[computer-go] Collaboration project. Once again

[Mark Boon]

On 2-aug-2006, at 16:19, Chrilly wrote:

>>
>> So what it boils down to is I want to do a completely free open-  
>> source project. Free in the sense that anyody is free to take from  
>> it  and use any which way they see fit, whether it's for  
>> commercial  purposes or not. The only way it's not free is that  
>> initially I'll be  the only one deciding what will go into the  
>> project.
> I think with this opinion there is in the best case only a very  
> loose cooperation possible. E.g sharing ideas with other  
> programmers, but everybody does his own stuff.
> But I can not imagine that anyone wants to work for fun in a  
> project were a single person decides the direction. I like Java and  
> dislike C, full stop. This does not even work in a commercial  
> project. Its possible to be in an industrial environment the boss,  
> but not in a distributed project with highly individualistic  
> programmers. Team discussion processes are sometimes a pain in the  
> ass, but not to avoid. Sometimes they are even very productive and  
> it is in the contrary an indicator for a crisis if there are no  
> discussions at all. Nobody cares really anymore about the project.
>

	Chrilly,

I understand your point of view and you make some good points.  
Ideally we wouldn't need a designated boss of any kind. And ideally  
every decision should be open to discussion by everyone involved.

Let me first tell you that I've been involved before in a real  
collaborative effort to make a Go program, many years ago. It  
consisted of a group of some 15 people, most of whom I highly respect  
as programmers. I had only just started Go programming then. We had  
long discussions about what language to use, what the decision  
process should be like etc, etc. But in the end almost nobody spent  
serious time on the project except me. The joint-project went  
nowhere, and I ended up making Goliath. (That's a long-story-short.)

If I start an open discussion here about what language to use it will  
never end. And in the meantime nothing will happen. That is reality.  
The same would happen on a lot of other mundane issues.

To me personally the situation is simple. There's currently no open- 
source Go project that I know of that I want to join. But I have a  
project in mind myself, and I have the time to work on it. Moreover I  
believe that I have knowledge and experience in computer-Go that few  
here can match. I'm willing to share this knowledge and experience by  
making this project of mine open-source. Part of the objective of  
this project is to design it in such a way that it will allow easy  
collaboration. And I'm willing to listen to a lot of input and  
opinions of others which way this is best achieved. I do hope at some  
point this will stimulate others to contribute when they see where it  
is going. Who knows over time those contributions will exceed my own,  
in which case the influence on where the project will go may also  
very well exceed mine too.

I don't even know for sure if I'll succeed in persuading others to  
join. I only know that I want to try. The thing with open-source  
projects is that anyone is always free to take it in another  
direction if they choose to do so. If the majority of the  
contributors then choose to follow the new direction then that's  
where it goes. In open-source projects there can be no real boss who  
single-handedly decides everything. But there must be someone who  
starts it, and that's what I intend to do. That it will mean that at  
the start I decide where it will initially go seems natural to me.  
After all it's going to be something that I think I can personally  
later use in a new Go playing program. How else could I even start?  
Should I start an open discussion about how to start making a Go  
program first? I'm afraid that will lead nowhere.

	Mark