Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 9:38 PM, David Nelson li...@traduction.biz wrote: Hi, :-) Minor addition after a few hours sleep and before starting work: This kind of design documentation is really essential for various reasons. What would happen if there was some kind of disaster and we were to lose the essential core of our lead devs for some horrible reason? Seriously ? for a distributed open source software, _that_ is your doomsday scenario ? If that were to happen, it would probably means that your immediate problem would be survival: finding food and shelter. Computer software will be the least of our problem for few generations... We'd be scuppered. Among the other members of the LibreOffice project, is there anyone who knows how the thing works? Is there any record, useable by a non-geek No amount of documentation will turn a 'non-geek' into a core dev. Clean, well written code, with the least amount of 'trick' is the best documentation: It is by definition accurate, complete and authoritative. Quality that no Documentation ever equaled no matter how much effort you put into it. , of the state of evolution of the code base? We say that people are free to take the source and do what they want with it, but - at the moment - they'd have to reverse engineer the whole code base. How open is that? Reading source code is not 'reverse engineering'... That is what any software engineer do on a daily basis to maintain existing code. It is 'open' because anyone have access to the source code and therefore _can_ read it and figure out how it works (or doesn't). No, I apologise for insisting, and I realise that this initiative will take some initial footwork, and will require on-going maintenance, but it really should be considered to be essential work. But I firmly believe there will be a pay-off in quite a few ways. In any case, I'll be at the next couple of SC/BoD meetings to follow up and discuss the idea. There is no need for that. You can find volunteers and start working on that without the blessing of anyone. It _is_ free software, and _this_ is a meritocracy. If you _do_ something in that line -- the wiki is a perfect place for you to make that work available and gather with like minded volunteers -- no-one will get in the way. What do you expect the BoD to do ? issue an Edict ? Give you a size-able budget to hire technical writer ? If your proposal attract people from the community (our even better attract new people to it) then your proposal will become reality, regardless of the BoD opinion. That is how it is supposed to work. Norbert -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
Hello Norbert, On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Norbert Thiebaud nthieb...@gmail.com wrote: Seriously ? for a distributed open source software, _that_ is your doomsday scenario ? If that were to happen, it would probably means that your immediate problem would be survival: finding food and shelter. Computer software will be the least of our problem for few generations... Let's not get side-tracked. The contingency could be anything. But the need for proper documentation remains. For instance, it might be needed by a group of developers wanting to start an auxiliary project investigating a different path for development than being followed by the main track. BTW, this does not necessarily mean a fork, before I hear the word used. No amount of documentation will turn a 'non-geek' into a core dev. Clean, well written code, with the least amount of 'trick' is the best documentation: It is by definition accurate, complete and authoritative. Quality that no Documentation ever equaled no matter how much effort you put into it. No, the very best is clean, well-written code accompanied by good-quality documentation. Sorry, you will not convince me that design documentation is unnecessary. Reading source code is not 'reverse engineering'... That is what any software engineer do on a daily basis to maintain existing code. It is 'open' because anyone have access to the source code and therefore _can_ read it and figure out how it works (or doesn't). Trying to figure out from zero how a system works, because there is no documentation of the code base, is indeed reverse engineering. A software project that has no design documentation to enable a proper and facilitated understanding of its code base is *not* fully implementing the best principles of an Open Source project. Ask the FSF for an opinion about this. No, I apologise for insisting, and I realise that this initiative will take some initial footwork, and will require on-going maintenance, but it really should be considered to be essential work. But I firmly believe there will be a pay-off in quite a few ways. In any case, I'll be at the next couple of SC/BoD meetings to follow up and discuss the idea. There is no need for that. You can find volunteers and start working on that without the blessing of anyone. It _is_ free software, and _this_ is a meritocracy. If you _do_ something in that line -- the wiki is a perfect place for you to make that work available and gather with like minded volunteers -- no-one will get in the way. No, I am not going to s*d off and reverse engineer the code base myself. I am asking three of our leading devs whether they would be willing to collaborate with me on this perfectly-justifiable initiative. What do you expect the BoD to do ? issue an Edict ? Give you a size-able budget to hire technical writer ? If your proposal attract people from the community (our even better attract new people to it) then your proposal will become reality, regardless of the BoD opinion. That is how it is supposed to work. I put my question to three of our leading devs, and I will wait for them to reply to the original posts. Sorry, Norbert, but your responses do not change my views in any way. Your arguments resound with the sideways logic and suave patter of a dishonest used car salesman combined with the moral values of a larcenous banker. :-D (Above to be read tongue in cheek with a smile.) Nonetheless, have a good Sunday. ;-) -- David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
To give you an idea of the kind of collaboration I'm proposing to our leading devs, you could read this Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_document -- David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board: Michael Meeks
Hi David, David Nelson wrote (08-10-11 16:38) 2011/10/8 Jesús Corriusje...@softcatala.org: In my opinion, I don't think it's best for the project to put some of the most skilled developers to work in documentation, when other developers can also do this task perfectly well. It is precisely these guys who could put the most effective work into this initiative, and probably the fastest. I'm asking the potential future members of the BoD to lead the way on this. I see no link between the role of the BOD and individual members making commitments to certain day to day tasks. Is there something why I should, in your opinion? Documentation is always considered to be some kind of unnecessary-to-optional accompaniment to software -- unless you're some poor blighter trying to understand how the thing works. When I directed some people new on LibreOffice hacking to the various developer wiki pages, they were positively surprised. Hmm, I do not want to say that there is no room for improvement, but as said: commitment on that topic is IMO not the item to consider when talking to an individual candidate for the BOD. Pls note: I did not make any remark about the work done by, or commitment of, Michael or any of the other devs on this area ;-) Regards, Cor -- - Cor - http://nl.libreoffice.org -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board: Michael Meeks
Hi Cor, On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 1:16 PM, Cor Nouws oo...@nouenoff.nl wrote: I see no link between the role of the BOD and individual members making commitments to certain day to day tasks. Is there something why I should, in your opinion? I don't see anything incongruous about asking a candidate in the Board of Directors election about what commitments he might be willing to take on if elected. In fact, what else are you supposed to ask of candidates? When I directed some people new on LibreOffice hacking to the various developer wiki pages, they were positively surprised. Surprised? Or do you mean shocked and amazed at how little developer documentation there is about a major software project that has been developed for so many years? :-D I'm quite surprised you seem equate the very little content on the wiki to a useful provision of design documentation. In fact, there is little more than basic tips and instructions about compiling the code and a few other related issues. There is also a very small amount of API documentation at http://docs.libreoffice.org. I'm sure you'll agree that there is absolutely no design documentation of the kind I'm discussing (see [1]). There would be many advantages to developing some. I am putting this question before Michael, Thorsten and Caolan because, AFAIK, they are full-time, senior project members (sponsored by Novell, Suse and Red Hat, if I'm not mistaken), who most certainly have the greatest knowledge about LibreOffice's design and code base. They are the ideal people to work on design documentation, and I'm volunteering to work hard alongside them (without any suggestion of payment or sponsorship). It would be a major contribution and example to the community if they were willing to provide some time and expertise for this. I don't think I need to repeat the multiple other reasons why I think it's worth devoting some time and effort to this initiative, so I'll sit back and wait to see what answers might be forthcoming from the three BoD candidates I was originally addressing. ;-) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_document -- David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board: Michael Meeks
Hi David, David Nelson wrote (09-10-11 13:30) I don't see anything incongruous about asking a candidate in the Board of Directors election about what commitments he might be willing to take on if elected. In fact, what else are you supposed to ask of candidates? Taking care for documentation, is not a task of an individual member of the BOD, as far as I know. -- - Cor - http://nl.libreoffice.org -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 4:22 AM, David Nelson li...@traduction.biz wrote: Hello Norbert, No amount of documentation will turn a 'non-geek' into a core dev. Clean, well written code, with the least amount of 'trick' is the best documentation: It is by definition accurate, complete and authoritative. Quality that no Documentation ever equaled no matter how much effort you put into it. No, the very best is clean, well-written code accompanied by good-quality documentation. Sorry, you will not convince me that design documentation is unnecessary. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely giving you my opinion, grounded on having been in the trenches, designing software and writing code for a living for the past for 20 years... Anyway, I am apparently in good company: http://kerneltrap.org/node/5725 A spec is close to useless. I have _never_ seen a spec that was both big enough to be useful _and_ accurate. Linus Torvalds I'd also refer you to : http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileDocumentation.htm#ProjectSuccess [..] code base is *not* fully implementing the best principles of an Open Source project. Ask the FSF for an opinion about this. I've been hacking gnu make recently... please do point me to such documentation (no, not the _user_ documentation, the supposedly indispensable 'design spec' ) so... I don't know about their opinion, but I do know about their practice... No, I am not going to s*d off and reverse engineer the code base myself. I am asking three of our leading devs whether they would be willing to collaborate with me on this perfectly-justifiable initiative. We must have a different definition of 'collaboration' than me. If you you are not going to s*d off (what-ever that means) and reverse engineer the code base yourself, it sound that you conception of collaboration is 'do as I said... I'm watching', or as we say in french 'Armons-nous et partez What do you expect the BoD to do ? issue an Edict ? Give you a size-able budget to hire technical writer ? If your proposal attract people from the community (our even better attract new people to it) then your proposal will become reality, regardless of the BoD opinion. That is how it is supposed to work. I put my question to three of our leading devs, and I will wait for them to reply to the original posts. Then this is the wrong list... if you want to ask devs, you should do that on the dev mailing list. Sorry, Norbert, but your responses do not change my views in any way. I have no such hope. I merely re-stated to you the reality of a volunteer based effort. If you want something to happen, you need to roll-up your sleeves and _make_ it happen. Trying to extract election promises out of some people, on ground completely unrelated to the office they seek, is not going to get you there. Your arguments resound with the sideways logic and suave patter of a dishonest used car salesman combined with the moral values of a larcenous banker. :-D (Above to be read tongue in cheek with a smile.) You can add all the smiles you want to an insult it is still one. Norbert -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
Norbert Thiebaud wrote (09-10-11 14:25) Trying to extract election promises out of some people, on ground completely unrelated to the office they seek, is not going to get you there. Correct. I would assume (have seem some mails swiftly after posting my initial contribution to this thread) that there has been some exchange on the usefulness of documentation and such. Would people like to continue: IMO not on this list. Regards, -- - Cor - http://nl.libreoffice.org -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
On 9 Oct 2011, at 10:22, David Nelson wrote: Let's not get side-tracked. You're asking a development question that's not among the duties of a member of the Board of Directors. You're obviously welcome to ask community members about your project proposal, but I suggest you wait until after the election. Appropriate questions for candidates relate to their suitability to perform the duties of a Director of The Document Foundation[1], which definitely and intentionally do not include developing the code or the documentation. S. -- Simon Phipps Election Officer, TDF 2011 Elections [1] https://elections.documentfoundation.org/overview.html -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
Hi, On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Cor Nouws oo...@nouenoff.nl wrote: Norbert Thiebaud wrote (09-10-11 14:25) Trying to extract election promises out of some people, on ground completely unrelated to the office they seek, is not going to get you there. Correct. I would assume (have seem some mails swiftly after posting my initial contribution to this thread) that there has been some exchange on the usefulness of documentation and such. Would people like to continue: IMO not on this list. Norbert, it would be good if you read things carefully and accurately. Cor, it would be good if you did not jump to conclusions. Norbert and Cor, it would be polite and in keeping with the bylaws and election rules if you allowed me to put my questions to the candidates without butting in. Thank you, guys. -- David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[steering-discuss] Election Discussions To Discuss List
As per the election rules[1], please direct you candidate questions and responses to disc...@documentfoundation.org and not to here - thanks. S. [1] https://elections.documentfoundation.org/2011/rules.html -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
On 9 Oct 2011, at 13:57, David Nelson wrote: Hi Simon, On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Simon Phipps webm...@opensource.org wrote: You're asking a development question that's not among the duties of a member of the Board of Directors. You're obviously welcome to ask community members about your project proposal, but I suggest you wait until after the election. Appropriate questions for candidates relate to their suitability to perform the duties of a Director of The Document Foundation[1], which definitely and intentionally do not include developing the code or the documentation. The candidates invited questions. I am asking mine. Are you guys censoring me? I am indicating that questions about development plans and intentions fall outside the scope of questions for Board candidates as regards their suitability for election, as the role of directors[1] does not include development tasks. I'm inviting you to note that observation and save your valid but out-of-scope question for later. I am not censoring you at this point as I hope you will choose to desist voluntarily. Thanks S. -- Simon Phipps Election Officer, TDF 2011 Elections [1] https://elections.documentfoundation.org/overview.html -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
Hello David, Le 09/10/2011 16:02, David Nelson a écrit : Hi Simon, On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Simon Phipps webm...@documentfoundation.org wrote: I am indicating that questions about development plans and intentions fall outside the scope of questions for Board candidates as regards their suitability for election, as the role of directors[1] does not include development tasks. I'm inviting you to note that observation and save your valid but out-of-scope question for later. I am not censoring you at this point as I hope you will choose to desist voluntarily. I have put my questions to the candidates. I am hoping that they are going to answer. I object to your arbitrary judgement that my questions are out of scope. They are perfectly reasonable, perfectly friendly and perfectly courteous questions, in response to an invitation to ask questions. I hope you are not going to blemish this first election with thoughtlessness and unnecessary declarations that go against the freedom of expression that the bylaws stand for. It would have been so much simpler if the candidates had been allowed to answer for themselves. No big and high words please :) What we're trying to say is that the functions of a BoD member do not relate to these matters. Your question is indeed valid but is simply out of context, because it is not up to the BoD members to decide these questions or to take part in this kind of work because they would be BoD members. That's all... Best, Charles. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
On Oct 9, 2011 3:04 PM, David Nelson li...@traduction.biz wrote: It would have been so much simpler if the candidates had been allowed to answer for themselves. Hey, cool it. No-one is stopping them answering; I'm explaining why they are not. Please read what I wrote calmly and, if you still don't understand the point, get back to me. S. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
David Nelson wrote (09-10-11 14:55) Norbert, it would be good if you read things carefully and accurately. Cor, it would be good if you did not jump to conclusions. David, it would be good if you just understood the point ;-) Norbert and Cor, it would be polite and in keeping with the bylaws and election rules if you allowed me to put my questions to the candidates without butting in. Thank you, guys. It is not about stopping you or anyone else to ask questions. It is about whether this question is relevant for the elections. Trying to explain it again in other words: The BOD is about steering the foundation. Might the opinion in the BOD be, that there is a problem in e.g. the documentation area, then they will do what is within their means to improve the work in that area. Whether an individual wants to work on documentation, is not related to ones candidacy/membership of the BOD. It might be relevant to know if an individual finds documentation important, and maybe also if she thinks improvement in that area is a good idea. But again, that is not the same as that individual working on (in this example) on documentation. On the contrary: if the BOD thinks more documentation is needed, they try to find others (i.e. people not in the role as BOD member) willing to step in and do the job. Cheers, -- - Cor - http://nl.libreoffice.org -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [steering-discuss] Candidacy for Board
Cor, Apparently you enjoy an argument. :-D I wasn't going to write further to this thread, but apparently you need to have the last word, and I don't see why you should. I'll explain why below. My only mistake in writing to the candidates was that I continued in the threads they started on this SC list, and election rule #6 says, All discussion related to the elections should be held on disc...@documentfoundation.org. Members are invited to ask questions to one or all candidates on that list. But that's maybe the candidates' fault, too, because I guess they should have posted their candidate statements to the discuss list rather than the SC list. No matter, further discussions about the original subject can be continued there. However, I just re-read the election rules and the bylaws, and there is absolutely nothing to say that the questions I asked Thorsten, Michael and Caolan were out of order. So you have absolutely no justification in trying to lay down the rules about this. This is an election, right? And the candidates are asking for our votes and invited our questions, right? So I would say I'm entitled to ask them whatever is close to my concerns and interests. And, for their part, they have the right to answer what they like, or even not to answer at all if that's their preference. The rules that we all have to keep to are the rules of courtesy, friendliness and decent behavior. From that viewpoint, I'm perfectly within bounds. So why do you feel that I'm only allowed to broach subjects that *you* feel are acceptable? Don't you feel you're a little out of line here? Because I definitely think you are. I'm rather disappointed by the development of this thread. And I don't think it was a welcome event in the first BoD election. Please allow me to remind you of some relevant clauses of the community bylaws: There are no differences of equality between Members, even though certain Members may be granted particular powers, appointed to certain roles and responsibilities, and entrusted with access to certain Community resources. Every Member is expected to always remember that he/she is part of an egalitarian Community of which a key guiding principle is public service, and that membership is a status which is truly earned through contributive work, not something acquired by unproductive activities such as idle posting to mailing lists and forums, etc. Every Member is expected to deal with other Community Members and with our end users with courtesy, forbearance, objectivity, open-mindedness, friendliness, understanding, patience and goodwill. I don't think you're putting all that into practice. Therefore, I'd propose that we don't post further to this thread and, if you want to continue the discussion, we should continue on the discuss list. Sigh... We've lost many contributors to the project over the past 8-10 months, but I had thought that the upside of that shedding of interested community members was that communication within the project had improved to a more-mature level than the flaming discussions of the first few months... Please read the above as meant in a friendly manner, although I am exercising my right to intellectually disagree with you. :-) I regret that I won't be at the conference, or I would definitely buy you a beer to show you that there are no hard feelings on my side. ;-) -- David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to steering-discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/steering-discuss/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
