On Oct 14, 2005, at 12:02 AM, Ted Gould wrote:
Well, after reading the e-mail you've forwarded, I'm not optimistic. The reason being that they still seem focused on being in control. Now I don't think they should release a totally random project, but if they are going to never give an outside developer access to their version control, the barrier for contribution is too high. I think we've got roots in a project where one entity controlled the repository and rewrote all the patches ;)
I've been in touch a little with at least one person inside over there since the announcement.
From all things taken together, I'm getting a very different impression from yours. They seem to be getting a good balance on things, and seem honestly interested in getting those barriers as low as possible. Of course, if they listen to us properly, we can get even more done for both sides. I know the people on our side can really make this work, and it's looking like the people "over there" on that side want to do things well.
Besides, I have a personal vested interest to keep Software Engineering a paying profession for quite some time, so helping them refine a good business model to keep that alive is a win-win for most people.
One thing I found interesting in Linus' "Just for Fun" was when he was talking about Netscape open sourcing Mozilla. He mentioned how they still made decisions in conference rooms, and how that made outside contributions impossible. I don't care if it is on this list, but if they're not willing to make their product decisions transparent -- it is going to be difficult for others to get involved.
Well... I do have *some* interest on that angle (and with those projects). First off, the state of their initial code might make a huge difference. After that, then the corporate interest is something to keep an eye on. I recall, however, that one of the huge criticisms of the project was that management at "the company" was making all the decisions, ignoring most of the input from engineering. Even to the point of ignoring the technical lead of the project who happened to be on the corporate payload. So it wasn't even outside contribution that was hard... (you can look up the news items of the time to see details on that)
Many people have a good feel for the things that caused Mozilla the most problems, so as long as we keep an eye out we can probably avoid the worst of them here.