Organisation of non-developers?

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Aeneas
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Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Aeneas »

I read an excellent remark that people should think "what could be done" for ReactOS instead of asking when it will be ready. Indeed - WHAT could that be? I believe this question deserves attention in itself and only indirectly touches ReactOS' development time frame.

Different people have different strengths. Some code. Some do not. They are doctors, work in a bakery, or design shoes or airplanes or buildings or God knows what. Now they can do something ELSE. They could... possibly test. Or write documentation. Or simply donate money.

And what is the thing tying the abilities of all these people together? - ORGANISATION.

It means, when they test, they know against WHAT - and that is where the releases are important, because if everyone is using his own trunk build, their results lose comparability. And it motivates them to know what is being done about their test results - that something is stable, that something needs work - then WHO is doing something with it, and WHAT is he doing there...

Some would not like to invest time at all. Imagine in particular the well-paid professions here, like surgeon or attorney. But they might invest money. Because e.g. what they earn in two days could finance a developer for two weeks or perchance a month. BUT WHAT HAPPENS WITH THEIR MONEY? WHOM are they paying for WHAT? WHEN will it be ready?

The core of organisation is that the parties can trust eachother's commitment, and that eachother's performance can be traced.

Imagine Greenpeace. You may not be exactly fond of being in a ship to stop a whale hunter or to tie yourself to trees. Then you donate to them. And what do they do? Look here: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/victories - If you consent with this, fine. If not, then you are not involved any longer. Simple thing. Noone requires you to "think like a tree hugger".

General Marius has beaten the Germans not because each individual Roman soldier was particularly strong. Actually, before him the Germans were shattering the Romans to pieces, being higher and stronger. But he made his Roman army to cooperate with discipline - and won.

I do not doubt at all the commitment of ReactOS' developers - why else should they be here? Nor do I doubt their quality or personal qualifications - after all, call it alpha, but it is really not so bad, and after all, other projects have died in much more infantile stages. Or never really lived, like FreeVMS. But I DO doubt - very openly have to say this - the quality of organisation. So I propose to consider a new question - instead of "When will ReactOS be ready", how about "When will ReactOS' organisational structure permit non-developers to easily contribute"? What steps are intended in the direction of integration of support from non-developers?

I am writing this as I believe ReactOS has a window of opportunity. In 20 years, ReactOS will be simply too late. If it is a "private hobby", external people have no motivation at all to engage in it. After all, the same way they could finance someone's counting to infinity, or test his television set or translate his shopping list. I do believe people would help this project if it really is to the benefit of the public. I mean, did you not seriously ask yourself, how come ReactOS did not take off like a rocket already?

So, what do you think? How can the organisation be improved, and when could that be done? I hope this thread can end up with nice ideas that will benefit ReactOS.
Ged
Developer
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Ged »

I like your ideas.
We need people like you to help with such organazation. It's a big task and as you say,most developers are busy doing what they do best, developing.
Why don't you come to #reactos-dev and discuss this further with us.
fireball
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by fireball »

Yes, you're welcome to #reactos-dev, or PM me your IM contacts if for some reason you can't join IRC.
livestrong2109
Posts: 133
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by livestrong2109 »

I'm going to take a third on this.

I feel that such an organization would improve the experience for new and or inexperenced members. there has been to much strife and not enough discussion and development here for sometime Such an idea as a commity for Common Contributes would be helpful.

Rater than Non-Developer I recommend the term Common Contributer as the earlier suggests that you are only of use if you develop. We need to refocus our project page and news letters towards attracting not just developers, but also normal PC users. That is where you will get your donations and public support.

I'm going to update the Wiki...
Wesley Howard
ROS Contributor - Web Developer
Aeneas
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:09 pm

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Aeneas »

Sorry, people, right now I am in the net rather sporadically - the last quarter of each year is the busiest one in my company, so I cannot be all too frequently in chats etc.

What I am going to do: look a bit at the possibility to get some kind of sponsorship through the European Union; somewhere I read that such a thing might be imaginable. And after all, why not? ReactOS, once in final stages, would be "the answer" for all kinds of proprietary software that you want to continue to run and that does not run on Windows 7 & Co. I guess the EU will also have requirements as to what they want to sponsor, and that could, as a side-effect, actually give us some guidance as to how ReactOS' organisation can be improved.

If anyone has, in the meantime, acquired better knowledge of this type of sponsorship, please go forward with it and share it!
Aeneas
Posts: 504
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Aeneas »

OK, apparently the EU has something like an FP7 programme that could be of interest for you.

See

http://cordis.europa.eu/documents/docum ... 681EN6.pdf

I have actually written to the office responsible for this project, asking them whether something like ReactOS might be eligible, and if not under that programme, then under which other programme. I will keep you up to date and I will tell you when receive an answer.
gabrielilardi
Moderator Team
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by gabrielilardi »

Aeneas wrote:I have actually written to the office responsible for this project, asking them whether something like ReactOS might be eligible, and if not under that programme, then under which other programme. I will keep you up to date and I will tell you when receive an answer.
Thanks for your help, keep it up! :)
Aeneas
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:09 pm

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Aeneas »

Dear all,

I have received an answer to my question that I mentioned in an earlier post here. I shall research the topic on my own further, but I am giving here a copy of my correspondence, so that if anyone in the future or in parallel with me wishes to take a look at the EU support issue he or she has a starting point. (As a side-note, I have anonymised myself in the quotation below - I hope you do not mind.)

A possibility which I see that would be of interest is that, perchance, not all of ReactOS is funded, if there is no appropriate "call"; but maybe implementations of single features could still get funding. Once I have a clearer picture, I will report back, but I think the next two weeks I will not really have much time.




MY QUESTION:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have read that the EU is, under certain conditions, supporting research of entities who do research for the benefit of the general public in the EU. From what I understand, projects in computer science may also be included in such support; I have heard of a computer clustering project that has been supported in the past.

I have been observing (though not actually participating in it) a project named "ReactOS" (that is why I wrote "research organisation" in the data above), which is attempting to create an open-source version of Microsoft's Windows operating system - much the same way as Linux has re-created an open-source version of what has been generally accepted as "Unix". I believe that ReactOS, once completed, would be of great benefit for competition and thus innovation, which would in turn benefit Europe's population and industry.

The project's progress is, however, rather slow; it has been suggested that this can be mitigated by attracting more developers, who shall submit code to that project, either by actually hiring them or by some other kind of advertisement or support.

Following this, I have a few questions:

1. Is a project as ReactOS actually a potentially eligible project for any EU programme? If so, which programme would that be and what kind of support can be expected?

2. Are there any webpages for the requirements for such support?

As you understand, my enquiry is just preliminary, and following your information, I shall further research the topic on my own. I would like to avoid to suggest to the ReactOS project an application under a programme for which ReactOS is definitely not eligible, and that is why I would like to kindly ask you for some initial orientation.

Thank you in advance for your kind help.

Kind regards,

(Aeneas)

THEIR ANSWER:

Dear (Aeneas)

We acknowledge receipt of your message and, in response to your enquiry, we wish to inform you that ‘Framework programmes' (FPs) have been the main financial tools through which the European Union supports research and development activities covering almost all scientific disciplines. You will find an overview of the current Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) on the Community Research & Development Information Service (CORDIS) portal at the following address:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html

As a general remark, the work set out in a proposal must correspond to one or more of the topics, and associated funding scheme(s), indicated in a call for proposals. Proposals that fail to do so will be regarded as ineligible. Even if eligible, a proposal that only corresponds marginally to a call will not receive a high score in the evaluation. It is therefore recommended that the proposal is designed with a call in mind. Please note that the Commission cannot advise you on choice of a call.

However, we would like to inform you that the funding for research in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) (including computer science) is granted under the specific programme “Cooperation”. You will find an overview of this programme at the following address:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/cooperation/home_en.html

Information specifically about research on ICT is available on the following webpage:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/

On the right side of the above webpage you will find a link to calls for proposals for the activity concerned. Please click on the link “Latest ICT calls for proposals”.

After choosing a call you will have access to all the relevant documents (including Call Fiche, Work Programme, Guide for Applicants, Rules for Participation). The Guide for Applicants for all calls includes useful information on the specific eligibility criteria for both researchers and organisations. Detailed descriptions of the initiatives funded under each call for proposals can be found in the Work Programme.

Furthermore, you can use CORDIS e-mail notification service to be notified by e-mail each time a call relevant to your area of expertise is published:

http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cf ... on=qp.form

In addition, the Network of National Contact Points provides help on all aspects of the FP7 in the national language. For contact details, please consult the following URL:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ncp_en.html

We hope this information will be helpful to you.

Kind regards,

EUROPE DIRECT Contact Centre/ Research Enquiry Service

For your general questions about the EU, get in touch with EUROPE DIRECT: call the toll free number 00800 6 7 8 9 10 11 from anywhere in the EU or send an e-mail via our web submit form at:

http://ec.europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm

The answer or information contained in this message is based on the information provided by you, which may not be sufficiently detailed or complete to provide a full and correct answer or response to your question. The Commission is committed to providing accurate information through enquiry services; however, the information provided has no binding nature. The Commission cannot be held liable for any use made of this information or for its accuracy.
Witch
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Witch »

1.)
Aeneas wrote: I read an excellent remark that people should think "what could be done" for ReactOS instead of asking when it will be ready. Indeed - WHAT could that be? I believe this question deserves attention in itself and only indirectly touches ReactOS' development time frame.

Different people have different strengths. Some code. Some do not. They are doctors, work in a bakery, or design shoes or airplanes or buildings or God knows what. Now they can do something ELSE. They could... possibly test. Or write documentation. Or simply donate money.

And what is the thing tying the abilities of all these people together? - ORGANISATION.
I heard that remark from $this->guy :P





2.)
Aeneas wrote: Some would not like to invest time at all. Imagine in particular the well-paid professions here, like surgeon or attorney. But they might invest money. Because e.g. what they earn in two days could finance a developer for two weeks or perchance a month. BUT WHAT HAPPENS WITH THEIR MONEY? WHOM are they paying for WHAT? WHEN will it be ready?

The core of organisation is that the parties can trust eachother's commitment, and that eachother's performance can be traced.
I think that do-good-organizations like Green Peace, Red Cross, etc. etc. have been doing a poor job for the last 50 years or so because they have been sneaky with their economy. They allow ENRON alike people drag them into the mud and then stand there in front of the press saying they didn't know someone would take advantage of them like that. Humans always take action first when the shit has already hit the fans. They never plan ahead.

Answer:
Open source Economy. Transparent accounting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_a ... g_practice
The lack of transparent accounting standards in some nations has been cited as increasing the difficulty of doing business in them. In particular, the Asian financial meltdown in the late 1990s has been partially attributed due to the lack of detailed accounting standards. Giant firms in some Asian countries were able to take advantage of their poorly devised accounting standards to cover up immense debts and losses, which yielded a collective effect that eventually led the whole region into financial crisis.




3.)
Aeneas wrote: So I propose to consider a new question - instead of "When will ReactOS be ready", how about "When will ReactOS' organisational structure permit non-developers to easily contribute"? What steps are intended in the direction of integration of support from non-developers?
There's not enough of blogs like this in the ROS universe! With Ubuntu regular user always have some hardware/software issues that's needs fixing. So elite people help regular people with self-help-tips by writing blogs like these.
http://www.rewardprograms.org/thefreege ... mbers.html

With ROS, blogs like these won't be as neccessary since the architecture was designed to solve those kind of problems from day one. But what ROS blogs could do more of is the coding aspect. To tease regular people into learning more about howto do the practical dirty works in C programming.





4.)
Aeneas wrote: What I am going to do: look a bit at the possibility to get some kind of sponsorship through the European Union; somewhere I read that such a thing might be imaginable. And after all, why not? ReactOS, once in final stages, would be "the answer" for all kinds of proprietary software that you want to continue to run and that does not run on Windows 7 & Co. I guess the EU will also have requirements as to what they want to sponsor, and that could, as a side-effect, actually give us some guidance as to how ReactOS' organisation can be improved.

If anyone has, in the meantime, acquired better knowledge of this type of sponsorship, please go forward with it and share it!
Answer 4.1
I'm no expert so I'm not sure if what you're looking at is the same stuff as what I looked at a few months ago. If you feel like you're making progress with this then you should proceed despite of what I have to say. ;)
But I got some inside help a few months ago and I tried to see the big picture with this approach. Long story short:
  • You have to write a 100 page document following a certain template in order to get EU money.
  • If ROS will be granted those money then the EU bureaucrats will suffocate all developers in the ReactOS project. I'm pretty certain of that if we play by the book.
Homesteading - Chapter: Gift Outcompetes Exchange
Indeed, it seems the prescription for highest software productivity is almost a Zen paradox;
if you want the most efficient production, you must give up trying to make programmers produce.

Handle their subsistence, give them their heads, and forget about deadlines. To a conventional manager this sounds crazily indulgent and doomed—but it is exactly the recipe with which the open-source culture is now clobbering its competition.
EU bureaucrats won't understand this, it will take them over a hundred years to get even half of this.



Answer 4.2
I contacted Neelie Kroes two months ago just when they where about to switch politicians. So she's no longer spearheading against Microsoft, you will have to ask EU "take me to your leader!?".
Open standards/ Open Source

Kroes has stated she believes open standards, and open source are preferable to anything proprietary:
“ The Commission must do its part.....It must not rely on one vendor, it must not accept closed standards, and it must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession
When I contacted her I got passed around with 4-5 politicians without knowing who they were. But then they sent me a letter by snail mail saying they will look into things when they EU switch has settled down. I don't expect much from that letter or EU bureaucracy.

But if more people contacted the European Commissioner for Competition > Neelie Kroes Cabinet > Home > Contact me
Then maybe the EU bureaucrats will understand the situation more quickly so that we don't have to wait over a hundred years only 50 years. ;)
Also you might get a physical snail mail letter to your front door. No one have done that since the dinosaur times, that's always fun it made me smile when I got it. :mrgreen:


.
Aeneas
Posts: 504
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:09 pm

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Aeneas »

Dear Witch,

I cannot but smile at the way our ideas or efforts seem to cross here again, for eventhough I am rather new on these forums, it is not the first time.

My motivation is simple - try to help ReactOS though not being a developer, and having rather limited time. My means, too: "Try to figure things out which I can." (I guess reading legal documents etc. is a real chore for anyone who has no interest in this.) Whether that information finally will be used or not is not actually dependent on me. I see it a bit like... providing an icons set, for example. Noone HAS TO use your icons. But if they are good, it is nice if they have the chance.

As to the research I try to conduct, I well see that you are right. It is the very danger of relying on donations that at some point your donors will have requests. But I think it should be explored, and I think we would owe you our gratitude if you could share what you have done. In particular, what has been that 100-pages-document? Can you post a link?

The point is: I believe that ReactOS could do better. Though there are many mantras and doctrines about open source, the fact that we see is that developers are not sufficient in numbers. And it is not a question of the developers' motivation or abilities. I mean, if you have 30 soldiers, no matter how valiant, and even if from the cineastic Sparta - you are not going to impress even Liechtenstein. The question is how ressources could be increased. And not just in nebulous schemes, but something which we could do, say, next Friday or in a month - in a fixed time-span stretching not too far into the future. If you - or indeed, anyone - have other ideas than the one I currently follow, I am definitely curious. If your have something more promising, by all means go ahead and share it. If my suggestion is less efficient than yours, let us follow yours. (No sarcasm, I am serious.)

You know, I believe it would be great if this thread could end up with a proposal: "Dear ReactOS people, we propose X with the ressources of Y to be implemented in the time span of Z, with results as such and such."
zydon
Posts: 160
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:03 am

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by zydon »

I have one suggestion. How about gather some people and write a ReactOS user's Manual. Some of informations already in the Wiki and this forum to be utilized. Then the final document compile to .HLP or .CHM format whichever ROS able to show and then bundle it together with the distribution. Also another copy converted to .PDF for anyone who like to have a hardcopy print out.

Some new testers would appreciate the documentation to assist them in getting it started.
inf_loop
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:28 am

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by inf_loop »

Everything is better said than done but i propose the following:

- Create a "Community Integration Team" with a coordinator. This team would create and think ideas/tasks to get
users involved for the advance of ReactOS. Users interested in doing a task would talk to a member of the
team, and will be assigned with that task. People assigned with tasks will appear in a wiki page.
Members of the team will contact with users to check if the task was completed and what is the estimated
completion date. Members of the team reports ideas to the coordinator.

- Proposed tasks: Testing applications, HW testing, translation, others...

- I think that testing and translation have their own teams, but we are talking of people having one
specific task. So, the member of the community team will be in charge of synchronizing the task with the
proper team (testing, translation?).

- Other idea would be to have in the community integration team one testing coordinator, one translation
coordinator, etc., depending of the type of task.

- Vicmarcal has done a great job with his (?) spanish blog and his testing duties, i think that he
is a proper person to be in charge of this.

- ReactOS could benefit from a PR minded team that can answer simple questions in the forum.
I note a lot of hostile answers, because they are answered over and over again, but to have a strong
user base, we need to receive new users with open arms.

Any other ideas?

Users in my opinion are not much appreciated in ReactOS, and we could do a lot better using their
abilities/time.

Regards
vicmarcal
Test Team
Posts: 2733
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Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by vicmarcal »

inf_loop wrote:
- Vicmarcal has done a great job with his (?) spanish blog and his testing duties, i think that he
is a proper person to be in charge of this.
Thanks :) but the spanish blog is not just me :)..also there are much better testers as Caemyr,Gabrielit,amine48rz(to say just three).
The idea of a Community Coordinator (or a Link between IRC and Forum) is a nice idea, but its tasks are quite similar to our Project Coordinator tasks(Fireball).
This Forum was enough good to keep you informed but seems now community demands a little bit more...maybe it´s time to redefine the Community experience or how Community can help in ReactOS project. I know there were some talks about this thing in order to improve the communication and making the Community an active part of the project :)
Btw in the latest times we have set some topics asking for your help, and we have had some quite nice answers.Now i can recall the "Design the new Webpage", the "Create a sound for startup" and the "Please vote us at the Sourceforge Choice Awards"(among others).
Maybe it would be nice to know what do you miss you here to feel yourselves part of this project.

Until now:

1)More info with a Blog (as Youtube blog)

Any other suggestions?

My question: how many people would help or would want to be "working" in these small teams (with quite small objectives) you proposed and be part of ReactOS project?Anyone reading this post? :)Feel free to say: hi!me! ;)
RideBMX
Posts: 76
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Location: New York

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by RideBMX »

Join a community effort and help the Wiki.
Witch
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Contact:

Re: Organisation of non-developers?

Post by Witch »

Aeneas wrote: My motivation is simple - try to help ReactOS though not being a developer, and having rather limited time. My means, too: "Try to figure things out which I can." (I guess reading legal documents etc. is a real chore for anyone who has no interest in this.) Whether that information finally will be used or not is not actually dependent on me.

As to the research I try to conduct, I well see that you are right. It is the very danger of relying on donations that at some point your donors will have requests. But I think it should be explored, and I think we would owe you our gratitude if you could share what you have done. In particular, what has been that 100-pages-document? Can you post a link?
Regarding your motivations.
I completely understand.

Regarding your research.
Like you said about reading boring legal documents I don't know howto so I gave up this path when I saw the big picture.
"Morpheus" who wishes to remain anonymous was the one that showed me the truth. I didn't know what to make of the truth or how to work with it. So I'm afraid I'm not much help in this department. The best thing would be if "Morpheus" contacted you personally.
Just give him 2-3 weeks if you still haven't heard from him after that. Then PM me!
And I'll try to make sense of the little information I got and share it with you.

Like I said I'm no expert in this department posting everything that I got would be like spamming. And I still don't know what information is relevent or not it's a mess, that's why I ran away from this path.

Oh one last thing receiving EU money from day 1 means the donor requests deadlines from day 1. Not at some point but from day 1. That's why I don't believe in playing by the books. Thinking outside the box would be to go to the leader from day 1 and go around all of the red tapes. That's what the European Commissioner for Competition (Euro CfC) is for I believe. To help us skip all the boring legal documents reading. ;)





The training circle. Master's wheel.
Aeneas wrote: You know, I believe it would be great if this thread could end up with a proposal: "Dear ReactOS people, we propose X with the ressources of Y to be implemented in the time span of Z, with results as such and such."
The answer to this and all other people's suggestions is still number 2 from my previous post. Setup a transparent accounting procedure for ROS and all problems will fall in place automatically thus requiring less manual labor for the project as a whole.

  • ROS must first learn wax on... wax off. Before she can do the flying kick.
  • Number 2 is wax on... wax off. Dealing with EU is like doing the flying kick.
The training circle. Master's wheel. - Length 5 minutes 40 seconds.



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