Clearly stated goals help projects run more smoothly
State Your Intentions
"maddog" advises designers and developers to state their project goals up front and in writing, to avoid confusion and conflict later.
I am following a flame war on a mailing list about a certain piece of hardware – a design project that has been going on for a long time. I am not going to name the project, because I don't want to embarrass the people working on it, all of whom I am sure are discussing it in good faith.
This flame war, like many flame wars, has to do with a long-standing set of expectations, based on a loose dialogue between various groups of people who have joined and left the project at different times.
Some people have called the device in question an "Open" hardware device, and others have called it a "Free" hardware device. Each person has a different definition in mind as to what this particular project is and what that definition means with regard to the project.
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