Identifying the Issues
We are still trying to sort out how to work in these new
ways. I look at projects like Drupal and
see a thriving and vibrant community of developers, and yet it is also a huge
frustrating mess with each successive version creating significant
compatibility issues with the prior modules and versions yet still not correcting
simple, fundamental things (like adding possessive forms to people’s names with
“ ‘s “ even when their name already ends in “s”).
- How
many OSS
projects get pulled in multiple directions by people with different goals
such that they fail to serve any of them well?
- How
many projects have good ideas, and people who want to build them, but get
stalled because of an inability to incorporate ideas and participation
effectively?
- How
often does a project get forked into a new one (the old one left to die)
so that people can bypass political hurdles?
- How
much redundant work is done on similar projects while there is no way of
recognizing compatibilities of code?