And ... my slightly longer response ...
On Apr 5, 2009, at 17:04, Geoffrey Sneddon wrote: > > 1. Don't tell people to "fuck off" as I have been numerous times. It > doesn't help build a community: it makes people leave. +1. Courtesy is important. Courtesy is more important than technical prowess. > > 2. Don't go around mocking people endlessly making them a joke. It > doesn't give the place a positive atmosphere, and thus doesn't help > get people to stay around and become a community. Likewise. Courtesy. > > 3. Present a united front as a cabal. A patch should be rejected by > either all members of the cabal, or by no members of the cabal. The > reasons for which a patch can be refused should be objective enough > for this to be the case. -1. The Cabal is not a Cabal. It is a Project Management Committee. The name is a joke, and has been since inception. There is no united front. As for patches -- I think most of them are taken too seriously. If you can convince a PMC member to commit your patch, they should commit it. The notion that the entire PMC has to approve a patch is just a recipe for glacial movement. If someone vetoes a patch and IF they can provide COMPELLING TECHNICAL REASONS (ie, not just "I don't like that color of green") then it should be backed out. Trunk is CTR (Commit Then Review). Release branches are RTC, with -1 votes carrying more weight. > > 4. Make it clearer why some people in the cabal and others are not. > Having some sort of transparency would massively help the > accountability of the cabal: from what I've heard from some people in > the cabal, the cabal was founded as the people who were around in > #habari at the time, which sounds like far more of a cronyism than a > meritocracy. This is *TOTALLY* not true - revisionist at best, and damaging to the community at worst. The PMC was founded as the four people who came up with the idea over pizza at Bucco di Beppo at Ohio Linux Fest. Of those four, three have continued to produce quality code, and the other, I hope, has continued to provide sage advice from his experience with the Perl and Apache communities. Other people have been brought in by consensus of the existing PMC as they have demonstrated contributions to the community. Some folks think that we vote people in more rapidly, while others think we should be pickier. Thus, there tends to be balance in the force. This is also why a "united front" is difficult now and will continue to be more difficult as the PMC grows. > > 5. Don't get into revert wars. This is basically the same as #3. +1 in principal, but it's worth discussing what happens when two committers have radically different views. Folks need to be willing to let go their personal opinion when the community as a whole outvotes them. That's amazingly difficult. > > 6. Be clear why things are being done: if a commit is reverted, say > why; if a patch is refused, say why. Rejecting things without reason > is not going to make people inclined to contribute, as they do not > know what is required of them. +++1. Rejecting a patch without saying why is rude. Ignoring a patch ... well, there are many reasons for that. Understand that the most common is that people have lives outside of Habari, and patches get lost in the noise. The patcher's responsibility is to agitate and find someone willing to commit it. If folks tell you to shut up about your patch, the correct response is "either commit it, or explain why you refuse to commit it, and then I will shut up." > > 7. Review patches in a timely manner (irrespective of outcome). If > patches are rotting, why should I bother writing a patch that I'll > almost certainly have to rewrite because nobody has bothered to do > anything about it? This is really difficult, because people have lives outside of Habari, and none of us are paid to do this. You can't require folks to do anything, when they're volunteers. On the other hand, the responsibility of the PMC is to identify folks that are driving development, and nominate them for the commit bit. -- Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
