community Digest, Vol 36, Issue 45

[Ortwin Regel]

On 7/20/07, Jeff Rush <jeff at taupro.com> wrote:
>
> Mathew Davis wrote:
> >
> > And I don't understand why we can't have both.  I really don't see the
> > problem so if someone could explain why not having a forum would be
> > advantageous and not just personal preferance I am all ears, because I
> > could list a lot of reasons why forums could be advantageous.
>
> I appreciate your viewpoint but here are a few reasons:
>
> 1. Our community is small -- spreading the discussions thinly before we
> have
> reached critical mass will dilute the synergy.  We are just now starting
> to
> come together as a community, and I think we even have too many mailing
> lists
> as it is (not always clear on which one to discuss X).


The community is artificially kept small by not providing a place for
non-developers to gather. I hate mailing lists and I only signed up on this
one because I'm desperate for OpenMoko information. Hundreds of other people
probably aren't quite as desperate or hate mailing lists even more but they
would have signed up at a forum.


2. The OpenMoko team at FIC are spread _very_ thin and lack the
> time/resources
> to research and establish a forum themselves.  They were overloaded just
> getting a basic storefront up.  I don't understand why a company the size
> of
> FIC isn't providing more logistics support to them, so they can focus on
> the
> hardware/software but that's the way it is today.
>
> 3. Because of #2 and the fact this is the world of free/open, groups are
> welcome to establish a forum someplace and announce it here.  In fact no
> one
> can stop it.  Then instead of debating it you apply the governance
> principle
> of open source, in that if you build it will they come.  If so, you were
> right.  If not, you were wrong.  A very objective approach.


We need a central official forum. We've got an official mailing list, wiki
and chat. If efforts are not centralized, energy is wasted on answering the
same questions and discussing the same stuff parallel at three places. The
community probably isn't strong enough for THAT (yet).
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