A Call for community action

[Steve Mosher]

Nicola Mfb wrote:
> 2008/10/5 Steve Mosher <steve at openmoko.com>
> 
>> Nope. nobody signed up.
>>
> 
> Hi Steve,
> I think it's not easy to involve the community in a specific task as bug
> fixing.
   I like challenging tasks.
> 
> According to me:
> * this requires high knowledge and systematic approach, so only a part of
> community may be affected
> * too many peoples thinks they already paid for a phone and the paid
> openmoko developers should fix bugs (I do not think this!!!)
> * there is a lack of information about future direction of the software
> stack
> * community peoples hacks openmoko for fun, so they want to spend their time
> following their needs, passions and capabilities.
   Yes, personally as a programmer I loved finding and fixing other 
people's Bugs. I liked orignal development as well, but there was
nothing that gave me a bigger thrill than fixing a bug in 5 minutes that 
some other guy had been studying for two weeks. to each his own.
> 
> I report an example about me, I'm not a kernel guru, so I'll never take a
> bug on suspend/resume and I'll not take a bug about qtopia on x11, as I
> think it will not be used in the future, so why should I waste my time?
> At the same time I like to develop with C++ and QT library, and the big part
> of time spent on openmoko goes there. So you may find a lot of my threads in
> this mailing-list about Qt, related bugs openened on the issue tracker here,
> at openembedded and trolltech, a wiki page to help/be helped from other
> peoples about qt developing etc. etc. I'm planning to write a qt application
> to test dbus api on FSO, and as I need pan network over bluetooth that will
> be my first try. As it seems there is nothing available when ready I'll be
> happy to share it!
> Only a part of problems i solved are available on mailing lists archives or
> on the wiki due to lack of time.
   Great I look forward to seeing it.
> 
> Consider now that a lot of peoples acts in a similiar manner, so a lot of
> excited guys are working "randomly" on somethink, someone is able to use
> python/gtk, someone is a distro guru etc. etc., they love to fix their own
> problems and write their scripts that often will be never shared, becouse
> they do not know that a lot of peoples may need it!!!

   Exactly. What could a community manager do to make sure these 
solutions were easily found, easily shared and promoted.
> 
> So it should be easier to involve community in a "application wish list", in
> a "how-to/documentation wish list" and in a "test suite".
> These are simple and fun tasks.

  Wish lists are important we have several. I'm focused on 
accomplishment lists.
> 
> Regards
> 
>      Nicola
>