Christophe wrote:The main way in which Celestia is departing from the bazaar model is on the 'release early, release often' motto, but that's mainly because we aren't that many working on it. As it has already been said by others we would all love to have a larger team, and we are open to new contributions, the problem is that not that many people come forward.
Regarding the last statement. Have you ever asked to yourself why?
I remember well many attempts by volunteers that have submitted patches and ideas in these years. They simply was discouraged end even rejected.
The greatest difference against the bazar model is in the hype, in the collaboration model, in the quality of the documentation of the code. Is in the very high steep for newcomers.
To keep high the hype is important to update and refresh the website. A blog integrated in the website is more more effective than the forum. The forum is for enthusiasts and for people that have problems.
Christophe, the doxygen documentation of the code that you've prepared along ago, should be integrated in the official website.
Why People like Selden is not included and cited as part of the dev team.
The efforts made by Selden using the wiki should be integrated in the official website.
Another silly example. Since few weeks ago the prj files for visual studio was even not updated on CVS from years. Of course who knows VC++ can import the makefile and deal with this and in minutes or hours can be able to run Celestia in the IDE. But it is not friendly.
E-Mail communication is time expensive because difficult to read. You feel confortable with it. Personally I hate it.
A serious bug traking and ticket system was taken in consideration only a few months ago.
The development roadmap was published only some months ago.
The project is complex and is going to go more complex. The team should be managed splitting responsibilites and roles. Members should be specialized and in charge for some aspects of the software not only coding like documentation, pakaging, distribution, installation, website maintenance, tools, etc etc .
There are so many things and details that makes the difference with an effective and real "open" project .
Please don't misunderstand my criticism. Is a positive thing. In this period I would like to submit to your attention some issues to pursue a more effective development model and to avoid some errors that was made in the past. Moreover the aim is to don't miss the importance of the good procedures and ideas that was introduced in the last period.
Kind regards.
--------------------------
Edit: P.S.
Last but not least.
If you want to recruit someone and enlarge the team, often you have to ask for this explicitly specifying roles, attitudes and competence required. And you have to publish this kind of request in some attractive manner.
--------------------------
Edit 2. P.S. 2
All over the world young graduating at university often have trouble in finding a good argument for their thesis. I've often asked myself: is it possible that none of them specially in programming, 3D graphics, astronomy, astronautics don't find attractive the idea of working on projects based over Celestia and so contribute for a period to its development? It should be a good reference when will come the time to look for a job.
--------------------------
Edit 3 P.S.3
You are right the article cited the Linux dev model as revolutionary at the time. It still works now without web 2 features like the previous model still works as well. But now are both out of date.
