Alan Burlison writes: > James Carlson wrote: > > I'd expect ARC-and-consolidation-as-project-with-benefits to continue, > > which argues against bothering with User Groups. May as well not fix > > that one, either. > > I think that's perhaps slightly pessimistic.
It's based on the experience so far. If the template doesn't work, we don't generally fix the template, we just push down on the edges harder. ;-} > > I'm not saying that they're unwelcome or that they don't serve a > > function, but rather that they sort of dropped from space, leaving > > OpenSolaris participants to fumble over what they mean. > > You seem to be suggesting that Sun's internal structures were the > inspiration (? ;-) for the OSO structures. No. I realize that the inspiration was with other open source groups (particularly Apache), but since we didn't have Sun structures that matched when we started migrating en masse, the _usage_ generally happened to follow organization chart lines rather than strictly technical ones. > specifically the Apache community. Personally I can't see why they > can't work well for us as well. I'm sure they can. That doesn't mean that they're less alien. > > Then why bother with the User Groups proposal? It seems a bit random > > to me to fix one known problem and give a pass on the others. "Eh, > > good enough" can't be an OGB motto, either. :-/ > > I'm not saying that we shouldn't fix the other problems, but I am saying > that we shouldn't wait until we have "The Great Plan Of Everything" > before we make a start. The proposal on the table deals primarily with > *existing* structures and how we move them forwards. At present we > don't have structures in place to represent consolidations or the ARCs, > and for that reason I'm saying that we should concentrate on fixing what > we already have, and then add the stuff to support consolidations and > ARCs when we have decided what we want. I wasn't advocating a "great plan of everything" (which appears to be a pejorative of some sort, and perhaps actually a passing reference to a second-system syndrome), but rather shooting more than just one of the ducks that's obviously popped up. Many of the questions we've had -- what authority does the ARC have in OpenSolaris? who cares what the C-teams say if I can just publish my binaries and declare project victory? -- in part stem from a lack of coherent structure. Oddly enough, we have a ready history of that sort of structure inside Sun, but we've been unwilling to adapt it to OpenSolaris except by actually retaining those processes within Sun's walls and forcing (nearly) all to march along. I don't know whether that's from a lack of effort, some unobvious but inherent difficulty, an unwillingness to cede control, or some shared vision that we should do something "different" without a useful definition or rough agreement of what that ought to be. But I think it'll take some whacks with a hammer -- such as having the OGB create a consolidation entity -- to make it move forward. I think I've come full-circle, and I'll go with my initial comment about my nose. -- James Carlson, Solaris Networking <james.d.carlson at sun.com> Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
