I actually like this refreshing new approach to writing open source software: keep it closed for several months & code like madmen. If they can get UX people involved in the closed stage we might even see an open source product with an elegant ui for once!
I think the "release often" philosophy is a good one, but too often and you just open yourself up to "this doesn't work, that's wrong, this is broken etc"
I think knuckle down, code a bunch of good stuff then show it off. Of course you'll still get the complaints, but it'll be a lot clearer to a lot more people how it works and the potential it has.
All that said, all they've shown us here is a very simple demo, we have no understanding of the underlying message passing protocol and its robustness. It does look promising, but looks of course...
Sure. But the mantra is "Release early, release often".
And I guess early means that you don't need to wait until your code-base is feature complete or at 1.0 to release the code.
By the same token I think you're allowed to do what the Diaspora guys are doing and lay the foundations first, set the tone of the project and the general direction and style.
I hope these guys do well but if it ain't them it'll be someone else cuz peer to peer federated social networking is in the near future of social networking and I'd much much much prefer if it was open source than not.
Sorry to say but "this doesn't work, that's wrong, this is broken etc" is going to be said regardless of when you release and regardless of how many users you have.
The number one rule of software engineering. Your code sucks.
Yes! It shouldn't be too hard for them to find some good UX people in the middle of SF and still flush with Kickstarter funds; they'll just need to know what to look for.
