Openmoko on Design

Marek Lindner marek at openmoko.com
Tue Jul 29 11:22:18 CEST 2008


Hi,

> At the same time we heard comments from a key developer who indicated
> that the decision was made above him by unnamed individuals with whom
> the community has no obvious means of communication, and who apparently
> don't even listen to the reasonable technical arguments of key
> developers.  

Openmoko always avoided all kind of formal structures. Thus we don't have such 
a thing as "key" or "core" developer - "a" developer would be better.


> This also seemed to reveal something about the internals of 
> Openmoko that weren't expected: development decisions are not entirely
> made by the developers, but instead they answer to some people who the
> community cannot readily identify and who the community doesn't know how
> to interact with or if they even can interact with these decision-makers.

May be it revealed that Openmoko itself is diverse as well. That some 
developers have different opinions than others. 


> It was this incident with the keyboard that made several people believe
> option (2) was not available, and even after Sean's message, I still
> don't believe that we know the answer.  So, I'll ask again: does
> Openmoko intend to allow direct code contributions by community members
> to core components of the ASU/FSO frameworks?  If so, will such
> community members also have a voice in underlying design decisions that
> guide that/those framework(s)?

if course you can - that is the whole point of Openmoko. The best way is to 
implement a solution, offer a package to install and let the people play with 
it. If your idea is convincing we will include it.


> Openmoko has to trust those members of the community, who prove themselves
> through actual contributions, to be worthy to give input on larger design
> issues as well.  

You got the point !


Marek




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