[Sugar-devel] R&D vs Product Support

[David Farning]

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 8:52 PM, Bernie Innocenti <bernie at codewiz.org> wrote:
> El Mon, 21-06-2010 a las 10:06 -0400, Martin Langhoff escribió:
>>
>> Here I agree with Tomeu. A subtext of my "experimental branches" post
>> is that we're too small to split people into clubs (and it's
>> counterproductive anyway).
>
> In any given open source community, there will always be a certain
> number of people who are interested in building their own thing rather
> than working on the central project. The choice is between enabling
> these people to be productive on their parallel project, or loosing
> their contribution altogether.
>

I would ask that both Bernie and Martin Langhoff take a step back and
approach the question from the other side.  How can Sugar Labs (or
OLPC) become the point of collaboration for as many 'clubs' or
'projects' who are interested in working in this space.

I have been on this particular rant for a while now.  Almost _all_
successful projects focus on being the point of intersection for
individuals and organizations who share 'a' common goal rather than
focus on being the union of individuals and organizations who share
'all' common goals.

For example, many of the participants in the kernel, eclipse, and
moodle are fierce competitors in most areas:)  Yet have found that
they mutually benefit by share developer resource via the opensource
development methodologies to unite around common platforms.

david