Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://socknet.net/wiki/index.php?title=Special:RecentChange... There's the same page with the limit changed from the default of 7 days (May 19) to 30 (April 26). And of course Google's been caching stuff there for awhile: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:socknet.net I know the Socknet guy via some trusted former coworkers and I've watched this project for a year or two. He's earnest and hasn't looked for any atte…
He's definitely looking for attention here, otherwise why post an open letter ? No doubt. I stated that badly. It would have been better stated as "hadn't looked for any attention" or "hasn't looked for glory". To me he's not just serious, but also very slow. Some of us are out in the world trying to provide for ourselves and our families while tending to our passions as time allows. To me it has spoken of admirable…
I understand that he may have different responsibilities, but that's exactly what I mean. He starts off by talking about finding other 'stale' projects, and how he decided to do it better, on his own time, with a small group.
Now, two years on, from where I'm sitting his project looks indistinguishable from the ones that he is disparaging, so effectively he is undercutting his own project.
If there was any life to this there would be a bit more than this http://foolishmortal.org/list and a guy working his butt off to wean as many users away from facebook, flickr and whatever else there is.
Two years and not yet released to the general public is as good as dead.
The diaspora guys have the opposite problem, so maybe there is a good match here, that's not my call to make, but I'd find it hard to distinguish between this 'slow' project and the 'mostly dead' ones out there.
I understand that laying a solid foundation takes time, but it would have been better to iterate a bit faster and get some user feedback, maybe a designer on board and some more programmers.