Re: [whatwg] A New Way Forward for HTML5 (revised)

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com> wrote:

>
> On Jul 26, 2009, at 9:27 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:
>
> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>
> I would also caution that, by their nature, standards projects are not
>
> quite the same thing as software projects. While the way HTML5 has been
>
> run is much more in the spirit of open source than many past Web
>
> standards, I'm not sure all the lessons can be applied blindly.
>
>
> I don't think that the lessons should be applied blindly... I think they
> should be applied selectively and with great care. We don't want to
> destabilize the way HTML5 is currently being developed - but we do want
> to improve the process for giving feedback, get more people making
> meaningful contributions, make the process of contributing more
> harmonious and hopefully accelerate the speed at which features can be
> developed. These are all direct or implied goals in the Restructuring
> HTML5 proposal[1].
>
>
> The lesson I would learn from open source is that finding people willing to
> do useful work is much more important than tools or project
> organization. While good projects strive to refine their process, my
> experience is that people who start out by
> asking project-wide tools or process changes to enable their contribution
> rarely turn into valuable contributors. On the other hand, people who start
> out by making substantive contributions within the existing process often
> have excellent insights into how to improve the process and tools from
> there. That's not to say this is universal - just what my experience has
> been in ~14 years of open source development on various projects.
>

I've worked on a couple open source projects and watched many others from
the sidelines, and I can say that this definitely mirrors my experiences as
well.