RE: Open Source

["Jonathan Shore" <jshore@example.com>]

> From: Simon Cozens [mailto:simon@example.com]On Behalf Of Simon Cozens
> > For small short-term projects (I'm thinking of a week), setting up a
> > distributed project hardly makes sense.
>  
> I'll call the bluff. Have you ever tried it? 

Since you ask -

Most recently, I've managed and have been a developer in a number of
commercial geographically distributed projects (between NY, Tokyo, and
London).  The developers were an exceptionally talented group - so what I
will describe at least is not a reflection on any lack of talent.

I can tell you that when these projects moved from a small geographical
group to a somewhat larger distributed group the project became much more
difficult in the following areas:

* coordinating source control, branching, merging, etc
* keeping a common vision and priorities
* managing the time to get aspects of the source frozen
* more thorough documentation
* control

Ultimately the time to delivery for any release slowed down dramatically
because of these issues.  In fact because of this, the Tokyo group of
developers decided to fork off the code and work independently.  This was
much more efficient, but all had the downside of losing global features in
the long run.

My assertion has been that setting up and coordinating a distributed project
has long term benefits but also has issues when it comes to time and
management.  


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Cozens [mailto:simon@example.com]On Behalf Of Simon Cozens
> Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 6:37 PM
> To: tlug@example.com
> Subject: Re: Open Source
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 10:18:41AM +0900, Jonathan Shore wrote:
> > For small short-term projects (I'm thinking of a week), setting up a
> > distributed project hardly makes sense.
>  
> I'll call the bluff. Have you ever tried it?
> 
> -- 
> Apr  13 11:05:20 apollo13 fsck[3927]: root, we have a problem.
> 	  - Jeff Gostin <jgostin@example.com> 
> 
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