Wait, I think we might have crossed wires here — you’re reading a different document from the ones I’m reading. I have only seen:

http://opensource.scouting.org/

and

http://opensource.scouting.org/ossletter.shtml

neither of which has an “opportunities” section, or discusses general OSS project management, etc. Looking back at your initial comment, I see you’re reading

http://opensource.scouting.org/history.shtml

…which I hadn’t seen before. I’ve only skimmed it now; it does seem a bit odd to me too, and I wonder how many of those goals are really useful or necessary.

For example, instead of using existing infrastructure like sourceforge or google code, they have decided to create their own instance of the forge software to host projects on.

Towards the nature of open source, I would much rather see an effort to improve on what is currently out there in order to meet their needs and contribute back to the respective projects. Getting involved with existing open source projects/communities would seem to offer the best opportunity to expose scouts to this environment rather than creating their own community.

There is even a section in your book that talks about trying to find something you can expand on before starting from scratch.
http://producingoss.com/en/getting-started.html#starting-from-what-you-have

Personally it sounds like much of what the BSA project is looking for could be served by a collaborative wiki with pages about best practices for using various technologies to achieve their goals/needs.

Its good to hear that other members of the open source community were talked to. Perhaps I can try not to be so accusatory in my tone (sorry) and point out some of the specific examples I saw.

1) Lack of specific goals or explanation of “unique nature of their software needs” being addressed:
There are lots of projects available to help with organizing groups of people together, projects for educating people, and projects aimed at supporting the needs of non-profits. I’m not sure what the special needs of the boy scouts are that aren’t being addressed by any existing projects. Or, how this project plans to distinguish itself from other projects. For example, the OLPC project wanted/needed to put computers into the 3rd world and thus needed to design hardware that was both cheap and robust to less modern infrastructure. That was a unique need.

The curiosity of this is actually why I read through this whole thing to begin with.

2) Reference to the “Open Source Community” as if it were a single entity
While there are obviously respected people (such as Karl) within the community that can be pointed to as reference, and organizations that attempt to represent the free software “cause”, there is not an organization of the community that can be “partnered with” like a company. I have seen other organizations misunderstand this and falter because of it. Its the idea that nobody speaks on behalf of the community and that we all speak for it.

3) *Opportunities* section
basically tries to suggest that software isn’t available for end-users or that commercial interests are misaligned. While some of those criticisms might have been true in the past, I think there are many projects today that are very user focused and commercial interests generally enhance the offerings available, and these projects go way beyond the technical or scientific realms.

The idea that users will determine what software should be created (without any technical ability to contribute to its creation) seems optimistic at best and sounds familiar to assumptions made by users new to an open source project – ones that expect to suggest a feature and then have a developer generously generate it for them. If the BSA would like to improve an end-users experience, I would think this project might focus on user interfaces and documentation improvements – but these ideas do not seem to be expressed.

It also seems to suggest a misunderstanding of how and why OS software is created. The reason why developers needs are addressed more often than a users need, is because most users don’t have the ability to address them and do not generally affect the developer. When a users needs become important to a developer (usually various derivatives of financial incentive) then the issue is addressed. The intersection of similar needs by multiple contributors is where the projects take shape and grow – the bigger the intersection (or bigger the need) then the more a project will grow. Of course this is a simplification and ignores some other factors, but this mechanism seems to have been misplaced.

4) Project Management
I also found the assertion that PM is not found in OS projects a bit odd or that they do not conform to modern methods. I would suggest that recent increases in popularity towards various “agile” methods for software development project management are very much inline with the evolutionary iterative improvements that are characteristic of open source projects. Being the leader of an OS project myself (and anyone who reads your book on producing OSS) I think it is a naive suggestion that we do not manage our projects.

5) the OSI thing I mentioned before, but might be nice to see clarified.

I know this post has been highly critical. I have tried to not be overly negative and just point out areas of contention. I just want to reiterate that I do want to see this project succeed and hopefully this might contribute to an improvement in the project.

Well, in Greg’s defense, he talked to me, and perhaps to others as well. I didn’t notice the “OSI” acronym problem, and it’s entirely my fault: I just went back and checked his original email to me, and the acronym was there. Greg, my apologies for not calling that one out.

I’ve gone back and read the Open Letter too, but other than the “OSI” thing, I don’t see the other problems you’re referring to. Whether the effort itself is successful, I can’t say; but that’s really a matter of how the project is run, not of the wording of its announcement.

However, am I the only one that read the open letter and the purpose/plans on the website (https://opensource.scouting.org/history.shtml) and feels like there is a serious disconnect and fundamental poor assumptions in their ideas?

It really feels as though no one from the open source community was even talked to before putting this together. Something as simple as “OSI” already having prominent meaning within the community and other misunderstanding and lack of experience type of comments about open source projects only being founded by self-serving geeks and limited to system software or commercial offerings.

I do not intend my comments to negative, but at the same time those type of preconceived notions could easily lead this project (and opportunity) to fail.

@Greg – if you’re reading this and would like to discuss this further, I’d be interested in helping out with some of these issues.

The OSS Website has been gaining. However, the site needs writers with Open Source expertize to expand the E-Learning section. This is being built as a teaching platform, and it needs teachers so it can grow.

The About OSS section is built on MediaWiki. So if you can give a little time, come and help educate future Open Source advocates.

“But troop leader, I thought sharing with others was stealing!”

My hope is that this approach will reach all audiences, scouts, their parents, and maybe even their grandparents. The technical side my be a repetition of what is already available, but I think the other areas will be unique.