[Opensim-dev] The notion of "core"

Tue Oct 20 06:19:58 UTC 2009

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 8:27 AM, Frisby, Adam <adam at deepthink.com.au> wrote:
> I disagree.
>
> * Commit Rights - those discussions cannot occur in public (although the discussion archives are open to committers after being invited), the reason for this is no-one can be frank & honest without hurting people's feelings.

Firstly, I did waive discussion for commit access. I also waive money
and legal matters.

Secondly, I disagree with the logic of the link, as it's premised
entirely on being honest might hurt someone's feelings. Honesty is not
a function of secrecy. And the case of "there was a long drawn out
discussion about me in which I was not able to represent my myself"
causing hurt feelings is not considered.

Thirdly, I don't think snowcrash thing is about giving him commit
access. I don't think things are as neatly compartmentalized as is
told (though I could be wrong, it's hard to guess from a secret
mailing list).

Fourthly, the email is not just about one mailing list, it's about the
entire concept of a monolithic core in open source, especially given
we're on a DVCS like git. If core is not interested in examining
itself as it grows, then so be it.

Lastly, my intention is to be productive. If you don't find the
discussion productive, feel free to ignore me.

And if we're on the subject of community books, I prefer
http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/

Cheers,

> ---
> From the excellent F/OSS guidebook: http://producingoss.com/en/consensus-democracy.html#electorate
> "The voting system itself should be used to choose new committers, both full and partial. But here is one of the rare instances where secrecy is appropriate. You can't have votes about potential committers posted to a public mailing list, because the candidate's feelings (and reputation) could be hurt. Instead, the usual way is that an existing committer posts to a private mailing list consisting only of the other committers, proposing that someone be granted commit access. The other committers speak their minds freely, knowing the discussion is private. Often there will be no disagreement, and therefore no vote necessary. After waiting a few days to make sure every committer has had a chance to respond, the proposer mails the candidate and offers him commit access. If there is disagreement, discussion ensues as for any other question, possibly resulting in a vote. For this process to be open and frank, the mere fact that the discussion is taking place at all should be secret
>  . If the person under consideration knew it was going on, and then were never offered commit access, he could conclude that he had lost the vote, and would likely feel hurt. Of course, if someone explicitly asks for commit access, then there is no choice but to consider the proposal and explicitly accept or reject him. If the latter, then it should be done as politely as possible, with a clear explanation: "We liked your patches, but haven't seen enough of them yet," or "We appreciate all your patches, but they required considerable adjustments before they could be applied, so we don't feel comfortable giving you commit access yet. We hope that this will change over time, though." Remember, what you're saying could come as a blow, depending on the person's level of confidence. Try to see it from their point of view as you write the mail."
> ---
>
> I personally suggest reading that whole chapter (#4) for reasons why a lot of projects have a committers mailing list (and yes it is a standard practice.)
>
> Adam
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de [mailto:opensim-dev-
>> bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of Ryan McDougall
>> Sent: Monday, 19 October 2009 9:33 PM
>> To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>> Subject: [Opensim-dev] The notion of "core"
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 2:49 AM, Frisby, Adam <adam at deepthink.com.au>
>> wrote:
>> > Ter pretty much summed it up - both it and the irc channel are fairly
>> low-volume, and the 'topic' is restricted to only 'personal' or 'meta'
>> matters; such as discussion of approval of commit rights.
>> >
>> > It's pretty standard practice across open source projects with more
>> than 5 committers for the committers to have a mailing list for these
>> purposes, since realtime chats aren't practical across timezones.
>> >
>> > Adam
>> >
>>
>> I am not sure I'd agree just how standard a process it is.
>>
>> The one's I've been involved with or otherwise have some detailed
>> knowledge of, have never had them; including such big names as GNOME,
>> Fedora, and Linux. For example the GNOME foundation list is not only
>> world-readable, but anyone can join:
>> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list . Actual
>> foundation members are voted by the community at large.
>>
>> Basically the way they are able to operate is, they don't distribute
>> commit access according to monolithic vote of knighted members; they
>> have a system of maintainership, and each maintainer gives access
>> rights to his module/repo as she sees fit, in a web of trust.
>>
>> One of the complaints one sometimes hears is how monolithic the
>> project is (even if the code-base is modular). Maybe the move to git,
>> and the maturation of the code allows more distribution and
>> specialization of responsibility?
>>
>> My concerns with core mailing list are:
>>
>> 1. It's "secret", ie. not world readable. I can understand limiting
>> membership to voting partners to avoid bikeshedding, but I can't
>> understand secrecy of any kind in an open source project.
>>
>> 2. Decisions made there (aside from commit rights) affect other
>> people, and they not only have no voice to represent themselves, they
>> don't even get to know what is being said about them. That doesn't
>> seem fair somehow.
>>
>> The knowledge that someone can read what you write makes you think
>> harder about what you say. Maybe a private list makes the problem of
>> disagreement within core worse rather than better? I haven't the
>> faintest idea who this snowcrash guy is, but when I was a topic of
>> discussion on -core, I remember not liking it at all.
>>
>> As for the issue of timezones, I understand that completely! Which is
>> why I wish you guys used ML more frequently! :)
>>
>> My intention is not to bike-shed, but to be productive. Either opensim
>> core is open to this point of view or it's not, and we move on from
>> there.
>>
>> Cheers, and much love!
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
>> https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
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