A few days ago, everyone read about this year's WalterCon being canceled, which left people with non-refundable, non-transferable plane tickets (you can read Mikesum32's reaction here) in their hands. Fortunately for them, an alternative has now been set up, and they will be able to still meet, in San Francisco, on August 11th. The venue? Picnix 16, a Linux gathering. The name? FalterCon 2007.

Read on for my thoughts on this...

I believe this whole WC debacle shows the existing lack of organization in Haiku Inc. And the person getting "the heat" about WC isn't even (as far as I know) officialy part of it, DarkWyrm. The organization, arrangements, preparations, etc, came late, very late for something like this, and after it gets canceled for lack of registered users. On top of that, it gets canceled without any warning to the three registered attendees. How difficult would it be to do so? And if there wasn't a FalterCon to go  to? Asking Haiku Inc for a refund would be quite justified. Very bad PR.

Speaking of PR, in its several years in existence, it's rare that we see or hear from Haiku Inc, in official statements. We just don't hear from them. Haiku Inc has 3 members, its president Michael Phipps and 2 board members. Michael we all know, and I've had the pleasure of meeting him while at BeGeistert and having some very interesting discussions with. Very nice man but also very busy man, with not much time for Haiku unfortunately. The two board members I only know their names since Friday. It is troubling that after these many years, it is a mistery who the board members are, apparently even to many of the Haiku devs, the driving force for the project (along with its community). To quote a friend: "Haiku Inc is pretty much a ghost organization".

It's been ups and downs for Haiku Inc. They got into Google's Summer of Code this year, but missed it last year. They had Axel working full time for a while, a big boost to the project, but had another developer previously, which didn't go so well. Another poorly handed situation was the bounties topic. Karl first started HaikuBounties, he then tried to contact Haiku Inc for months,
finally getting through and ending HaikuBounties, since it would be administered by Haiku Inc themselves (with him onboard to assist). Nothing happened. Karl recently re-launched the bounties page, now part of the HaikuWare website, with great success.

Haiku Inc should make itself more visible, should communicate more, to the developers, to the ommunity and, perhaps more important in a way, to everyone else outside the community, getting the word out. But what it shouldn't do, ever, is neglect "their own", which is what happened. Haiku is a great project, with lots of promise, but it needs a strong "backbone" for it to succeed, and unfortunately Haiku Inc hasn't been one. How does it look, to the community, when the organization set up to promote the project is so passive and even distanced from the community that it is supposed to engage and inspire? It can't look good and I doubt it helps motivate the user base.

My hope is that this whole matter helps things take a 180 degree turn, for the better (maybe the Switzerland meeting, though informal, will help?). Haiku Inc needs, and don't shoot me for the following words, a focus shift. The community needs to be more involved, but both parties must want and work for it. One can't survive without the other, the relationship between them needs to be a healthy one for the project to work and be successful, allowing Haiku o reach its potential.

Comments

Well Said Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-07-29 17:12:38 I completely agree. The failure of WC 2007 is completely unacceptable and has prompted me to, at least for the moment, worry less about my lack of time for writing code and focus more on getting community involvement and making Haiku's PR work much more amicably.

Of course... Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-07-29 17:23:11 The Haiku project has always been very exclusive. You're either in, or you're very much out.  Most people are the latter.   I do agree, Haiku does need better communication with the public.  Unfortunately, until Haiku actually has a usable product, there can't be too much community involvement. Unless you can program, or help with the development of Haiku in some other way, there isn't much for the community to do right now. :-/    Haiku will most likely come around, once they have Haiku R1 ready for the masses.

Written by anonymous on 2007-07-29 22:57:40 PR, Marketing, and anything related to people is problem for Haiku. Those who contribute in those area are usually rejected by developers who want it to be their way, not the way that is best for the project. even the contributions in graphics are from the same, person over and over (and are stale). Their marketing director, who was only with them briefly, quit due to the board's hostility and then left the community entirely after being insulted so many times by hostile people.

great PR chance Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-07-30 01:11:07 Anyone there at Faltercon will have a great chance to show what BeOS could do and where Haiku is at now.    Haiku being oss should help spark interest, and a little freindly BSing and a few good-natured 'challenges' thrown out might get a few Linux devotees to take a little time out from it to try a thing or two with either Haiku (or BeOS) to get a feel of it. That's a good first step towards getting their continued support and/or getting them talk about it to their freinds when they get back home.    Every little bit helps!

The project is US Written by double_s on 2007-07-30 01:50:23 I do fully understand the frustration of many, but we should not start a flame war that may seem to outsiders or newcomers like a debakling community.    Do not forget that this project, *HAIKU*, has been pulled by a few that have been here for real for a couple of years now. I am surprised myself that this people have kept the momentum, the faith and the strenghth to work at home for free for so long on a project that is thin on workforce.    I joined myself the project in the graphics area, well before the name HAIKU had been chosen. Back then we were a bunch of people spread across the globe trying to create a look and identity to the project. We created several logos, names and desktop feelings. Most did quit, and so did I, as soon as we realized this ment a lot of effort a difficult progress, especially in keeping contact with eachoter and trying to have online meetings despite living in different time-zones.    What I try to say is that the people involved in HAIKU are just people that are investing their FREE TIME, so I find it quite difficult to blame them for anything going wrong. I can't but feel proud of what they have achieved being so few. You say "they are so little because they scared the hell out of some new joiners?" Well, I can understand it must have been frustrating for them to keep on and on dealing with willing people that, like me, quitted as soon as things did look dark.     This as likely caused that they have been rude to a few that were joining for real, call them "collateral victims".    In short, this community is build by people that do it just for free, just for fun. All with different ways of working, all with different or same interest, all with different opinions and with different ways of team working. In a private held company you just put man power were needed, and you tell them how and when it should be done. But in a community you can't tell people were more man power is needed (they are free to join in whatever they have interest), how to do the job, … or how to keep friendly to others.    A community like HAIKU is pure anarchy, so we should be glad it did not break apart during this time, and we should be compreensive for it's faults and lacks.    That of course does not mean we don't express "positive criticism" to help improve things, actually that is very needed, but criticism should never "expressed" as something personal against someone, but rather the community. We have to express more often how much we appreciate the effort of this few members, to let them know their work is truly appreciated.    And at the end, I suppose that if we want things to go better, there is no other way that pick up that item ourselves as the current members must be too busy already with programming ;-).    When is all this linux-leavers going to come over to help at Haiku ?

other reasons Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-07-30 07:09:33 I think there may be other reasons no one signed up. WC 2004 Columbus,OH was $30(just conference/shirt), $75(con + double occupancy), $120(con/shirt + private room); 2005 Las Vegas was $35(con/shirt) + $75(room)=$110; WC 2006 Orlando, FL was $125 (no option for room); WC 2007 $145.    I think it would be help people make up their mind if the cheapest just-shirt-option was reinstated. It would make the decision to attend easier if they could get the most out the money they spend. Maybe they want to spend money at a cheaper hotel. I think there should be an option for locals who might stop by for a look-see, of course I don't think this applies much outside of Silicon Valley. More money upfront leads to more hesitation, in my humble opinion.    I also feel that Waltercon will never be as popular as the first one, at least until R1 is released. The first one was an exploration of why Haiku is here and where it's going, and also a place to meet the people involved. Perhaps some people were looking for a place to belong. They had to make a choice to make the next year. Some people got on each others nerves, realized Haiku wasn't the answer to their problems, or they were just not impressed. There are also money, travel distance, and time-off-work issues as well. I think that covers most of the reasons. You'd have to ask the people who went to the first one, but not to any of the others why. Takeshi Takasugi flew in from Japan for the first one. Deej went to the first one, and he's still involved with BeGroovey, but he didn't go to any other ones. Insight would help fix problems. Bryan Varner had a few suggestions/complaints a while back on his blog.    Another thing, we should try to network with other communities(LUGs anyone ?) and maybe send some polite invitations to former attendants in the area. FalterCon has managed to whip up more attendees than Waltercon did. What does that say ? I think it says proactivity is more effective than passivity. Get up and make it happen, just don't let it randomly unfold. Of course the promise of free food is alway an effective lure.  Hopefully, the number of people should be closer to the Las Vegas numbers in the future, if the city Chamber of Commerce and gmail don't conspire against us, and of course if we can fix any and all failings.    I also made up a fake shirt for FalterCon, although I might change it some more later. I don't think anyone likes it, but there is always the possibility people might like the redesigned one even less. ;-)  This was done in irreverence, not anger.  http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/886013ca07.jpg

Who is the chick? Written by nutela on 2007-07-30 16:03:29 the one with the beard...?

The chick with the beard Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-07-31 17:24:28 The chick with the beard is based on Ann Coulter, the crazy right-wing meat-puppet.    http://www.youtube.com/results.php?search_query=ann+coulter

Written by BeosFrance on 2007-08-01 04:10:57 humm... the WalterCon 07 problems is:  - prize  - not for european people (or add 700$ to the wc prize)  - annonce too late  - annonce in an holiday period    PR is definitly a huge problem of Haiku, but it was the same with yellowTab: only news websites talk about you guys. Focus shift needed here !    The second big problem of Haiku is to me no deadlines or cascading todo-list (at least official one). Seems to me that Haiku devs work on this or that when they are in the moud of this or that... so now we have 100% things started, and 60% that still need work to be finish. Something to do here also !      The new comers problem is not an Haiku problem in fact. At the Be death, the community split all around. With Zeta, some new comer join us, with all the effervesence Zeta brought to this community. With Zeta illegal and dead, it the 2001 situation coming again. But in 2001, Firefox wasn't there. Apple was close to dead also. The situation has change...    my 0,02€

Haiku Inc. has been a 'project', needs Written by M. Carlson on 2007-08-09 10:12:14 I agree with everything everyone has said regarding focus shift for Haiku, Inc. While I understand the lack of money, time, and a minimal staff that works more out of personal passion than pursuing a paycheck, having a solid structure, a good business plan, and a responsive, consistent manner with the public (be they the BeAddicted or anyone else) is absolutely necessary. Need I point out what happened with YT? That's the path Haiku - the most hopeful post-BeOS variant - is headed if they don't tighten up and get the PR down pretty damn quick.

mathematical functionary Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it on 2007-11-20 00:26:10 Well, i discovered this page by accident. And the lack of activity is disturbing. It makes me wonder how serious the people in the Haiku community are. i was a long-time Amiga user/hack, so i appreciate anything related to BeOS, which seemed to me to be a better AmigaOS. If you guys are so splintered, can you honestly expect this project to survive/succeed? And for interested people like me, where can i go to find out details about & objectives of the Haiku OS? Any response would be appreciated. i'll come back here again to check on progress as any alternative to that wicked beast from the west is a welcome one, especially when it is well-conceived and implemented.    ps, i truly do understand the problems related to a major development project that lacks anything even remotely resembling a time schedule. But if you don't figure out a way to create a schedule, this is a project that will be still-born. And that would be a total waste of effort and person-power