Developer Only Discussion List

[Jason Flatt <jason AT flattfamily.com>]

On Wednesday 18 February 2004 7:37 am, Eric Schabell wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Well, I just noticed that there seems to be no mail coming my way from
> the various smgl lists... so i have just now seen this posting:
>
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/sm-admin/2004-February/000257.html
>
> I am sad to see that a Team Lead will be leaving and appears to have
> decided to release the ISO on his own terms. I guess we can all just
> throw the roadmap away and wait and see if the iso makes our Feb 2004
> deadline.
>
> I don't really know what else to say except, thoughts on the matter
> (developers only as it should be on this list)?

Ugh!

I have been keeping up with the e-mails floating around trying to make sense 
of it all and trying to see how I feel about it.  I have been struggling with 
this e-mail wondering if I should even send it, but if you really want to 
know what I think and how I feel, and if my participation in this project is 
supposed to mean anything, I guess I need to send it.  I am disappointed in 
the current state of things with Source Mage, and I'm not sure I could have 
made any change for the better despite my "wanting to".  I believe I am 
somewhat of a diplomat: always wanting to smooth things over, never wanting 
to make waves, avoiding conflict, etc.  I am, however, going to step out of 
my character a bit here, stick my head above the crowd and wait for the 
tomatoes.

I do sometimes think Hamish is a bit of a loose cannon, and he does sometimes 
go off 'half-cocked', but I'm sure that's just because the e-mail form of 
communication can be a rather impersonal and sometimes misleading form of 
communication.  However, the points he makes are frequently valid and 
informed, and I fairly much agree w/most, if not all, of what he has said 
here.

There may be folks who feel that Source Mage is rock solid, but I have been 
afraid to do any updates to my system for the last month or two on the off 
chance that it might break my system.  Maybe it's a bad thing for me to read 
all the Perforce reports and all the bug reports (at least the ones that go 
through the mail list) and all the messages in all the other lists, but I do 
that for three reasons: to keep a pulse on what is going on with the project, 
to help out if anyone happens to have a question that I can answer, and as a 
kind of 'early warning system' for potential problems.  My business has been 
steadily growing for the last 4 months to the point where my free personal 
computer time has dwindled to barely being able to keep up w/e-mail.  I don't 
have time to fix my broken computer, and I /need/ my computer to be 
operational, so I try not to do anything that might break it.  In the last 
month or two I have had less confidence that my computer would be operational 
after an update and reboot, so I have not updated.

The current race to 1.0 is, in my opinion, rather pointless.  There is 
nothing 
in the Road Map[0] about goals for 1.0 other than maintain, bug fix, and a 
date.  The only /real/ goals, as far as I can tell, are the refactoring of 
Sorcery and creating Design Documentation.  Those items have either already 
been done[1] or have not been done and were pushed back to after 1.0 (again, 
[0]).

If we use the Team Objectives[2] as our goal post, then that has been mostly 
ignored by all, and for most of the teams the current information is 
irrelevant.  Even my feeble attempts to update monthly have been 
unsuccessful, and my lack of free time lately as made it almost impossible 
for me to do anything more than quick fixes and updates.  I'm sure I'm not 
alone, and that is not my point.

The only thing that I can see has happened in the last several months for the 
entire project is a mode of maintenance and bug fixing, and lately it seems 
that fixing one bug creates another.  We also now have Prometheus churning 
out bugs faster than the very small Grimoire Team can fix them.  That should 
have been happening 6 months ago, when we could have been working on them, 
not 3 weeks before release date, where it now seems totally overwhelming, and 
is /not/ achievable.  The features that would make Source Mage more 
attractive to new users are being set as feature requests for after 1.0 in 
the name of a zero count bug list.  At this point, as far as I am concerned, 
any release date will do.  We could have released it in December and fairly 
much had the same thing we have now.   If we are to release a meaningful 1.0, 
then we need to have meaningful features, goals and targets, like what Hamish 
is trying to do with the ISO, and not just dates.

Having arguments and fights and pointing fingers and getting bent out of 
shape 
over the way things are or are not with one thing or another isn't going to 
help us.  If the race for 1.0 is going to destroy Source Mage, then the race 
needs to end.  Either release it now and be done with it, release it when the 
Road Map says we're going to release it, regardless of it's state, or throw 
away the Road Map, because it's not worth it to lose good people 
over /little/ things like meeting an arbitrary deadline.

I /really/ don't mean to attack or belittle /any/body or any aspect of Source 
Mage.  Really.  But I believe that the path Source Mage has taken recently is 
not helpful or healthy, and we will /not/ attract more people to this project 
in it's current (mental health) state.

[0] http://wiki.sourcemage.org/index.php?page=SourceMageRoadMap
[1] http://wiki.sourcemage.org/index.php?page=Meeting+log+2003-03-30
[2] http://wiki.sourcemage.org/index.php?page=CurrentTeamObjectives

-- 
Jason Flatt (jason @ flattfamily . com)
Father of five (http://www.flattfamily.com/)
Linux user (http://www.sourcemage.org/)
IRC Nick: Oadae  Channels: #sourcemage, #lvlug  Server: irc.freenode.net