Are We There Yet?

The core of the Croquet effort is interestingly enough relatively decentralized with its six principle architects spread around the country and in several different organizations. We are all in different places - but where are we all going? Each of us brings our own unique background and perspectives to the effort. Each of us seeks to drive the project in a particular direction and for the most part we are all pointing the same way. As we work together on this exciting project I am often struck by the complementarity of our talents, approaches, and passions.

For those outside of this core group, it can be difficult to divine the direction that the project is taking. This is an open-source project, yet, as UW's lead Croquet developer Howard Stearns is quick to point out to me, it is still a relatively closed development effort. If this is so, it has certainly not been so by design and we are working on ways to open up the process. As more and more people become involved in the effort, we very much realize that it is essential that we effectively communicate a more complete sense of where the core technology is going. We'd love to get feedback on this and hope that it will be directed to the developer's lists.

We've done several things to support people's better understanding of the core of this effort. The highly informational (and I believe most certainly way too verbose) website is an attempt at making the process more visible. In addition, several of the Croquet Committee members have set up blogs that allow people to 'see' into our thinking and activities. We've recieved positive feedback about these efforts but we clearly still need to do more.

So, to support the success of the emerging community of Croquet developers, the Croquet Committee has been working on a wiki-delivered roadmap that articulates our current and anticipated work on the core Croquet technology. It is our way of providing the emerging developer community a way of better understanding the direction of our particular efforts. We've received much feedback that some type of a roadmap is desirable.

The Committee has been working on this document for several weeks now. I hope that many of you will find it quite informative. This roadmap is still by no means complete. It probably will never be. Instead its a virtual document that will evolve as projects are completed and new ones are added. For now, think of it as a clearinghouse of what is going on in the Croquet Project from the viewpoint of the Croquet Committee. You can check out the roadmap here. Hopefully now, the larger community will have a better idea of where we are going.