Re: focus! (was Re: Focusing on innovation re: mono, python et al)

[Philip Van Hoof <spam pvanhoof be>]

On Mon, 2006-07-17 at 11:31 -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:

> Good to hear! Now spread it through the project: why are GNOME mailing 
> lists, web site, release groupings, etc. all proceeding merrily along as 
> if the goal is "make a desktop"... while even the immediate ecosystem is 
> clearly not about that exclusively or even mostly.
> 
> My big picture question, why would GNOME never have produced things 
> like, and still is not producing things like:
>   - itunes/ipod
>   - gmail
>   - last.fm
>   - shutterfly
>   - flickr
>   - MySpace
>   - TiVo
>   - ...
> 
> Or even why is GNOME sidelining things like:
>   - Maemo
>   - Elisa
>   - One Laptop Per Child
>   - ...
> 
> My first-order answer is that GNOME thinks of itself as "making a 
> desktop" - even though the _reality_ is that the larger GNOME 
> community/ecosystem is doing way more than that, and that the larger 
> tech industry is doing still more.

I very much agree with you on this one, Havoc. Especially the Maemo and
One Laptop Per Child parts, as those are the ones I care about most.

Which doesn't mean that I don't think the websites you mentioned aren't
important to achieve a "Network effect" (which jdub talked about at
FOSDEM).

I, for example, hope the GMAE ideas discussed at Guadec (gnome mobile
and embedded) will get a lot attention from vendors like Nokia (and
PalmSource). I noticed Nokia is indeed looking in that direction. Which
is good. Let's continue in that direction?

I'm prepared to put my energy in things like this. I'd love to hear from
competent people what I can do to help here.

I guess as usual the GNOME community needs some more leadership to steer
all this a little bit. Also in my opinion steer the more technical
subjects than the ones the board a.t.m. steers.

I'm not saying the current board isn't doing a good job, I'm saying that
it's my opinion that we need such a board for steering more-technical
things. I think it would at least be more efficient than these mailing
list discussions :)



-- 
Philip Van Hoof, software developer at x-tend 
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
work: vanhoof at x-tend dot be 
http://www.pvanhoof.be - http://www.x-tend.be