John Plocher wrote: > Shawn Walker wrote: >> Time and time again it has been said that the OGB can only act as an >> "arbiter" of sorts; it is my belief that they must be empowered to >> actually *guide* the community. > > > We are learning a lot about how to govern ourselves. One of the things > I have learned is that leading is hard. It takes time, it takes commitment, > and it takes a very thick skin. "Hearding a clowder of burning cats away > from a river of gasoline" is the phrase I've often heard applied. > > And, compared to software developers, cats sound easy ;-) > > Another thing I've learned is that if you are not happy with the way > someone else is leading, you need to step up and become a leader yourself. > This means being able to articulate your vision, convince others to adopt > your vision, and then effectively make your vision into reality. > (I really wish I was better at this part...) > > To me, this means a couple of things for all US vocal people: > > 1) Try to generate specific and actionable proposals for change > instead of gripes and whines and endless meta-dialog, > 2) Nominate yourself for the next OGB elections, and > 3) Become Core Contributersin your CGs and put your leadership > skills in action. Become the grass-roots examples of the > kind of leadership you want to see in others. > > Lead by example.
I tend to agree with this and I view our current structure as providing the most amount of opportunity for the most amount of people. Also, terms like "strong leader" and "benevolent dictator" worry me. And actually, what's attractive about OpenSolaris is that the project lacks a central point of authority. Instead, our leadership model is distributed by design. It's not perfect, sure, but the other way isn't perfect either. I'd much rather we focus on learning how to work and govern ourselves in the open based on our ability to earn consensus. Jim -- http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris
