At the moment we are an open source project in which if a module developer gives up on us, then they can take thier code with them. Our weakness is our high dependancy on strong individuals and on the resourceful Corp. At the end of the day the community will have to spread the responsibilty across many shoulders. Responsibility for us, made by us.
We need a simple structure that serves us well and works with the Corp. With 30 usergroups with over 50 members, each group could take responsiblilty for one specific module, like once was the case with the core modules. If each group, moderated by the youngest member, could volunteer an average of an hour-per week-per head to reeingineer abandoned modules, then six months from now we should not have such bottlenecks recurringly haunting the community. And we could ocasionally work with a similar java or php product to prove to ourselves that we are really as good as we think we are.
If a fifth of the payrolls in California are in the car delivery and maintenance businesses, how different do the sites of these services need to be below the skin? What about the lessons services for the first million school kids in NY? The thousands of take away meals in the next hour in MI? The hundreds of 4-day-4-breakout-sessions conferences this month in Las Vegas, Dallas and Chicago? What proportion of these services employ less than 100 people? How easily can we provide them with the ability to collect feedback on thier actions? And how much of that problem is specific to a module or a skin, or the platform?
What if each usergroup could be responsible for an 80% ready-to-go sitetemplate with 3-5 communication modules for a popular service in thier area? A tray with irish butter, german potatoes, danish bacon, and french coffee from our community garden. With no more than an everyday teaspoon (add content) and a potato pealer (add a tab) to handle. Entice newbies from the humanities, legal and medical professions. They could go to one specific site (for that geography & industry) that they might like for the price of the modules showcased as a starting point. Have a first impression with a product the local community made for them, instead of a toolkit made for us. But that again is up to us.