Rick Langschultz wrote:
Creating a private mailing list not available to the community restricts information from getting to developers that want to continue to develop reactos, whether they commit or not.
The private mailing list has nothing to do with development and certainly contains no information that could be deemed useful towards the development of ROS. It's just somewhere developers can discuss sensitive issues without worrying about setting a an exponential bomb off.
All projects have their problems. It's much better for both the project and community as a whole if these problems aren't broadcast worldwide. We used to use personal emails or MSN, this just takes over that role making it easier and quicker.
I'll give you an example, take the recent allegations of leaked MS source code in the ReactOS repository. These allegations completely were untrue, however as soon as this found it's way onto the public mailing list, drastic and maybe over reactive actions were taken. This email has single handidly stopped all development of ReactOS for the past 2 weeks and has the potential of holding the project up for a year or two. It's safe to say the project has been in trouble of dying off completely.
Now, if this mail was received privately, we could have dealt with the issue internally and avoided all this mess. Development would have continued whilst we resolved any potential issues. For the community and the project as a whole, which would you consider to be the better option?
All projects have their problems, you just never hear about them because they aren't made public. There is nothing to be gained by hanging out your dirty linen in public.
Ged.
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Murphy, Ged (Bolton) wrote:
This email has single handidly stopped all development of ReactOS for the past 2 weeks and has the potential of holding the project up for a year or two. It's safe to say the project has been in trouble of dying off completely.
I know and its a real shame too, before this happened ReactOS was actually starting to become somewhat functional as an OS. I personally would rather you guys keep your infighting to yourselves for now on given how much trouble it has caused.
And before anyone starts talking about ReactOS shutting out other developers, take a look at the Mozilla Firefox team and how open they are to the Firefox community. They won't even allow new developers to enter the project unless "they like their code." ReactOS clearly is much more open to its community.
Murphy, Ged (Bolton) wrote:
I'll give you an example, take the recent allegations of leaked MS source code in the ReactOS repository. These allegations completely were untrue, however as soon as this found it's way onto the public mailing list, drastic and maybe over reactive actions were taken. This email has single handidly stopped all development of ReactOS for the past 2 weeks and has the potential of holding the project up for a year or two. It's safe to say the project has been in trouble of dying off completely.
I don't remember reading that on this list. The public allegations were: wide spread "questionable" reverse engineering practices, and devs looking at leaked code.
Now, if this mail was received privately, we could have dealt with the issue internally and avoided all this mess. Development would have continued whilst we resolved any potential issues. For the community and the project as a whole, which would you consider to be the better option?
Pretending issues don't exist won't make them go away. The resolution shouldn't change if discussed in private or public. Maybe development could have continued during a code review, but then the code review would take much longer and may never be completed. There might never have been the clarification on reverse engineering techniques. As a potential user and project proponent, I am VERY happy with the whistle blowing and the public response. ReactOS IS stronger after this setback. Now you have a good IP policy that is defensible.
All projects have their problems, you just never hear about them because they aren't made public. There is nothing to be gained by hanging out your dirty linen in public.
It makes sure the linens are not that dirty. Public oversight is important. This is especially important for a project where some devs have kept dirty secrets in the past.
Beyond the elements of "public trust", remember XFree86. That project suffered from "private politics". The result was stagnation and external developer neglect. This didn't happen immediately but gradually. The same COULD happen here.
Private communication (Skype, email, irc) does happen and in certain instances IS advisable. Just don't make it easy or common. A private list is just too easy and that makes it dangerous.
PLEASE reconsider the private list. Failing that, members of the list, move public topics here. We DO appreciate it. It IS for the good of the project.
Don't feel the need to respond. I just wanted to provide an alternate viewpoint. This topic is very much opinion. I doubt you'll be able to change mine and I may be unable to change yours. I am nothing but an interested observer, you owe me nothing. Thanks for hearing me out.
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Brian -
Carlo J. Calica -
Murphy, Ged (Bolton) -
Nate DeSimone