This idea might necessitate a "junta" to pull off, but maybe that's
something to think about. Let's just elect a president. Maybe a six-month
stint? It doesn't have to be time consuming if the prez is willing to lose
a few people for the sake of a strong backbone. So? People will always
flock to a group with a backbone, people want and need direction, so the
few losers who want to leave are probably part of the problem anyways. Adios!
I think there should be a benevolent monarchy, supported by a benevolent
senate. Call 'em a prez so it doesn't ruffle feathers. It doesn't take a
LOT of work, or time, to make decisions. You just have to think what's best
for the group and then say that's what it will be. Oh ... Joe's messaging
queue architecture is better, faster, and small than Pete's. Hmmm. Joe
wins, we implement it his way. Sorry Pete, let's talk about where else your
design might make sense.
What's that? It doesn't fit the current constitution? Benevolent
Revolution. Put up a new set of rules.
And you've got amazing coders walking away or languishing because of noisy
talkers. Why people don't tell each other to be quiet amazes me. There is a
strong arguement that says "politeness" is either a myth or a subtle form
of arrogance. Take your pick.
The lesson comes from ancient greece. When Sparta and Athens were at war,
Athens had JUST kicked off the "experiment" they called "democracy". It was
only 50 years old. So they all got out on the battle field and did what?
Elect Generals for the Day. Every day they'd have a different general,
seven per week, you had to be fair, and the big tent in the middle of the
compound was where all the Generals went to to haggle about which Spartan
that Johny should spear so they could make recommendations, and second
them. But ... they were getting creamed bad.
So what did Athens do to save democracy. (This really is history folks!)
They remembered things were LESS FAIR, but MORE EFFICIENT under a monarchy.
So they elected a General they liked whose duration of command would be the
whole length of engagement, or until they decided to properly replace him
with another. The guy they picked as mediocre, but had general support, and
he won the defense of Athens quite dramatically.
The point is that democracy is good for raising taxes and building roads,
but in some places it HURTS. Liike big software projects. For all the talk
of how the bazar is so super-duper, Linus and Larry Wall prove centralized
command is what seperates the mobs from the organized development projects.
Someone needs to be "point".
Let's take licensing ...
Many many moons ago I stopped working with JOS because I became exhausted
over the licensing thing, which kept coming up, and up, and up. And still
keeps coming up. Etc.
JUST ADOPT THE LGPL, THE GLP, THE NLP, THE MPL, OR WHATEVER.
Just say "its going to be this way." Period. If it makes the monarch's job
any easier, they can feel better ask the three or four guys who's code they
respect the best: hey, should we go GPL or LGPL or what? And then RESPECT
their opinion. And then just put your foot down and say its going to be
this way or that. Discussion? Okay. Two days of discussion and THEN I make
the overruling binding decision. Everyone speak up. Personally, if I don't
like the way licensing works I'll go somewhere I do. Fine. If you want tons
of people choose LGPL. Just CHOOSE.
But the way it is now, so much non-coding talk talk talk surrounds dump
decisions that you could make in five minutes, you drive guys like me away.
And you've got the loudest squeekers getting all the attention and getting
their way, who produce no code. A president or monarch could just make any
old random choice ... like "I choose A for JOS" ... and if it turns out it
should have been B ... "Oops. We are now changing from A to B. Only do B
from now on." At least you end up knowing SOMETHING.,
This is much better than "Maybe GPL", "no GPL sucks I can prove it", "how
about LGPL", "My brother tried it and it failed", "How about JOS-PL?",
"Nah, its proprietary." "That won't work" whine whine whine for year after
year after year. Jeez.
Anyone who doesn't like it will leave. Fine. Those who stay will have the
comfort of strong decision.
This is all old-fashioned leadership stuff. Some one person needs to stand
up and take charge.
I nominate Iain Shigeoka for President. Why not? Where's my bumper sticker?
OB
At 06:52 PM 9/18/00 -0500, Iain Shigeoka wrote:
>At 03:46 AM 9/18/00 +0000, Robert Fitzsimons wrote:
>
>>Now for this to change we need to all stop working on our own projects
>>and work together on a new unified project. We should treat all the
>>current project as prototypes and leave them behind, and just bring all
>>the good ideas with us on the new unified project.
>>
>>For this to succeed we need to jump into the deep-end, new mailing
>>lists, web site, cvs server. We can keep the old stuff around but only
>>for reference.
>>
>>So what do we all think, comments, flames, ideas, are all welcomed.
>
>+1
>
>The only problem/question being that its going to take a big effort to
>really kick start a restart (or a throw away of the throw away
>prototype). Do we have the manpower for that right now? I personally am
>stretched a bit thin currently so don't know how much I can give to the
effort.
>
>-iain
>
>
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>
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