Should Progammers Join Projects or Create New Projects

[jmadero]

Hi All,

So, I am personally getting a little frustrated with how many projects are extremely similar but instead of developers working together, they are working parallel and thus doing the same thing more than once and stretching the already limited amount of programmers thin over a ton of projects:

Examples include a few cell phone remote control projects, entertainment projects, etc...some might even argue that there are too many distros out that are too similar to have their own distro. So my question:

Does the amount of projects which aim to do the same thing hurt or help the open source community?

[aluminumspleen]

I feel like this is a really difficult question with many good points on either side of the argument.

Projects that aim to do the exact same things should join forces, to create better code at a faster speed. Projects that aim to bring special services in addition to those provided should still work closely with the original project, not try to stand on their own. (Examples - the special editions of Ubuntu that just add language support/religious support/whatever other support you want).

However, since Linux is all about choice, it would be hard to have a choice if all programmers worked together on projects. Sure, the products created would be amazing. However, what's awesome to one person is not awesome to another. So, having ump-teen hundred OK music players is good because lots of people use different things with different UIs, even if they all are doing the same thing.

Also, having highly similar projects "competing" does help to speed up and improve the development process. If everyone was working on one thing, and there was only one product for people, those working on the project would feel no need to develop something new, because people are going to use it anyways, seeing as it's the only one out there. And if people decided not to use it, their only other option is to, well, start a new project.

And so it goes...

[Lakshmipathi]

Creating similar kind of Entertainment projects will allow user to choose from those products. (some users Look for performace , some users look for easy-user
friendly GUI etc )

Having said that ,as an Open source programmer, I believe there is no need to re-create similar kind of project until/unless you really believe the project needs a real change.

[GNU-Fan]

I have no ultimate answer for this question.

People are individuals and by nature disagree with each other sometimes. It is better to split a project in order to release steam than to have the project blocked.

As we are talking about Free Software, the projects subsequently can mutually borrow the improvements of the other projects if they deem then useful.
Sometimes split projects recombine at a later time, e.g. Compiz Fusion, both bringing their separate experience into the marriage. Evolution tells this can be a very successful strategy.

So I do not mind many similar projects floating around.
What I do dislike however is when projects can't agree on standards just for haughtiness. For example, I could never see a reason why GNOME and KDE would need different sound servers.

[b2bwild]

No, not most of the project but we can say there are few (actually very few) projects which can work together. and some even have merged. so theres nothing negative about it.
Even though many projects looks so similar but every project is Unique in there Code, language, Locality, Purpose and Productivity.

[wowbag1]

Hi,
Its up to the individual. If people want to develop jointly they usually find a way. If you find it works for you do it otherwise create your own or find some friends who have a similar philosophy and goal as yourself and create a project.
Some problems with joint projects are ownership, style and skill levels. Thses are the common ones I have found. Hence I tend to do my own.