ML RAW Product Backlog and Goals

[peoplemerge]

There's a lot of anxiety and occasional conflict around what-to-build.  Recent examples:
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=8210.0
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=7486

I humbly hope a quick post can clarify the process for non-dev users and provide a more constructive for devs.

If ML were a product company, there'd be product managers, project managers, executives who take all of this feedback, prioritize it, choose features, set release dates, etc etc.  The more people who pay to use the product the more developers you get to make it perfect.

Here in ML RAW world it's still wild west.  For example, the product "lets the bones show," meaning the user interface reflects the software model (that's a term by Eric Evans, I like that dude).  This is a Good Thing because it gets everyone speaking the same language.  It might not be intuitive but it's better for the project as a whole.  Everybody wants something a bit different, and some are wondering where the project is headed and why.  Some users see insignificant details being worked on while gaping holes exist elsewhere.

I believe we'll only be here in the wild west once, then it'll be gone like the wind, so let's maximize the fun of the process.  My selfish goal here is developers having fun are developers being productive.  And my theory is that developers write ML code because it's fun.

So, I want to "ask not what ML can do for me but what I can do for ML."  I want to turn this mostly over to developers to ask what kind of contributions you want most from users. 

"Start contributing code" is probably the most obvious answer (and here I feel a bit guilty because I've done embedded C in the past; unfortunately my day job is already 50 hour weeks). But there's probably also some low hanging fruit maintaining documentation like what's changed between releases, to-do instruction videos from a standard place.  If someone PM'd me saying they loved my feature X and wanted to send me a $500 paypal I'd say "duuuh ok" but that's just me.  Hell I'd like to see what my grades from last weekend look in a real cinema theater.  It would be cool to be on set some weekend to see how ML raw could fit on a big budget production.  Maybe you want someone who's not writing code to herd cats - get a handle on what everybody's doing and what everyone's asking for so you can spend less time on the forums with frustrated users and more time writing code. 

OK I couldn't resist the temptation to suggest stuff.  What I really want to ask you developers is what the project needs now.  Actually better yet, what do YOU need right now?

[Audionut]

Do you really think this needed yet another thread. 

Feature requests go in the feature request section where they can be monitored easily and found easier with searching.
There's plenty of feature requests already, and a decent amount on the todo list.  Burying more feature requests in threads all over the place serves to help nobody.

Own personal opinions about where the developers should be spending their resources should be limited to the other threads you linked.

Cheers.