John Plocher wrote:
> We don't have the right set of communities. The ones we have
> are more or less dysfunctional. The OGB has convinced itself
> that it has no real power or authority to fix or change things,
> and that all it is allowed to do is to react to issues brought
> up by others.
I commented to several people last week privately that part of our
problem with the OGB is that, perhaps due to experiences with bodies
like ARC, treated it in some ways as a review board instead of a
leadership group. Our agenda items are almost exclusively reviewing
and voting on a proposal put forth in writing before the meeting.
Some OGB members put forth proposals themselves when we started, but
didn't carry on when we got strong resistance from the community over
even simple things like stating that CG's have the right to decide on
sponsoring projects themselves, and especially on the proposed
reorganization of the communities. The OGB members, both current and
future, need to learn to have thicker skins, and that a few loud
complainers can be ignored if the vast majority of the community is
satisfied. The community needs to learn that attacking us at every
point is going to leave no one left willing to deal with the headache.
I'll personally admit that I stopped putting as much effort into putting
forth OGB proposals after getting berated by a single loud CG member who
was upset that I had said his community was "defunct" because no one had
personally held his hand and made him give us a list of Core Contributors,
and getting shouted down on my proposal to declare OpenSolaris ARC cases
must be open. (I also had increased schedule pressure in my actual job
at the same time, so didn't have as much time even if I was motivated.)
> The question is, do we need to wait until after the next OGB
> election cycle before we start working on fixes, or are there
> things we can start NOW to remedy things?
What sort of things do you see that we can do to remedy this?
> (is there an OGB meeting tomorrow?)
I haven't called one, since I had nothing specific for the agenda and have
been swamped at work, and no one else ever seems to. (I thought either the
Chair or Secretary would have that duty, but have filled in that role
to prevent us from losing all chance at progress.)
Our agreement at the start of our term was that our regular weekly meetings
were automatically cancelled if no one called for one with 24 hours notice,
so that would indicate there's none tomorrow. Given the holiday/vacation
schedule for most members, I assume next Wednesday would be a bad day for a
meeting, and that Wednesday January 2 would thus be the next logical day for
a meeting.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
