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| ==netlabs.org - big unefficent monster?==
| | [[netlabs.org - big inefficent monster]]? |
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| There was a posting in the eCS developer Mailinglist these days which I ([[Ktk]]) got forwarded by some netlabs.org coders. Even if the mail writes quite some BS about netlabs.org it's worth commenting it because some points are worth a discussion. Note that I will '''not''' follow the discussion in the original eCS developer mailinglist, for such discussions we have the http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.community mailinglist.
| | [[Category:Community]] |
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| I didn't change the original content, I just give my comments per paragraph.
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| Among the reasons Mike Kaply and the Warpzilla team are doing so well:
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| 1) First and foremost: Mike and the Warpzilla team ship product... they
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| produce. There in no vaporware or deadwood anywhere to be seen. They
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| ship often and on time.
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| 2) He set up a single group for communications and he regularly drops by
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| to communicate.
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| 3) He very often asks people what they want or what they think. He even
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| asked people about the tinderbox fund before he did it.... that's how he
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| found out about amazon.com. Don't understand estimate how important
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| communications is.
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| 4) He shows leadership. He is polite but leaves no doubt as to who is
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| in charge and is who responsible. History has proven that he is
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| generally correct on issues where I disagree with him. He knows what he
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| is doing.
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| 5) He tells it like it is. It he doesn't have the time or capability to
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| fix something he tells everyone that he doesn't and says that someone
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| else needs to take this on. The team has built up to the point that
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| others are not only picking up the slack but they are finding and fixing
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| additional issues and adding new capability with Mike only needing to do
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| code reviewed and checkin.
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| Not much to say about this. I personally love Mozilla & the stuff Mike did and does for OS/2 and eCS. I'm also very much impressed by the rest of the team because there are people contributing to it I never heard of. For quite some time I thought I know everyone that codes for OS/2 and eCS ;)
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| Compare and contrast the Tinderbox drive and Netlabs fund raising. I've
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| put 10 items under Tinderbox and 10 under Netlabs. Item 1 under
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| Tinderbox relates to item 1 under Netlabs, etc:
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| With Kaply's Tinderbox fund drive:
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| 1) The request for funding is very very specific. People know exactly
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| what their money is going for and exactly why it is being asked for.
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| That's quite easy for the Mozilla team, after all it's just one project or at least several subprojects that are related to each other. I mean they share the same codebase and such. Most projects at netlabs.org do not have anything in common.
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| 2) Warpzilla produces. No dead projects or vaporware here. It ships
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| good quality products very regularly.
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| If this means netlabs.org does not produce anything I'm a bit pissed now... (*calming down*)
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| 3) Funds visibility. You can look on the Amazon site and see the bucks
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| rolling it. You will also see a very specific report from Mike
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| concerning exactly what he spent the money on once the purchases are made.
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| I agree about that one and I can tell you that we are working on that with Mensys. Will be solved later this year.
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| 4) Kaply is a regular poster in the Warpzilla news group. Everybody
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| knows who Mike is and many have communicated with him at least a couple
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| of times via direct email on issues. He always answers back and is a
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| straight shooter. People need a real LIVING person to relate to.
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| Notice that more often than not we say Mike Kaply and not The Warpzilla
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| Project.
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| Uhm so far I considered myself as quite a living person too.
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| 5) The Warpzilla web site has only living projects.
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| 6) Kaply used a very very good site to set up his fund drive.
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| Amazon.com is easy to use and works well.
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| 7) The tinderbox request is not an ongoing request. Ongoing requests
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| without a specific urgency behind them don't work well. Requests need
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| to be on an as needed basis for a really simple, easy to understand
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| objective where visibility is unlimited.
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| 8) Donations should be viewed as votes. People like to vote for exactly
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| what their preference is, not for some general idea. Do I want to
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| donate money into a general fund for driver development? No, that would
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| suck. I want to be able to pinpoint exact which driver I want. Mike
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| gave people the ability to vote for something very very specific which
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| would be used for a very specific purpose. As time passes people will be
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| able to say "I helped buy that tinderbox."
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| 9) People know who is in charge of The WarpZilla Project. Mike took
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| charge a long time ago and takes responsibility for how things go.
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| Folks don't always agree with everything he does but he is there, he
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| makes decisions, he communicates with folks and it is obvious he is
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| dedicated to what he is doing.
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| 10) Demonstrated ability to make things happen. As development became
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| more and more difficult with an old dead compiler Mike found a way to
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| make a new, modern supported compiler available to continue producing
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| results.
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| With Netlabs:
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| 1) The request for donations is a request to fund overall operations so
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| people really don't know exactly what their money is going for or why.
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| 2) Netlabs shows a lot of projects but when is the last time something
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| new better or useful actually shipped? I'd rather have one good product
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| that ships than many that are dead.
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| 3) No visibility on the amount of donations made nor any accountability
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| of what the money goes for.
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| 4) Who runs Netlabs? I certainly have no idea. People really don't
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| relate as well to faceless web sites.
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| 5) Most Netlabs projects appear to be dead. You can't leave dead
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| projects laying around. They die, they need to go into the bitbucket!
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| Or be archived and sent to hobbes pending someone taking an interest.
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| 6) Last time I looked at Netlabs I think they used Paypal. Ug! Paypal
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| is a non-starter in my book.
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| 7) Netlabs is an ongoing request where there is no immediate urgency or
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| specific need. Look at how MozillaZine does it. When the various
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| annual bills come due they post a request for donations to cover
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| operating expenses for the next year. They only take donations until
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| such time as they think they are good to go and they are specific about
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| where the money is going and why.
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| 8) Donations should be viewed as votes. Netlabs doesn't allow you to
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| pin point exactly what you are voting for. In the end you might like
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| your money to go against one specific project but it is really not your
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| call, it is the call of whoever is running Netlabs.
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| 9) Who was it that is in charge of Netlabs?
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| 10) Has not demonstrated ability to make things happen. My general
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| impression is that if things are not going well then whoever is running
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| Netlabs does not find ways to improve things or find ways to work around
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| problems. Got to ship product...
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