
Diaspora Revealed: Sparse, But Clean; Source Code Released - mjfern
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/15/diaspora-revealed/
======
jlgbecom
Other open source social networking projects:

Appleseed (<http://opensource.appleseedproject.org>) Elgg (<http://elgg.com>)
OneSocialWeb (<http://onesocialweb.org>)

I realize everyone's hyped up about Diaspora, but we have a long haul before
we have anything usable by the general public, and there are projects that are
much farther along that deserve attention.

~~~
jacquesm
> that deserve attention.

Why do they deserve attention?

Every article about diaspora I see this being trotted out, a bunch of other
projects that are claiming that they somehow deserve attention and probably
more than the diaspora guys.

If they want that attention then they should do a better job of marketing
themselves! That does not mean using articles about diaspora to claim their
share of the eyeballs, but to independently create events and stuff worthy of
mentioning in the press.

Most of these projects are old enough that they should be able to stand on
their own legs by now instead of trying to piggy back on related PR like this.

Diaspora has a bunch of things going for it, and one of their major assets is
that they seem to understand marketing and playing the press and the public
_much_ better than their counterparts, no matter how far along. So copy a leaf
from that book instead of claiming those projects 'deserve attention'.

~~~
jlgbecom
Why do they deserve attention? Because they have better, more mature code-
bases and more experienced programmers developing them. Other than publicity,
what does Diaspora have going for it, and why do they deserve attention just
because of their marketing? This is open source we're talking about, not
startup companies, and open source works best when it's meritocratic. And if
we're talking about which open source project to build a startup with, then
we're talking about merit, nothing else.

~~~
jacquesm
> Because they have better, more mature code-bases and more experienced
> programmers developing them.

So then maybe they should divert some of their attention to getting the word
out.

> Other than publicity, what does Diaspora have going for it, and why do they
> deserve attention just because of their marketing?

A great story, good timing and the ability to engage the community.

> This is open source we're talking about, not startup companies, and open
> source works best when it's meritocratic.

In an ideal world, yes. But in this one, no, not really. Open source works
best when there is momentum behind a project, not because it is 'the best
project' or has 'the most qualified people' working on it. See PHP.

> And if we're talking about which open source project to build a startup
> with, then we're talking about merit, nothing else.

Open source projects have to market themselves just as much as commercial
entities do.

We wouldn't be having this conversation if that were not the case.

~~~
jlgbecom
PHP caught on because it was the right hammer for all the nails people had. It
wasn't marketing and hype, but momentum.

Open source projects may have to market themselves as well, but that doesn't
mean the more savvy amongst us have to get swept up with the crowd.

------
loup-vaillant
> _The project also faces the hurdle of trying to popularize an open source
> project — these projects often sound great on paper, but doesn’t work too
> well in practice._

If I read correctly, they are suggesting that if Diaspora were proprietary, it
would have been easier to market. That sounds so impossible that I'm wondering
if they really wanted to say that.

I'm also wondering about their second statement : are they saying that open
source projects actually "don't work too well in practice", or is this a
statement about the general _perception_ of open source projects?

------
jacquesm
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1696396>

------
maxogden
i'm porting the protocol to couchdb <http://github.com/maxogden/couchappspora>

