Boost Directions

From: David Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-01-16 21:56:50

What will happen to boost in the next year? What about the next 5 years?
Today's count shows almost 800 subscribers to the regular boost list, which,
considering the high level of technical discussion, could be considered a
huge success. On the other hand, Beman and I agree that without some
planning, the boost libraries, website, and discussion group will eventually
reach a point of equilibrium in which growth will slow significantly. This
isn't neccessarily a bad thing; after all, growth is not an end in itself.
On the other hand, we believe that boost has a significant contribution to
make to the C++ community, and the contribution we make is going to be
proportional to the number of people we serve and services we provide.

Accordingly, I have established a separate mailing list at
http://www.egroups.com/group/boost-directions, where we can discuss the
future of boost without cluttering the regular boost development and
announce lists.

Some seed topics for discussion:

* Boost "business" plan: a map of the direction we'd like to go and a bit of
the path to get there.
* What is boost? A development process, a website, a collection of libraries
or of individuals?... what should it be?
* How can we broaden participation and collaboration?
* "Bottling" boost. We have something that works uniquely well here. Can it
be exported?
* Should we be trying to do this? Is boost so organic by definition that
talking about it will kill it?
* Should we seek funding for this open-source effort?

Please don't respond to this message directly. If you're interested in
participating in this discussion, please subscribe to the boost-directions
list at egroups.

Thank you for boosting,
Dave