Openmoko on Design

[Marek Lindner]

On Tuesday, 29. July 2008 19:19:10 Al Johnson wrote:
> Whether the term is 'key developer' or just 'a developer' is irrelevant.
> The issue is the total lack of communication over removal of a function
> many in the community, not to mention said developer, have good technical
> reasons to see as absolutely vital.

Unfortunately, this tiny difference is important because it sounded like "Even 
THE key developer (and god knows who else) objected and still you did it!". 


> Diversity of opinion is fine and expected, but we needed to hear what the
> other opinions were!

True, and you did hear it.


> I thought that was the whole point too, but your answer seems only to
> answer one of the two questions. You seem to be saying 'Of course you can
> submit code, and if we like it we'll use it' but saying nothing about
> whether the community has a voice in the decision. It would be helpful to
> know before embarking on implementation whether the idea conflicts with one
> or more of the unstated ideals by which inclusion may be judged.

You should realize that we (Openmoko) are vastly outnumbered by the tasks on 
our ToDo list and the mails we have to process. For us it is very hard to 
grep out the genius and doable ideas - it is just too much !
But if you can provide a working prototype of your idea you can be sure that 
we seriously look at it. We simply install it, play with it and eventually 
get infected by it. In the end we are geeks as well and like to see cool 
stuff.  :-)


> I think so, but I think the rest of the paragraph, particularly the
> preceding sentence, was at least as important. Since you snipped it I'm not
> sure you feel the same way.

Do you mean that sentence: 
"we are paid by openmoko to do what  we are told to do by the design 
department and that is what we then do." If that's the state of things for 
paid developers, then community contributors have even less hope.

Again, this is the statement from a single developer - I _definitely_ don't 
agree with that. This is simply not the way it is. Honestly, I have never 
seen a company that gives so much freedom to its employees. Sometimes I even 
have the feeling this is more a democracy instead of a business here.  :-)


Marek