[LEDE-DEV] Actual community change and additional developers compared to OpenWrt

[Val Kulkov]

Hi Jo,

>>> Part of the  problem, I
>>> think, is the lack of clear and consistent (and  visible) governance and
>>> communication makes the project unappealing for  companies to be
>>> interested in paying developers to work on  either.  It's not enough to
>>> have code and commits, there needs to be a  communications strategy as
>>> well, or the projects will die.

>> I think it's mostly because of the usual reasons in opensource projects.
>> Core developers are overloaded, and in what little time they have they
>> prefer to code (understandable, but same self-defying issues in OpenWRT).

> IMHO this summarizes the current situation quite nicely and I'd say I
> agree with it completely.
>
> Note that we're trying to slowly dig ourselves out of the hole we made
> ourselves over the years but it requires time and dedication. I for
> example would love to lean back a bit and start caring more about
> community matters and communication but before I can do that, we need to
> find some more people compensate the missing developer time.

I think some communication from the core team is essential to the
overall health of the project. It is difficult to get a sense of
direction and priorities from the discussions here or at Github. When
the core team is silent on what's going on, people get frustrated
because they don't see where the project is going.

Even a brief post from the core team to this mailing list, outlining
short and/or long term objectives and any other relevant matters,
would go a long way towards creating the sense of direction. The
communication does not have to perfect, but it has to be regular.
IMHO, a half an hour (or less) of someone's time to outline what's
going on, on a monthly basis, would be much appreciated by most of us.
It would demonstrate that the core team is engaged and cares about the
community.

--
Val