Levi Ramsey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> And failures, too. Debian has some of each. >> How many developers do you see the Mandrake community having? > > If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere between 40 and 100, somewhere > around 20-50% of whom are MandrakeSoft employees. Don't quote me on > that, however. It's a much smaller developer community than Debian
In that case, I humbly offer that Debian's current organization may not be an optimal model for a Mandrake community, at least not without a good amount of tweaking. I have found that in a community of that size, people tend to be able to know each other reasonably well, and as long as there is a shared sense of progress, you won't need as much of the organizational structure that Debian has. In fact, it would be an imediment. That's not to say that you should give no thought at all to structure. Debian is probably the largest project I know of that has no formal "core team" or thing of that sort. All of the *BSDs do, and the commercial distributions all do (in the form of the company that produces them). There can be benefits either way. * Debian's approach lets us take better advantage of new talent quickly. It tends to make the project driven by the goals of the membership as a whole. * The BSD approach places top priority on peer review. It places the responsibility for decision-making about the future of the project in the hands of a few. Developers are expected to either participate in that view or find a different project. I don't think there is a clear way to say which one is better. Debian's approach lets us accomplish more tasks than the BSD approach does, but we sometimes lack the consistency of a "benevolent dictatorial committee" setting the direction of the project. The FreeBSD approach lets decisions be made faster, but the execution will tend to be slower. One thing you will need is someone to take care of legal affairs, like receiving donations. It may be MandrakeSoft, or it may be someone else. I don't know about European laws, but here in the US, people get tax breaks if they contribute to a non-profit. -- John
