On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Donald Whytock <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote: >> But again, objections must be from committers, backed with >> technical arguments and the willingness to implement alternatives. > > The Apache voting policy page you linked agrees that binding votes are > from committers, and that "all others are either discouraged from > voting (to keep the noise down) or else have their votes considered of > an indicative or advisory nature only." > > But some things may require noise. I for one am essentially lurking > here as a user, watching the progress of the product on its way to > becoming once again current and viable. I'm technical, but have never > touched the guts of OOo. > > So if you bring up a change, presented as a lazy-concensus proposal, > and I think it would adversely affect my experience as a user, I'd > very much like to be able to object, even if my objection is > non-binding. I can't stop you, but on the other hand I'd rather you > not stop me. >
The distinction here is between decision making with lazy consensus versus voting. Voting is a formal procedure, and something we do only when required by the process (voting in new committers, approving releases, etc.) or in other (hopefully) rare occasions. A formal vote would occur in its own [VOTE] thread, but would be preceded first by a [DISCUSS] thread on the same topic. So your feedback is always welcome, especially in the [DISCUSS] thread. This distinction may not be obvious, since we've only had private votes in this project so far, for voting in new committers. Apache requires these be private votes. A [PROPOSAL] thread is not a vote. It is someone saying what they'd like to do and seeing if there are any strong objections. If there are not, then the proposer will go forward. Anyone can comment on the proposal thread, but my previous comments apply: please comment judiciously. If you think the proposer has goofed or is about to goof, and this is a big problem, then by all means, speak up. The project benefits from that. But with 200 subscribers to the list, if we all make minor comments based on slight preferences, then we end up with a mess. Best (IMHO) if we hold back and only comment where and when it matters most. > Don >
