Subject:
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Re: LEGOFan.net - central community run hub for all areas of the LEGO community.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org
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Date:
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Wed, 18 Feb 2004 05:46:11 GMT
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In lugnet.org, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
<snip>
> This does better explain things, but I must say that the whole idea of other
> sites popping up to "compete" with LEGOfan.net by duplicating it and then adding
> certain modification goes *completely against* the stated goal of being the *one
> single hub* of the LEGO fan universe. With this model, it seems to invite a
> scenario where everytime there is a significant diagreement about a new
> "feature" of LEGOfan.net, a new competing site will be created.
>
> You could potentially end up with:
>
> LEGOfan.net - The 'single hub' for the online LEGO fan universe; with support of
> the LEGO company.
>
> Brickfan.net - Duplicating the code of LEGOfan.net, expcept for feature A which
> is untenabble; without support from the LEGO company.
>
> Blockfan.net - Duplicating the code of LEGOfan.net, with additional features B
> and C; without support from the LEGO company.
>
> PlasticFan.net - Duplicating the code of LEGOfan.net, expcept for features A, D,
> E, and F which are untenabble; with additional features B and G; without support
> from the LEGO company.
>
> Etc, etc...
>
> -Brendan Powell Smith
>
> PS. Again, by expressing these concerns I am not trying to shoot down the idea
> of LEGOfan.net, but hoping they will help you better define just what it is
> you're trying to do, so the rest of us might become supporters of the idea, or
> at least reject it for more informed reasons.
Brendan,
In my experience, opensource projects are generally only successfully forked
when the community of users has a deep problem with the original project. This
problem can be as simple as personal dislike for the creator, or as complex as
philosophical disagreements. Very rarely does a projects fork succeed simply
because someone wants to implement a feature. In this case they may temporarily
fork a project to work on the feature, but then it is folded back in to the main
branch. In fact open source collaboration is just a series of small forks being
pruned and shaped before becoming part of the original.
In order for the scenarios that you describe to succeed, then there has to be a
break down in communications between the user community and the core developers.
When users submit bug patches and those bug patches are ignored repeatedly, you
have a communications issue. That is one reason that one open source project I
know has forked well over 10 times (phpnuke for the interested). You don't see
this with well run projects that have open lines of communications (MySQL,
PostgreSQL, SAMBA, LINUX) between the users and developers. These projects are
very rarely forked, and when they are the forks are either quickly folded back
in...or the user community votes with their feet by staying with the original.
The only way I would want to see a site like legofan.net go forward would be for
it to be under an opensource license where no one be they TLC or the developers
have leverage over it by pulling the plug.
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