How to bring forward the community?

[fdvjoif at vodafone.it]

In my opinion there are two underestimated issues:
- community organization
- software developement

Community organization
Look at us, we are a higly fragmented community. There are various
small teams working, most of the time, on different projects. As we
know this is a side effect of working in the FLOSS area, but notice the
size of what we are talking about: a unique hardware supported by a
(relatively) small community without the partnership of any kind of...
"big sponsor". Do we want to bring forward the community? Well with these
numbers the fragmentation among the community is the most
counterproductive thing at all. The community must be solid and
compact, everyone in here should give his contribution to a common
project. With this wide diversity it is difficult to see the route, to
understand what is the target, what is the big plan. It is sure a
positive thing to have so many ideas and projects, but is it really
useful to have them so sparse and fragmented? They should instead be
part of a big project. Thinking at it, the fragmentation and the
lack of clear ideas and targets IMHO are what do not bring in new
users and developers.
Which leads to the second issue...

Software Developement
We do not have a compact group of developers. Too many different
projects and not focused on the real issues of our little hardware. Do
we want to compete with Android and iOS? Ok well, but to do so we must
choose a unique platform to develop, a unique community driven
distribution to put on the GTAxx and it must become reliable.
I think it is essential because our community is small, and because it
is probably the key to acquire new users and new developers.
To date, take a new user, a possible new developer, who takes a look in the
wiki. It is a mess! Wich distro to use? Where can he give a hand?
Which bugs need a fix? Who knows! It seems there is no order.
There is the hardware, the GTAxxs, but the software is in a fog.
So concentrate on a distro and develop it.
But it is not enough. To make simple the newcomers' life the
software should be reliable and well known. Wich distro do you think a
new user will prefer to use on the GTAxx? The one with Debian inside (oh 
Debian,
he uses it on his pc!) or the unknown one? But also the distro must
have reliable basic functions for the daily use: no calls no party!

To conclude, I think it could be really more efficient to have a
community focused on one single project, solving every bugs and bringing in
new features. To try to compete with the great mobile names out there
I think we should choose a unique platform for the GTA04, and if it is
well known chances are that there will be more users and developers.
Our community must be reorganized, compacted. We need one big
project and a clear target.

Regards
Joif