Ultimately this is the first run of many. This first shuttle is very much a trial run where they're hoping to identify issues and get things smoother for the second time round. It's not intended for people who are primarily interested in getting their ASIC made for free (where putting in the design time without result is not acceptable). It's for people who are motivated by the concept of open source silicon and are happy to put in their time, potentially with no reward, to help move that concept forward.
Things have been a bit chaotic for the first shuttle, but that's not hugely surprising given the nature of the project. I can't blame them for choosing a random selection process, as they had no real idea who would be submitting designs, what they would be and what level of quality they would be at or if they'd even fill all the slots. Random seems entirely fair for this first, alpha quality level run. Some defined selection process may be appropriate for future runs but you need to see the submissions coming into the first one to work that out.
As for Caraval I think it's been well known this will be required from the beginning, perhaps they could have done a better job in documenting this (it's been extensively discussed on the Slack group, plus mentioned in various talks).
I think you're expecting a matured, tested setup that gives you good documentation where you just submit your finished design without any further interaction with the community. It may well get to that point, but it's not there yet. This is just the beginning and if you're not interested in getting stuck in with pushing the concept forward, just interested in simply using it, you will need to wait a while.
Things have been a bit chaotic for the first shuttle, but that's not hugely surprising given the nature of the project. I can't blame them for choosing a random selection process, as they had no real idea who would be submitting designs, what they would be and what level of quality they would be at or if they'd even fill all the slots. Random seems entirely fair for this first, alpha quality level run. Some defined selection process may be appropriate for future runs but you need to see the submissions coming into the first one to work that out.
As for Caraval I think it's been well known this will be required from the beginning, perhaps they could have done a better job in documenting this (it's been extensively discussed on the Slack group, plus mentioned in various talks).
I think you're expecting a matured, tested setup that gives you good documentation where you just submit your finished design without any further interaction with the community. It may well get to that point, but it's not there yet. This is just the beginning and if you're not interested in getting stuck in with pushing the concept forward, just interested in simply using it, you will need to wait a while.