negativity" nonsense.  When 
you start saying "yes" more (or, hell, even "no") to the things that I 
propose, and give good reason for it, we'll be making progress.  Right 
now, you're still crapping out a lot of "I see no value in that".

> You¹re not just stating things directly, you¹re being condescending about it 
> and that¹s what is sticking in many people¹s throat.   

It should.  Because they are wrong.  I don't think it's condescending to 
point out reality.  Certainly not as condescending as it is to deny 
reality.

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