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

[Doc O'Leary]

In article <mailman.10341.1387934395.10748.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 Gregory Casamento <greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:

Quoting was a bit messed up on this one.  Not sure why.  Let me know if 
my attempts to pick out what you wrote is wrong.

> Indeed.  This is why this practice hasn°Øt been put in place and, even if it
> where, it would be difficult to enforce.

I don't see why any special enforcement is required.  It should just be 
a matter of professionalism or common courtesy to respond in a timely 
manner to issues related to the sub-projects someone maintains.

> Not here.  The problem is that, over the years, the leads of this project
> have gotten some pretty inane and idiotic suggestions from people with
> little or no experience and having no bearing in reality whatsoever.

Triage.  This gets back to my point about the web site not delivering a 
coherent message.  You could nip that nonsense in the bud if you gave 
people a better picture of reality such that they didn't *need* to 
pester the leads to either understand something or see that something 
gets done.


>  Myself and those directly responsible for keeping the libraries and
> applications on this project in working order need to consider the impact
> of any changes which come our way.

And for some things, such as those I highlight, the consideration needs 
to be done and settled *before* any changes get done.  I'm not going to 
busy myself arranging deck chairs while you consider whether or not its 
time to break out the lifeboats.

> The greatest power of any maintainer of any open source project is the
> power to say °∞No°± and, while it must be exercised judiciously and 
> sparingly
> it must be exercised to prevent crappy changes from getting into the
> codebase.  So when I use the word °∞consideration°± it is not code for 
> °∞We°Øre
> going to ignore you°± it°Øs sincerely meant to say that the leads will 
> look
> over your changes or suggestions and consider if it°Øs worthwhile or not.

And my point continues to be that, for the most part, smart developers 
will be looking for some idea on what they have in mind is "worthwhile" 
*before* they put in the effort to get fully up to speed with a *large* 
codebase such as GNUstep has.

> The track record of this project at accepting patches speaks for itself.
>  We have adopted over 90% of the patches sent our way because most of them
> were worthwhile.  As a group we°Øre very accepting of changes if they help
> make GNUstep better.

As always, so long as your basis of merit is on code, you are 
fundamentally missing my point.

> I°Øm unaware of how the kickstarter was directed inward.  It was posted on a
> public crowd funding site and was publicly announced on twitter, Facebook,
> slashdot and a few other public portals.  The contributors to the campaign
> were not GNUstep contributors, they were the general public.  People out
> there who believe in GNUstep.  In spite of it°Øs failure, it raised
> awareness.

It was the goals that were inward.  Like I said, what you offered is not 
what most people want, or even the way most people *think* about 
computers.  What you mostly made people aware of is how little GNUstep 
understands about the world outside itself.  Try as I might, maybe I'm 
not the best person to help you realize this, if you are even ready to 
admit it in the first place.

> 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.
> 
> 
> I°Øm not sure what organizational changes can be made.  It°Øs not that 
> I°Øm
> not open to making them, it°Øs just that I am not sure what they should be.

I'm directly telling you what I think they should be.  Your response has 
been that it's all hot air to you.  Again, from the outside looking in, 
the actually message you're sending is indeed one of not being open to 
making changes.

> Have you ever done any iOS programming?  If you have then it should be very
> obvious to you what the differences are.  If you simply look at the
> documentation for UIView vs. NSView you can see the differences there.

Uh, my sig links to (some of) the iOS apps I've done.  And the corporate 
web site has plenty of Mac apps, some of which are open sourced, and 
some of which are old enough to have brought forward from NeXTStep.  In 
fact, STScripting is an offshoot of the agentd daemon that I originally 
wrote with GNUstep in 1996.

So go ahead and join the brigade that is convinced that I can't code 
something because I refuse to thoughtlessly code something for you.  Or 
because I don't sheepishly follow exactly what Apple does.  Yes, as I 
have stated, I am well aware that there are "differences" between the 
two API.  That in no way prevents me from taking a step back and asking 
*why*, and coming to the conclusion that maybe the same problem can be 
solved with a different design approach.

> Merit is assigned based on one°Øs personal achievement and contribution to
> the project.   The old saying is code talks, bullshit walks. ;)

That's like saying there *must* be something to perpetual motion 
machines, because people keep building them!  That's dumb.  Change your 
thinking.

> See here http://lwn.net/Articles/391461/
> 
> As you can see, the same criteria for merit is used with the Linux kernel
> which was used as a basis of comparison earlier in this thread.

I am not swayed by arguments that are based on an appeal to authority.

> I°Øm wondering why you keep emphasizing science.  GNUstep is not a
> scientific endeavor, no software project ever is.  They are *engineering*
> endeavors.  What we are guilty of on this project is failing to follow some
> *engineering* best practices.  Perhaps we°Øre talking about the same things,
> but calling them something different, but I°Øm not sure.

Sound engineering is fundamentally based on sound science.  That should 
make my reason for emphasizing it obvious.  And that's why it is so sad 
that so many open source efforts are instead rather cultish in their 
operation.  

> You are correct in the sense that you don°Øt necessarily have to contribute
> code in order to be correct about pointing out faults in the structure of
> something in the same way that I don°Øt have to be an architect to know that
> there°Øs a problem when I see a crack in the foundation of a building.
> However, you would be in a better position to help if you were more
> invested.

I would but, as I have pointed out almost too many times, the hostility 
that greets people as they dip their toes in the water is overriding 
message that gets through.  I'm experienced enough to tough it out, but 
most developers with any sense will see the negativity that GNUstep 
people here are projecting and run far, far away.  When you start with 
the proposition that I'm "bullshit", why *shouldn't* my response to that 
be "walks"?

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

I have.  There seems to be, at best, only minor interest.  At worst, 
cult-of-the-code hostility.  Why should I involve myself with that kind 
of community more than I already have?

> There have only been a very few projects on Kickstarted that have garnered
> that much attention.  GNUstep should have been one of them.  The problem is
> that only games and things people are interested in buying do well on such
> sites.  You have to have a message and a product that gels with people in a
> way that they can see the tangible benefit of it.

Yeah, that's *kinda* been my "hot air" point.

> GNUstep was a hard sell
> on KS because it is just a set of libraries.

If that's how you sell it because all you see is the code, sure.  As I 
have tried to make clear time and time again, that sort of thinking is 
flawed.  That is what you must resolve to change if you want the 
prospects of GNUstep to change.

> Running any open source project is like herding cats because people are
> self-determining.   All I can do is set goals and break them down as you
> said once before.  It is up to people other than myself to join me in what
> I feel is important as lead.  Many times, in spite of knowing I was right I
> have been very much on my own.

And?  If you are surrounded by people who don't want to do the right 
thing, the best solution is rarely to follow the crowd in doing the 
wrong thing.  Either get them to change or, yes, go off on your own.  
I'm still at the first part of that here, rapidly approaching the second 
part.

> Not really.  Everything else we’ve discussed previously notwithstanding I
> have always been of the opinion that it is easier to change something from
> the inside out than from the outside in.
> 
> By saying the above I am not discounting any of your statements regarding
> what you believe should be done on GNUstep.  I©ˆm saying, quite simply, put
> your money where your mouth is and help.

And I'm continuing to say, quite simply, is that I don't have any 
intention of getting inside something that is toxic.  Resolve to make 
some of the changes I have highlighted *first*, things you *know* to be 
broken, and *then* you will see an influx of more than just my help.

> I don°Øt know what you mean by °∞nobody wants to go anywhere with 
> it.°±  I
> think you may be surprised.  It°Øs always a mistake to guess what other
> people are thinking.

I'm following the evidence of what you're doing rather than trying to 
figure out your thinking.  I have proposed slogans and initiatives.  I 
have asked for clarifications on inconsistencies and a diminishing of 
hostilities.  It still all falls on the lead members of the GNUstep 
project to do more than "consider" what I have said.

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