Bringing fdo.org to the next level

[Ely Levy]

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005, John (J5) Palmieri wrote:

> On Fri, 2005-04-15 at 07:13, Ely Levy wrote:
> > On Fri, 15 Apr 2005, Philippe Fremy wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Well, it seems that so far, freedesktop has worked very well in an
> > > informal way, without formal board and approval process.
> >
> > freedesktop didn't do anything, it just hosted some project and one
> > successful mailing list. Standard discussions were before fd.o was around.
>
> And this is what made it successful.  It became a single point of
> communication where people of different camps felt safe to discuss
> contentious issues.  It became a demilitarized zone of sorts and let the
> projects evolve on its own merit.  By any measure it is hugely
> successful because it did the one thing a formal standards organization
> does not do well.  It created dialog.
>

Why are you so against formality?
Do you think that just cause big companies screws it we can't make it in a
better way?
Is it fear of becoming like them?
It's opensource no one body would ever be able to take over it,
there would never be complete agreement.
I'm just talking about making mainstream work together better.

> > > The discussion here are usually enough to foster technical discussion
> > > and reach consensus between desktops when consensus can be reached.
> >
> > But why be so passive?
>
> Because it works.  Trying to force standards in this case will create a
> platform of just good enough software.

Brute force works also it just takes few million years,
So to no become a slow standard org you chose become a very inefficient
not org...

> > Why not activly trying to reach it?Why not serve as a mediator?
> > and what about the users?how would they know which desktop supports which
> > standards in case they decide to use only those who works well with each
> > other? and about programs who wants to tell you if you support fd.o 1.3
> > then our program would with with yours instead of listing 10 different
> > semi standards.
>
> Why does a user care as long as the desktop just works?  This is a
> developer issue but at this point not even D-Bus is mature enough to
> create a platform that is not tailored to a particular distribution.
> BTW there will be a fd.o 1.0 platform release at some point from what I
> understand.

Cause he is an idealist and want to support standards?
Cause she want to give the new system to his grama and he want to know
everything would work together?
Cause he want to get to his local school and convince people to use it?
It doesn't just work, it would just work if that user would chose
programs which support the standards that make programs work with each
other.

btw without board who exactly decide what goes into fd platform 1.0?
If formal decisions like that are being made better them being made in a
way everyone can influance them.

> > > Can you explain what you think the current problems are with the current
> > > organisation, and what a new organisation would do to resolve those
> > > problems ? Your proposition sounds a lot like LSB to me and it was clear
> > > here that this is not the way freedesktop wants to work.
> >
> > There is no origanisation. I have no problem with how fd.o is now,
> > a hosting site. I'm trying to show the advantages that org which work
> > more activly like OASIS or LSB can have. We need one which would be
> > dedicated to free desktop.
>
> If components in freedesktop warrant standardization they will get to
> the correct body and be stuck in comity for years.  Have you read my
> rant (http://martianrock.com/?p=43)?  A snippet:

What are you basing this acusation on?
Just cause some bodies are inefficient you decided that all of them would
be?Is it some nature law?It's just a matter of building it right
It's like closed source companies usually release once every long while
and opensource release very often if active. If you not always wait for
1.0 version of the standard before releasing and let it slowly come up
like done now on fd.o the fact that there would be a body would slow
anything. Anyhow standards would be written the body would just make
official fd.o compatible list out of them, and do an efford to offer
and mediate. I don't mean shuving it down someone's trout.

> Fd.o was conceived specifically NOT to be a slow working standards group
> formed of committees that put out specs that were relevant years ago but
> somehow seem outdated and over engineered when they are released. Fd.o
> IS A proving grounds for specs and implementations that are of interest
> to unifying the many different Linux desktop platforms with some common
> infrastructure. Projects still have to make it on their own merit. If a
> specification becomes a standard it is because all or most of the
> interested parties have agreed to use it and not because it is hosted on
> fd.o.
>
> > > If your proposition relates to the lengthy discussion about d-vfs or
> > > dconf, my very personal opinion is that you should first start to write
> > > code, and then show it and discuss it (like Linus said, "show me the
> > > code!"). Freedesktop was created in the spirit of people writing code
> > > and discussing together real problems. It has worked in this way so far.
> > > I consider the two recent discussion a major exception to this and I
> > > hope that this is not going to become the trend.
> > >
> > I don't care much for dvfs sorry:)
> > Writing code is a neccery step but it doesn't have to be the first one.

Ely