On Mon, 28 Jan 2008, Glynn Foster wrote: > I'm actually not sure I agree, and maybe my opinion touches on what > Peter has already expressed that the Community Group structure has > failed. I'd actually like to see *less* of a bond between Projects and > Community Groups. There should be an extremely low barrier to entry for > project creation - rather than having to even propose a project, any > contributor should be able to JFDI. The project will succeed depending > on the number of people that gather around it and their determination to > complete it. > > We need to encourage the 'go knock yourselves out' mentality. The fact > that someone is interested in starting a project is a great thing and we > need to encourage that. The knowledge and experience they gain during > the lifecycle of that project will be invaluable to the OpenSolaris > commons in general, even if it proves to be a failure.
I haven't read all the messages, but many (actually too many) on this list, and think this is the crux of one of the big problems/obstacles in our community. There is too much to do, too many approvals even just to get a group formed, it should just be a go-for-it, start a community if you please, we can clean up ones that aren't successful each year if we have to... As an example, on my user group page, I was notified that I had been using the wrong banner/icon, and wasn't in compliance with the guidelines put in place...Now, I have to admit, I was stumped on that as we were using one that a community member contributed (Ben Rockwood, BTW). This is how grass roots is supposed to work, someone takes the initiative and does something. Our process, IMO, has to date failed for both the community, as well as Sun, with the recent events. It is important for OpenSolaris to move forward, and Sun's intention seem to still be doing that from my view. The OGB will be a very important role in the future, IMO, if it is setup properly. To date, the OGB has now influence or power on any of the process as it is. This is reality. I am also skeptical if we can see enough change for the OGB to be of any importance over the next year, and believe it's possible to go through a full term, once again, where the OGB will be powerless in the OpenSolaris process, from a putback standpoint. As a community we can still continue to foundate, and grow, through this period of stalemate, as the time will most likely come, unless Sun was to decide that they don't want to continue with the current license in place. I don't believe that to be the case, and even if they did, The code is in the community alread, even if nobody wanted to do anything with it the community has it and can manage their own community after the fact. In this regard, I have always consider OpenSolaris as a way the management gave the code to the engineers, without those engineers to work on it wether inside or outside Sun, the code is there. We live in a world where Sun management can ONLY buy their solutions, and engineers can for the most part only develop them and don't have the resources to buy them. The double edge sword is of course engineers that work for Sun managers...:-/ -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group
