Re: [ros-dev] Regarding documentation and attracting new developers

[Alexandru Lovin]

Marc,

I'm one of the "non productive" users that you talk about. In this world
there is a business concept called "networking." To put it short, you join a
networking organization instead of advertising your market presence. People
will find out that you exist and so, they may request your products/services
or pass the word on.

Two stories are frequently told in business networking circles.

"You don't know who they know"

In short, some guy who advised large corporations on their finances, if I
remember correctly, was looking for referrals. He was approached by a woman
running a small flower shop who said "all right, what do you do?" and he
answered something along the lines of "I work with people that you don't
know and will never meet" and he turned away. The lady's clients were very
big and wealthy corporate executives, her father in law was another rich
executive, etc. She smiled (as mentioned in that book, "but she wasn't going
to talk nicely about him").

"You don't know how well they know who they know"

This time it was about a gardener who said "I'll get you some referrals" to
another such corporate gray-suit advisor. The latter kept thinking about the
gardener being a peon, a digger in the dirt, not having leverage on his
clients at all. In reality, the guy was respected by very rich executives'
wives. He reportedly asked one of them if "what his advisor told him is
correct" and he stated that the advisor told him about how to save with some
legal tax cuts. The lady answered "hmm...that's interesting, I'll need to
check, could you please tell me the name of your advisor again?"

In other words, Alex Ionescu is completely right. We, the monkeys, the
cattle, refer you people to others like us, until Super Cow or Dexter's
"Monkey" will hear about you and will want to invest.

On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 3:52 PM, Alex Ionescu <ionucu(a)videotron.ca> wrote:

>   Old arguments, but I'll dissect them again for the
> rookies:
>
>  On 31-Oct-08, at 9:39 AM, Marc Piulachs wrote:
>
> >   If reactos is (and will probably be for a long
> > time) a hobby OS is a
> >  consequence of our all-or-nothing strategy. ReactOS is trying to clone
> >  Windows as a whole inset of different OS based on the NT design like
> >  stated
> >  on the homepage. IMHO it's plain wrong because it's a very ambitious
> >  goal
> >  and it's even naive to think that 10+ part time developers can
> >  deliver a
> >  serious os to compete against the resources Microsoft or even Linux
> >  has. At
> >  current progress when we hit 1.0 will be too late for reactos , that
> >  simple. 
>  Dave Cutler and his band of 12 delivered on that promise in 3 years.
>
>  I don't see why a group of 10+ *dedicated and focused* part-time
>  developers couldn't do the same in 6, considering how much more we
>  know about computers today and the fact we don't have to start from
>  nearly scratch. It's already been 5 out of 6.
>
>  But ReactOS is not a team of "dedicated and focused" part-time
>  developers.
>
>  Why not? Because they're not getting paid, and they have absolutely NO
>  reason to help this project other that it's a hobby.
>
>  They have defintely much less reasons to listen to someone telling
>  them how they should enjoy that hobby.
>
>  Imagine you're fishing, and someone comes to tell you "actually,
>  you're part of a big lake-wide fishing project, and we already have
>  too many trouts. We'd like you to fish salmon instead".
>
>  Yeah, f*ck off is likely the reply.
>
> >  
> >
> >  Do we need directx at this point? tenths of useless stubbed dlls ? 3
> >  undergoing architecture ports? You name it. Don't take me wrong that's
> >  technically amazing but not an smart strategy if we don't want to
> >  become an
> >  eternal promising project in alpha state and nothing more. 
>  As useless as I think DirectX is, it's the NUMBER ONE thing that will
>  attract people to ReactOS.
>
>  Get StarCraft to run on an OS that doesn't even support multiple CPUs
>  yet, and people will LOVE it. You could probably sell it to half of
>  Korea by then.
>
>  Useless stubbed DLLs? They're not useless -- almost each one of them
>  made one more little app work. Or a big app. Any of those apps could
>  be what a company is wanting to run, and nothing else.
>
>  Three architecture ports? The 64-bit port has fixed dozens if not
>  hundreds of header bugs and incorrect types. The ARM port completely
>  re-architected parts of FreeLDR and the memory manager (even on x86)
>  and also brought us a RAMdisk driver. The ARM port even uses a 100%-
>  native ARC loader code compatible with WinLDR, that the x86 port could
>  start using too. All those were important changes.
>
> >  
> >
> >  As a consequence of that ReactOS codebase has grown out of control.
> >  Any
> >  developer can pick any area of his interest, start working on it and
> >  then
> >  suddenly stop and start working on another thing. 
>  Welcome to open source.
>
>
> >   The current situation is
> >  that we have a monster with multiple legs but very few finished
> >  parts. IMHO
> >  we should better concentrate on a few key areas only (and I mean
> >  really few)
> >  and work all together in that direction to deliver something usable
> >  now , in
> >  a year timeframe , even if it's just a basic (but stable) kernel to
> >  run
> >  firefox on. I think it's better to give reactos a real world use now
> >  than
> >  deliver an NT5 clone in 5 years being optimistic. 
>  And how do you get a bunch of people having fun into the same
>  direction, for free, without the usage of mind-altering substances?
>
>  If you have a solution to that, as much as I love this project, for
>  your own good, I recommend you publish a paper on it.
>
>  You're likely to win the Nobel prize for psychology.
>
>  And guess what, while 100% of interested parties will look at ReactOS
>  right now and say "oooh, they almost have XXX working", if you focus
>  on ONE goal as you say, then you'll have:
>
>  - 4-8% of interested parties looking at ROS and saying "Yay, XXX
>  works!!"
>  - 92-96% saying "Wtf, why didn't they work on YYY? I think YYY is way
>  more important. This project has the wrong goals for me."
>
>  Pick your poison.
>
> >  
> >
> >  A few possible solutions to discuss:
> >
> >  - Redefine our target. We have a very end-user oriented website when
> >  no
> >  users actually exist! currently we need developers not yet more fun,
> >  nice ,
> >  but non productive users . 
>  Wow, and I thought *I* was arrogant.
>
>  Those nice "useless" users are what provide your free advertising,
>  which attracts companies and developers, you idiot.
>
>
> >   If you take a brief look at our webpage the
> > first
> >  impression is "wow! a free windows clone than runs mozilla and
> >  OpenOffice!!"
> >  but .. it's that what we have? I don't think so.. How many times has
> >  someone
> >  asked in the channel how to run office 2007 or complaining about
> >  ReactOS not
> >  installing into his brand new notebook . 
>  Probably less than people have complained the same about Windows Vista.
>
>
> >   IMHO we should turn into a more
> >  developer oriented community . Inset of promoting reactos as windows
> >  killer
> >  we may promote it as learning platform for IT students. As a great
> >  opportunity to study an alternative non unix microkernel OS design 
>  Yeah, I tried doing that. Then Microsoft released the WDK to all
>  faculty and students.
>
>  Hmm...would I rather...study some half-assed implementation of
>  Windows, or would I rather get the official code from Microsoft, plus
>  the CRK and official build tools. Hmmm...
>
> >   .It will
> >  lead into more passionate productive people joining the project. Don't
> >  promote it in international user oriented events but on universities
> >  and
> >  collages, we can give speeches on our respective collages and
> >  promote it
> >  among teachers as learning vehicle. 
>  Tried that too (see my Waterloo talk). Read what I just wrote above.
>
> >  
> >
> >  - Redefine short term goals and turn reactos into something usable
> >  right
> >  now. Could be reactos interesting for the embedded market as a
> >  headless ,
> >  well known Win32 API, tcp/ip enabled OS running on cheap x86 based
> >  hardware? 
>  See the 100% vs 8% poison above.
>
> >  
> >
> >  - Defining a serious, closed , roadmap with realistic dates that
> >  doesn't
> >  sound like joke, and enforce it. 
>  See the 100% vs 8% poison above, plus the "enforcing rules on unpaid
>  part-time students/volunteers" above.
>
> >  
> >
> >  Regards
> >  /Marc
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  --------------------------------------------------
> >  From: "Daniel Reimer" <reimer.daniel(a)freenet.de>
> >  Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 11:53 AM
> >  To: "ReactOS Development List" <ros-dev(a)reactos.org>
> >  Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Regarding documentation and attracting new
> >  developers
> >
> > >   Maya Posch wrote:
> > > >   I guess this is why ReactOS is going nowhere
> > > > fast. If nobody is
> > > >  willing
> > > >  to see it as a viable project, even for commercialization, then
> > > >  it's not
> > > >  so surprising that no deadlines are ever met and attention from the
> > > >  public for what could be something even bigger than Linux (at
> > > >  least on
> > > >  the desktop) is at around the level of OSS OSs which are little more
> > > >  than hobby projects. Is ReactOS a hobby project? What is its goal?
> > > >  Is it
> > > >  intended to grow into something companies would use and where the
> > > >  ReactOS Foundation could provide paid support for? I don't see this
> > > >  happening right now.
> > > >
> > > >  For the time being I'll suspend most of my work on ReactOS. I'll
> > > >  only
> > > >  continue work on the installer project, partially because I can't
> > > >  let
> > > >  down the guys who work for me and partially because it's a generic
> > > >  enough installer that it could work for any other OS.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >  Maya
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >  gedmurphy wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Maya Posch wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >> I don't know how the Windows internals work or even
> > > > >> look like, this is my first time I'm working with them.
> > > > >>
> > > > > Then you're falling at the first hurdle. You can't work on ReactOS,
> > > > > especially at the level you are, without knowing Windows Internals
> > > > > religiously.
> > > > > You need to take a step back, put some time into learning the
> > > > > architecture
> > > > > _and_ how to program for the architecture. Only when you know
> > > > > this will
> > > > > you
> > > > > be in a position to write good code.
> > > > >
> > > > > Stefan is an excellent example of this in practice. He came to
> > > > > ReactOS
> > > > > knowing little about NT. He put in the time and effort and
> > > > > learned the
> > > > > architecture (very quickly). He's now in a position read and
> > > > > understand
> > > > > the
> > > > > kernel and is making some valuable contributions.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >> If those people do not want to write documentation, fine, have
> > > > >> someone
> > > > >> else write the specifications and feed them those. Don't put
> > > > >> them in
> > > > >> charge as they clearly aren't thinking about the wellbeing of the
> > > > >> project as a whole but only their small island.
> > > > >>
> > > > > Who? Who is going to write this documentation? Can you recommend
> > > > > anyone?
> > > > > Anyone with the knowledge to write it is more interested in coding.
> > > > > Are you volunteering, or do you want to pay someone to do it?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >> Impractical, insufficient and cop-out are words that come to mind.
> > > > >> Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is among one of my many pet
> > > > >> peeves ^_^
> > > > >>
> > > > > I've said it before and I'll say it again, even though people
> > > > > _hate_
> > > > > this
> > > > > answer...
> > > > > A good programmer, with knowledge of NT doesn't need text.
> > > > > The design is already established, read Windows Internals 4th.
> > > > > The code
> > > > > is
> > > > > the fine, granular documentation.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > As much as this may annoy you, there is absolutely no way to
> > > > > change this
> > > > > at
> > > > > the moment.
> > > > > This is open source....
> > > > > It's not a great business model, but it's fun  :)
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > Ros-dev mailing list
> > > > > Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
> > > > > http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >  _______________________________________________
> > > >  Ros-dev mailing list
> > > >  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
> > > >  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >  
> > >  Problem is that most people have a real life too and need to pay the
> > >  bills at the month's end from something. As Ged said, this is a spare
> > >  time and hobby project right now and it will be as long as you
> > >  can't pay
> > >  your food and bills from working on it. ROS is a really great project
> > >  and I will never leave it for sure, like most here won't , but noone
> > >  wants to become unemployed to be able to code way more on it. We
> > >  already
> > >  had some talk with commercial supporters who might fix this in the
> > >  future and make paid devs possible, but sadly not yet.
> > >  _______________________________________________
> > >  Ros-dev mailing list
> > >  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
> > >  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
> > >  
> >  _______________________________________________
> >  Ros-dev mailing list
> >  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
> >  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev 
>  Best regards,
>  Alex Ionescu
>
>  _______________________________________________
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>  Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
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>