At 06:20 PM 9/22/00 +0200, Kim Bruning wrote:
>For what my humble opinion is worth, the organisational problems JOS
>appears to be having do not appear to be unique. Perhaps it might be
>useful to (re-) read the standard text on running an open source projects
>by ESR called "The Cathedral and the Bazar" and perhaps also the follow-on
>texts.
I agree with the views of CntB. And of course, jos as it was founded and
as it stands violates most of its tenants for a successful open source
project which is probably why we're having so much trouble:
<Quote
href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/x285.html">
9. Necessary Preconditions for the Bazaar Style
It's fairly clear that one cannot code from the ground up in bazaar style
[IN]. One can test, debug and improve in bazaar style, but it would be very
hard to originate a project in bazaar mode. Linus didn't try it. I didn't
either. Your nascent developer community needs to have something runnable
and testable to
play with.
When you start community-building, what you need to be able to present is a
plausible promise. Your program doesn't have to work particularly well. It
can be crude, buggy, incomplete, and poorly documented. What it must not
fail to do is (a) run, and (b) convince potential co-developers that it can
be evolved into something really neat in the foreseeable future.
</Quote>
JOS began in bazaar mode and even worse in committee mode with the bazaar
development model. And the project didn't have anything that ran, and
thus, doesn't show much potential for being something neat in the
foreseeable future. Not that it couldn't be neat in the future. Just not
in the _foreseeable_ future. For reasons given in both CntB and
Homesteading in the Noosphere
(http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/) this
approach is almost doomed to failure. The lure of JOS is that the project
itself meets with the CntB requirements for a great open source project,
especially #1: Every good work of software starts by scratching a
developer's personal itch.
Everyone working on/in/under/around java wants a JOS!
My current position is that jos, because of its start, is doomed to never
get going. Homesteading the Noosphere really makes it clear (if you accept
his tenants) that JOS is going to have inherent problems the way we've
structured it. Readers should carefully read:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/x349.html
Section 16. Project Structures and Ownership.
Now I'm not saying that ESR is completely right and that I agree with
everything he has to say but I think he does offer interesting things to
think about.
As far as JOS goes, I think the way the project is organized needs to be
rethought. Sorta like a software "throw away" prototype. Once you learn
all you're going to learn from it, you throw it away and start fresh. We
tried it, we learned, now we need to do it all over from the ground up.
From the way the current discussions are going, I have the feeling that
many core members (as measured by activity both on the lists and in
development) are not interested in throwing away the current jos
organization structure. This is an inherently dangerous situation as some
"active" members do want to go through a restructuring and so its hard to
make those that want to throw out the old rules follow the old rules. ;)
Just look at my effort to go through an interim President vote. Something
that should obviously be an "extraordinary" vote but I'm only willing at
the slowest to put through a "normal" vote.
So, at this point, its very important to establish how many people feel
that we need to keep jos as is (or at least work legitimately following our
constitution to make changes).
VOTE:
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So can I get an inpromptu vote: How many people want to keep JOS as-is
and/or feel that any changes must be made through the processes outlined in
the constitution. (+1 yes, +/-0 abstain, -1 no).
-1
Obviously
I think we need to do a full shakeup including tossing the constitution. I
voted in the constitution but now find it much too burdensome and the jos
org structure poor for getting an open source jos built.
-iain
ps - If enough people do want to keep to the status quo I think that is
perfectly understandable. The rabble (including myself) that wants to
throw away the old JOS and restart can just do that under a new name as a
new project. I'm sure we'll be able to collaborate (I don't see why it
needs to be an unfriendly parting).
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