I updated the forum’s software today. Please let me know if you have any issues. I also fixed the issue with broken links in the invite and update e-mails everyone got, so hopefully now you can click on the links and they’ll bring you into the forum with no errors.
Thanks so much for setting up, repairing and keeping the forum running. This is an invaluable service to all of us.
You’re welcome. Now I’m hoping to set aside a half day or so to re-read everything that’s been posted here since it first booted up last year.
One thing we should address in the near future is:
The actual terms of this forum. I know you and Jamal spoke of some in the past, and in general we want active users on this forum but I think we we should keep in mind all of us have our busy weeks/months where we maybe able to just skim what’s been posted but not actively reply. I think in general, if people are genuinely interested in discussing MMI then they can be welcome here. I tried to implement that recently by letting bygones be bygones and just invite some of the original wonderful people I’ve met over the past couple of years.
These terms were never actually put into words on the forum. As far as I know, the Terms of Service that are shown in this forum are just the default template.
The one thing I think we need to have a clear definition on is what can be publicly released. In general, any source code I personally develop I’m okay with being on GitHub for people to download but I appreciate that some of your ideas/specs/code you don’t want just released as is.
Any ideas on how we can define these a bit clearer, with the intent of being flexible and growing and welcoming, are very welcome. I’d like everyone to keep in mind some people maybe reluctant to join if the terms are too strict and their ideas/code may cause conflict. There can be many institutes/groups/forums that R&D MMI stuff, we don’t need to be exclusive or anything. Just one of the many I think is a good fit. No conflicts needed.
I like just being easy going and open with a bit of balance.
I think you have well stated some of the important issues. It’s been a year since the original interactions and I have had time to see how things have developed.
On the one hand, I invited someone who said he was very interested in the subject, but would not have anything to do with a forum that had any restrictions of any kind. This was true even if there was no other comparable source of information and resources (MMI hardware for loan). On the other hand, I spent 27 full years and millions of dollars developing MMI technology, so I have a real vested interest in choosing whether to give it all away for free.
For practical reasons, there has to be some middle ground. As noted before, people don’t value something that is absolutely free and requires no effort or challenge on their part. I believe development of MMI is very important and can stimulate some meaningful positive changes. Therefore, my primary intention is finding the very best way to make widespread acceptance and development happen, whatever that takes and with no preconceived limitations.
I am sure it will take some brainstorming and ultimately an evolutionary process to move in that direction, which I am totally open to. I will propose some initial ideas after a little time to consider the options.
I am trying to tell others how to join the forum, but if I try to go to:
https://forum.fp2.dev/, it does not return anything. If I search for the site name directly, still completely invisible. No return on a search of specific content.
I’m not sure how to tell anyone to join the forum. Any way to make us visible?
That link is correct… if you are logged out you should see something like the attached image with the login and sign up buttons. It’ll render differently if viewed on a PC as it’s a screenshot from my phone but the content is the same. Do you get an error or a blank page?
I’ve tried posting the site to be indexed a couple of times to Google but it’s still not picking it up it seems. I’ll need to investigate more as to why it’s not visible yet.