Re: Lua Foundation?

[Martin <eden_martin_fuhrspam@...>]

On 04/22/2017 05:27 AM, Andrew Starks wrote:
> The image of all institutions has taken a large beating in my mind and I
> think that establishing something that is valuable and lasting is a
> large obstacle. 
> 
> 1: are there any examples of good foundations that have endured?
> 2: what makes them good?
> 3: Can that be copied?
> 
> My suspicion is that success begins with a well defined mission and a
> set of core principles. I would like to see something that includes a
> permanent commitment to:
> 
> 1: polite behavior.
> 2: humility. 
> 3: transparency
> 4: a regular rotation of elected board members
> 5: maintaining as much of the overall spirit of LabLua as possible,
> especially its simplicity and engineering quality.
> 
> In the end, any organization/foundation/whateveryoucallit has to be
> useful to a sufficiently large number of people to make it worth while.
> It becomes so by solving real problems and making new and desirable
> things happen. That sounds "duh?", but there are many things that a
> foundation could do (and many have done) that have little to do with
> those outcomes. Avoiding that trap and establishing a good foundation
> (pun intended) to build upon is the immediate work.

Again, from potential users point of view: I/he/she just wants
to get tools for specific jobs. Something like imaginary computer
hardware store with dynamically building options layers:
  1. Select motherboard.
  2. Select suitable processor, memory and video card.
  3. Select peripherals.
  4. Purchase.

Same (but a more complex) for software. For example I wish some
GUI system for (Ubuntu14, RaspberryPI, lua5.3). tek-ui? OK. It uses
'lfs' package? Include it automatically. Then I add to cart some
proven OOP and sandboxing packages. Some uses LPEG? Include it
automatically. Then I'd wish to click "download" and get all that
package suite with installation script and documentation. I'm even
ready to pay $1 for using this service.

But user don't care how this implemented technically and whether
people provided such service organized in "foundation" or not.
At first time he don't care about organization mission, board
members roster and cool T-shirts.

I think it is what Lua community needed - easy starting point for
new users. Window where we can observe universe of possibilities.

--

Idea is crucial. Foundation is just a one of implementations of
people-ware-side of that idea. And to be truly needed it must solve
problems that no-one cannot solve solely (just because of their
scale (thousands of code pieces) or due complexity (maintaining
options tree, implementing suite build system, implementing site
front-end)).

Real problem is to judge available modules. Just stating that
"Lua is great. 'penlight', 'lpeg', 'luasocket', 'lfs', 'dkjson'
are nice and proven." is not enough. (And I think it is NOT "mission"
of this organization. It should provide mechanics for _community_ to
value lua modules.)

There are many specific modules that are too specific to test.
I'd prefer to flag them gray as "untested" or white - "tested by
<username>". And red flag - "<username> reported some issues".
(But this is just unneeded details on current level.)

--

> 1: are there any examples of good foundations that have endured?

Wikimedia? ThePirateBay (due mark of "trusted uploader" in torrent
description)?

-- Martin