Bonnie Corwin writes: > So everything you've said confirms that consolidations are not special > in this discussion. They are simply large Projects. They manage code > and they have processes for taking in code. Projects that deliver to a > larger project don't need to be nested hierarchically or 'owned' by the > larger project. Projects should simply exist. Where each chooses to > deliver should not be part of a governance discussion.
I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. Consolidations (as I noted in an earlier posting on this topic) also define architectural boundaries for software and constrain the way software may work. They thus have a special position in the universe: many projects simply cannot exist without reference to the consolidation through which they deliver. That may be harder to see in a patchwork like SFW, but it's quite obvious in ON and even in GNOME. There are parts that depend on each other, and that can't just live completely independently. That creates a dependency that's visible at the governance level. Given that many projects can't just shop around arbitrarily for the best integration deals, and _have to_ go into one of a set of consolidations, I think there has to be some level to which the consolidations are accountable -- in terms of how they treat the projects (what happens if integration is just refused?) and the overall standards that are set. Sure, some projects can in fact be independent, and deliver "whereever." They're probably the sort that could also be hosted elsewhere and needn't be just opensolaris.org projects. > Why are we not finishing the original discussion to define top-level > collectives? Why do we care that consolidations take in other project > code or that OpenSolaris is built from combining the output (or some of > the output) from consolidations? Why does that matter to governance or > to defining collectives? If all they ever did was scavange code from other projects, or use the output of a project "as-is," then I'd agree with you. But that's not at all what they do. -- 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
