Tying threads together.

[Máirín Duffy]

On Wed, 2012-02-15 at 13:34 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> <initiatives snipped>
> 
> These are all good initiatives. And yet, my only honest response right now
> is "sure, that sounds great, and I'd love to see it happen. But I don't have
> any time or resources to contribute to this."
> 
> And I'm sure that I'm not the only one in this boat. I suspect that overall,
> as a project, it's the default attitude. - We don't want to intentionally
> discourage people, but we just can't help right now. So we unintentionally
> discourage everyone, because even though we tell them they're empowered, no
> one really wants to go it alone.

Absolutely, because everyone is empowered meander off wherever their
heart or the randomness of the moment leads them. The bazaar is lovely,
it really is, but it fractures us and I think our slavishness to keeping
that bazaar as wide open as possible has in part held us back, big time.
It has made us wide and shallow - this is what happens when you have NO
FOCUS AT ALL. We don't have to be narrow and deep, but *surely* there
must be some sane middle ground where we've got a good variety of
projects (maybe not as wide as now) aligned to some loosely-defined
goals with more significant membership to make things happen.

If the board stated the current vision for the project is to make it
exceedingly easy to contribute to free software and in aiming towards
that goal, picked up one or two of those initiatives, advocated for them
widely within the community, helped recruit folks to make it happen... I
believe those initiatives could happen, in the same manner the www.fpo
complete revamp happened with the board's advocacy starting back in
2009.

Maybe you personally don't have the time or resources to contribute to
any of the ideas. How many people would agree at first stab, having
tried and failed in the past without support at making something happen?
I think most, myself included. It's when you do the advocacy work and
build up support and make a case and story for the initiative, make it
seem like a real possibility, is when people sign up. And when you do
that from a position of power, as board members are in, it makes a big
difference.

~m