James Carlson wrote:
> 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 don't think that's entirely fair, I think the current discussion
proves that people are trying to improve things.
> 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.
It wasn't mean pejoratively, apologies if it seemed that way. It was
more a request that we shoot the ducks overhead first, rather than
waiting for the autumn migration to begin ;-)
> 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.
I'm happy for whatever degree of whackage that is felt necessary to take
place, but I don't see it as a prerequisite to making some decisions and
starting to implement them. One of the frequent complaints that people
make is that we don't seem to be making progress, a criticism that I
think is at least partly justified - so let's make some decisions, and
make some progress. In the current discussion I'm satisfied that:
1. What we are proposing is workable.
2. We have a broad consensus on what should be done.
3. We have sufficient detail to begin working.
4. What we have is good enough for us not to have to start over in the
immediate future.
5. We can implement the proposals.
That doesn't mean that what we have is complete or immutable, but
neither does it mean that we don't have enough to make a start. I'm
focusing on addressing the areas we can make progress in, and I'll worry
about the other stuff later - or even better, let someone else do the
worrying on my behalf.
--
Alan Burlison
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