Petteri Räty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:34:25 +0300:
> As the recent thread showed there is a lot going on in Gentoo land > although it doesn't always seem so. I propose we extend project xml to > describe current stuff going on in the project in question and their > estimated completion date. Then we require this file to be updated > monthly. What do you think? I think proposals such as this have come up before. (No offense intended. In fact, probably you and enough others it's time to outline the reasons again, simply weren't around at the time.) I think they went nowhere, in part because it was thought to be just more bureaucracy forced (the term you used was required) on the team leads, to little ultimate effect (see kloeri's cron remarks). Remember, Gentoo's all volunteers. You can't force them to do it as part of their job (for their paycheck). What's the penalty going to be? Suspension of the team lead, throwing a monkey wrench in the progress that was being made? Dissolving the project? From what I've observed here and elsewhere over the years, a "requirement" that can't be enforced is a very unhealthy thing. Thus, it's not a very practical idea, or at least no one was able to figure out how to make it such in previous rounds. Instead, what tends to happen is somewhat less frequently and more informally, but perhaps more effectively as it's not forced. Periodically, perhaps twice a year or so, someone starts a thread like the one you referred to. Often it's prompted by year-end or mid-year, and someone posts an impromptu summary of where their project is. Other times, it's as this one, started for other reasons. However, once one person posts a summary, another does and another, and pretty soon most of the projects have... and everybody did it impromptu, nothing "required" about it. =8^) Of course, in more specific cases, the council notices and ultimately meetings often bring about discussion of projects of particular interest at the moment. In any case, it may not get to the project's web page, but anyone (dev, user, journalist, or simply curious public) caring enough to follow this list ends up seeing the updates as I said, perhaps twice a year or so. If one were suitably devious, one could even scheme to generate such a thread starter every few months (cron /that/ reminder =8^), just to get the pile-on effect and see where everyone was, again without "requiring" reports of anyone. =8^) Of course, often these threads get mentioned in GWN and thus features not only there, but as a result on the Gentoo home page and on community sites such as LWN as well, so one doesn't even have to follow this list to know about it, only make /some/ effort to be keeping up with general things Gentoo, and they'll probably see coverage of the thread. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- [email protected] mailing list
