Jim Grisanzio wrote: > Ben Rockwood wrote: > >> I agree, a singular leader would be important. I have come to >> believe that the following are the requirements: >> >> 1) They must have non-Sun, non-Solaris F/OSS experience >> 2) They must have some understanding of Sun and Solaris history and >> practices >> 3) They must be (or become) a Sun employee to allow access to various >> groups within Sun >> >> The individual would: >> >> 1) Work together with internal projects seeking to open up but >> lacking guidence. >> 2) Act as a project manager to OpenSolaris en mass, that is, ensure >> that community groups and the OGB are working together, keeping on >> top of day to day activity, and generally acting as a neutral >> governer over the project. (I previously believed that the OGB >> itself should do these tasks, but it has resisted such duties at >> every turn.) >> 3) Act as a rally point in situations where not appropriate for the OGB > > > That's a lot for one guy. :) His/her staff would have to be quite big > to support that effort. You'd have to include not only the external > operations, which are pretty big, but also the internal stuff, which > is much bigger. I can't see how one leader would be able to get > his/her arms around this, to be honest. My fear would be that that > person would get bogged down or become a figurehead and/or dictator. > Can you tell my bias is not toward a single leader? :) There is only one person that could have that bias without my arguing it, and thats you. :)
> However, you are absolutely correct that we need operational and/or > project management support at this point. So, why don't we start with > the Facilitators? Each CG should have a Facilitator already, and that > person is responsible for running the CG (which involves the CG's > sponsored projects, by the way) from a project management perspective. > The Facilitators *are* the community managers for OpenSolaris in a > very real sense. Some of those people will be from Sun and some from > outside Sun. I'm one of them, in fact, and I see the outside and > inside. We can create an open list and we can organize ourselves a bit > by meeting, distributing tasks, writing plans, sharing info, > implementing stuff, and reporting back to the OGB. Our job is to run > the community. Currently, as a group, we are not. The job of the > Facilitator can be expanded, too, if need be or desired, and I see no > reason why the Facilitators can't have a leader if they want one but > that leader would be operational, not political. And that leader would > no be *the* leader of the OpenSolaris community but just one among many. Here in lies the problem... the OGB should, imho, take up the cause of getting all the CG's in line. To date they haven't (OGB or CAB; I'm _not_ pointing fingers). The hope was that following the installation of "leadership" in each CG, as occured to determine the electorate for the OGB/Constitution votes, these CG's would bootstrap themselves. They did not. Quite the opposite, we've seen several CG's come forward with a quizical look and a desire to bootstrap. They don't know the process, don't know where to ask (without a debate involved) and at some point just give up on the process because, frankly, it doesn't actually matter right now. I agree 100% that the community will ultimately be self governed by individual CG's who are close to the issues and aware of those involved... but where aren't getting to that place. So the "leader" that I speak of would take on the roles of high-level PM, Admin, and evangelist. "You can do it! Here's how!" And this would apply both internally and externally. > I'd like to separate some things here: The OGB is an elected body by > the Members and it runs nothing. It sets policy and enforces policy. > The Facilitators run the community from a management perspective > (potentially, anyway). There are, what, 150 or so Members and 40 or so > Facilitators. The Members already have leadership -- its the OGB. Now, > why can't the Facilitators organize into some structure for their own > management? When you look at the Constitution, I think it already > articulates a political and management structure for us. I think we > just need to work it and take ownership of it. > I'd be really happy to participate in an effort like that. I think we all want that... but I think there needs to be someone actively, day-to-day, driving it. We have several people who could, Glynn Foster and Stephen Hahn jump immediately to mind, but those individuals are frankly too valuable doing the work that they are today. I don't think its an undoable task, I think it just takes a very special person to pull it all together in a neutral, fair, and productive way. benr.
