20,741
edits
How the FlightGear project works: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
m
How the FlightGear project works (view source)
Revision as of 17:28, 8 February 2012
, 8 February 2012→FlightGear is a meritocracy
m (→Community interactions: http://www.flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11646&start=45#p121109) |
|||
| Line 60: | Line 60: | ||
Flightgear, as best as we have managed to understand the somewhat opaque workings in core development, is a meritocracy - your influence is proportional to the amount of work you do for the project. It's not closed, i.e. you can, if you invest a lot of work into the project, work yourself into a position where you have a lot of influence even starting today from zero. | Flightgear, as best as we have managed to understand the somewhat opaque workings in core development, is a meritocracy - your influence is proportional to the amount of work you do for the project. It's not closed, i.e. you can, if you invest a lot of work into the project, work yourself into a position where you have a lot of influence even starting today from zero. | ||
In general, that makes a lot of sense, basically because you can't vote what work volunteers should do later - or rather, you can, but it's not going to be done if the people volunteering for work don't like to do it, they'll just leave. There is a continuous transition - people who 'just ask questions' have less influence than people who write frequent feedback and maintain the wiki, then come possibly 3d modellers, Nasal coders, Terrain specialists and finally core developers. So, rather than seeing elitism, I see the chance that every user can in fact start with a small contribution and grow into the project - and that's what I'd like to see improved. | In general, that makes a lot of sense, basically because you can't vote what work volunteers should do later - or rather, you can, but it's not going to be done if the people volunteering for work don't like to do it, they'll just leave. | ||
In theory, I can spend 5 weeks of my spare time coding something I don't like, but why should I do that? Do you expect me to sit down and do something I dislike just because you (or other users) asked me to do it? Am I supposed to get satisfaction out of doing something for others, even if I don't like it? I don't know if there are people like that, if so, I've yet to meet them. My idea of the deal is: If somebody wants a feature I don't want to code, he can get my help to do it, he can get advice and a well-defined interface, he can get documentation - but that's about it. | |||
There is a continuous transition - people who 'just ask questions' have less influence than people who write frequent feedback and maintain the wiki, then come possibly 3d modellers, Nasal coders, Terrain specialists and finally core developers. So, rather than seeing elitism, I see the chance that every user can in fact start with a small contribution and grow into the project - and that's what I'd like to see improved. | |||
They are different areas of expertise, to be a good 3d modeller and graphics expert is quite possibly as demanding as to be a good C++ programmer, Nasal coding isn't per se inferior, ... so why are they not equal? | They are different areas of expertise, to be a good 3d modeller and graphics expert is quite possibly as demanding as to be a good C++ programmer, Nasal coding isn't per se inferior, ... so why are they not equal? | ||
The reason is, simply the dependency structure: Flightgear can run, live and be developed without detailed 3d models, but it can not run without C++ code. If tomorrow all C++ developers quit, that's quite possibly the end of Flightgear, if tomorrow all 3d modellers quit, that's the end of eye candy in Flightgear. | The reason is, simply the dependency structure: Flightgear can run, live and be developed without detailed 3d models, but it can not run without C++ code. If tomorrow all C++ developers quit, that's quite possibly the end of Flightgear, if tomorrow all 3d modellers quit, that's the end of eye candy in Flightgear. | ||