Bruce Byfield wrote: > Why doesn't OOo implement a system like Debian does for its maintainers? > To have access to the Debian site, a person has to be vouched for by an > have their GPG key signed by at least one existing maintainer, find > someone to sponsor them, and serve an apprenticeship to show that they > know not only what they want to do for the project, but also that they > understand the philosophy. The system can be cumbersome, but it does > seem to create a large base of trustworthy people.
The Debian culture is very different from ours. OOo is (sadly) very heavily towards the "open source" camp (as opposed to "free software"). We don't have a social contract, and we are mostly controlled by a large corporation. If we imposed a Debian style system on OOo, things would get even worse. A Debian style system only works well when your initial set of members already meet all the Debian member criteria. I'd also like to point out that Debian is not known for speed. Their release cycle is even wider than OOo's. I think that OOo would benefit more form an Apache model. This is a very very decentralized system, where each project is essentially autonomous and no project lies above the others. This model also has the advantange that *structurally* it is very similar to what OOo already has. But what we need most is not a change in structure, but a change in culture. We need a culture of "action" and getting things done. And we need to be willing to distribute powers and delegate more. I like the way Linus put it: "One of the things I've been pretty happy with is how I generally _have_ been able to fairly gracefully relinquish control. It really is harder than you'd think, and I think it ends up being one of the core problems that some open source projects have: people (and companies) wanting to keep tight reins on a system, because they have their own "vision" of where they want things to go, or how things have to be done. And that stifles the project. It doesn't allow others to feel like they control their own destiny." This is a perfect description of what's wrong at OOo right now, and what needs to change. >From the NF article: http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/02/10/1539242.shtml?tid=132&tid=111 You'll see that the experience of Perl and Apache also point in that direction. Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera | I don't want it perfect, Join OOoAuthors today! | I want it Tuesday. http://oooauthors.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
