Some of you guys are probably taking part in other forums too, that are more programming-oriented.

Any programming/software design forums you like?

Note the question-answer approach of linuxquestions and stackoverflow does not work very well when an open-ended design discussion is wanted. This is because it makes us think in terms of teacher-student roles, rather than as innovators.

To me this one is the best.

I've been registered on Qt forums and they've been required to respond because we once paid for support. That works, but largely I've also found that answers are already out there if you look deep enough.

As far as Stack Overflow, for all the negative impressions it garners, I believe it is VERY helpful for Windows programming questions, and Qt questions. Because when I search the web, I get hits on Stack Overflow. Pretty much easy to filter a similar question that either never got an answer from one which did, and then try one of the proposed solutions, if not the primary one chosen.

For Linux, this one. And I enjoy the fact that people do seem to identify "python" "bash" "C" "C++" clearly enough so that I can view and offer help for topics I see that match my expertise.

If you want to discuss radical new ideas for a very different alternative to TOR, with less regard for implementation, but more focused on high-level design decisions, where is a good place to go?

By "design" do you mean architecture or do you mean UX?

One could start with looking at the TOR discussions they have on http://www.oftc.net/, as referenced here. My thinking there is that the people discussing TOR would have next generation ideas, or just ideas along the lines related to TOR, but which aren't implemented, or were considered but not chosen.

Another thing would be just to discuss exactly what you have in mind on a thread at LQ.

Architecture, not UX. And possibly higher than that, ie inventions. For example, the inventors of TOR were probably not thinking software architecture from day one.

TOR is only an example by the way. It is other ideas that sometimes occur to me that need an open-ended discussion venue.

Like I say. Present your ideas. The threads at LQ are common threads, people not invested in a particular discussion usually stay out of it, and those invested in a discussion usually have a great deal to offer. There are threads which are very extensive discussions. Further you can write a blog entry for a very lengthy presentation and open a thread to discuss the ideas posted on the blog, as well as allow comments to the blog, and edit the blog entry as you go along with your discussion.

Sorry for adding, but I find that a very common thing that people tend to say are one of:

1. These ideas are unique and I need to protect them before disclosing things
2. They're very complex and your average person will have trouble understanding them

And if those are even in play here, well then these ideas would therefore not be ready to be discussed in open forum because the information is not something wished to be disclosed, or the ideas are not formed well enough to even start talking about a topic. I hope, and truly believe that this is not the case, and instead you have some ideas and wish to discuss those with others. So my take on it then is that you should start a thread discussing exactly your ideas. They are either interesting to certain groups of persons, or not; I suspect if they are well presented architecture thoughts about new software, that they will be interesting to plenty of persons here.

Disclosure is not an issue at all as I do not intend to make money out of such ideas, this is just a hobby.

I think a different mode of discussion is needed because the normal response would be "it can be done and this is how" or "no, it cannot be done", but in the latter case we would prefer it if another person went "could try this instead" and someone else said "no, this won't work" or "it's illegal" and so on.

The subject would not be a single question, and it would not be a single issue either. It would be open-ended.

Can't really help you there. What you sound like you're saying is that you do not feel that there are people who are fully capable of having an organized, thought out discussion on design, online. Or that you just don't feel it can happen online at all, and feel that you'll get single thought responses. Yes there will be one or two non-purposeful responses, some people can't mind their own business, or some people may miss the point.

If I had a highly involved discussion topic which I wished to raise as a discussion point, I'd write it down somewhere and make it available for review, and then open a discussion about that topic. For instance, say I wished to design KyaOS as a replacement for Linux. I.e. Linux was begat (I believe) from Multics, so continue heading in reverse with the first letter of the OS name. And then I'd discuss the architectural things I felt were not good in Linux and my ideas to make it better in Kya, and then open it up to discussion. If my thoughts were well formed, and relevant, I think a ton of people would either shoot them down or offer their thoughts. Ultimately, as Linus did, I feel I'd have to be the overall driver of that. Having academic/theoretical discussions is all nice, but if there is not practical which comes out of it either experimental research or applied development, then eventually the discussion points will likely become superseded by future discussion thoughts that do end up being paralleled by research work or development work.

There are also live gatherings, such as conferences, for various topics, be they Linux kernel development or Real-Time embedded OS development, or other. Those types of meetings/conferences seem likely to be a best, first place to look for persons interested in architecture design. Of course, it depends on the particular architecture, such as your example of TOR, you'd probably seek out a conference or meeting related to the top level subject matter which you wish to discuss.

On the contrary I have received a lot of useful input from people here, ideas and seed for further ideas, as well as from other question-answer forums. But you can't have a thread here called "General discussion of various loosely connected ideas and let's find out if anything practical can be designed or if there is a market for it".

I submit you can and that no one is going to stop you, barring a moderator who may feel the discussion needs to be moved to a different forum, they will not however delete it, and they'd only lock it if it contained vulgar or inappropriate topics, neither of which are anywhere near your intent. My feeling is simply that you'd need to drive and help retain focus on the discussion. You can start a discussion thread, here or in Non-Nix -> General and the topic can be exactly what you say. But for it to be productive, I think you need to stay active in the thread and request that people address particular issues in an organization fashion which suits you.

Much as I appreciate your input, if such a diversion from LQ's culture were allowed it wouldn't be very productive because there's only a few of us here with a background in development. And people are not used to be creative, the switch to open-ended would invite conflict, we are used to teacher-student mode. So I'd rather look into your irc chat suggestions and see what I can find. Haven't used irc for like 15 years.

I think there's enough smart people here to have that kind of discussion, although it may be moved to the General forum as a more appropriate venue.

As an example, if its loosely related to Perl, the Perl Monks have a section called Meditations http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=Meditations for just that kind of open-ended general discussion.