Re: [Libreoffice-qa] Role of the QA calls

[Petr Mladek]

Rainer Bielefeld píše v Čt 25. 04. 2013 v 19:40 +0200:
> Hi,
> 
> in discussions I sometimes read statements like  „...formal vote next 
> call”. I think here some clarification is required.

I agree that the wording is not ideal and we should improve it. The
processes are often just suggested and you could do it your way if it
does not break others and if it does not create mess in bugzilla. I hope
most of the proposed changes are not in conflict with your processes.

In each case, many of the QA call decisions are about tasks for the
participants and they do not affect others that much. For example, the
contest preparation, talkyoo problems, attachments to FDO.

Some others are about processes that were discussed on the mailing list
where it was hard to reach a conclusion. IMHO, it is worth to get into a
conclusion and the call is the most effective solution. But it does not
mean that it is the final solution. Everything can be improved and
changed.

Finally, we have started to discusse things about the formal structure
of the team recently. It is just proposal and I hope that we will not
end there. IMHO, open source projects can't be successful with any deep
and complex structure of decision making. And you are right that this
project is meriocratic. Well, we need a  group of people that will drive
forward some long pending activities, who would make an agreement when
there is long discussions on the mailing list, many different ideas and
no conclusion. We also need someone who would actually do the action or
document it. I think that the QA call is the best place. We need to have
the most active people on the call. I am very sad that you could not
make it.

> The working sphere in the LibO project caused considerable discomfort 
> for me, and because I doubt that this incompatibility can be solved, I 
> decided to leave the LibO project. In future I will contribute to Open 
> Source PLC Programming Libraries.

I am really sad to read this. I hope that we could change this and make
you happy again.


Best Regards,
Petr

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Re: [Libreoffice-qa] Role of the QA calls

[Bjoern Michaelsen]

Hi Rainer,

On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 07:40:07PM +0200, Rainer Bielefeld wrote:
> The QA call has no command of the QA community. The calls and their
> participants are not a formal entity of TDF. The only legitimation
> of the results of these calls can be that decisions are wise, well
> and comprehensible founded, what would be an appropriate base that
> community might follow. Only a logic decision, promising success and
> plausible for the other members of the community grant acceptance.

And calls are there to find these. None of these decisions are laws or things
set in stone, they are a consensus of the most workable solution at a point in
time.

> The sight of an accidental majority of accidental present laymen is
> irrelevant. TDF is a meritocratic institution, not a democratic one,
> and that's the same with the QA community.

There is rarely any confrontational decision making going on, but collaborative
finding of the best doable solution. In a meritocracy, joining these calls is
highly relevant.
 
> So, of course, the calls may coordinate the work of the participants
> as they want. And some of the results are really great, for example
> the rework and additionally new creation of the QA Wiki and web
> pages. But if the talk is about things affecting other people's work
> or even do something what might be called decisions, the results
> should be presented to the community in clear, brief, transparent
> way like: „Our conclusion was that we should do abc because of def,
> we also thought about ghi and jkl, but we dismissed those
> alternative because of mno and pqr. If we don't hear concerns, xyz
> will proceed”.

There are minutes of the calls, which are extensive and tiresome work to create
(as is leading and moderating such a call), which should do exactly that.
Beyond that, its always possible to join these calls. As said before, there
were multiple reschedulings to accomondate more participants and these calls
are open to _anyone_ interested.

> ... I decided to leave the LibO project. In future I will
> contribute to Open Source PLC Programming Libraries.

Really sad to see you leave, your contributions were highly appreciated. An let
me reemphasize we would have loved to have you -- as a high volume bug mover --
on the QA calls to coordinate the activities in the QA team internally and in
interaction with other parts of the project.

Best,

Bjoern
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Re: [Libreoffice-qa] Role of the QA calls

[Joel Madero]

I want to second virtually everything Sophie said. I do hope that you
reconsider as your are really one of the core members of our team.

What I want to say are a couple things:

a) communicating through electronic form takes some marketing skills and we
are working on this, I promise you that every time you have a suggestion we
talk about these things and try to improve on how we present ideas.

b) We are always welcoming to your thoughts, even if they are very much
different from our own, we respect you and what you have to say.

Our main goals going forward are to really get ourselves organized, this
isn't a way to "tell you what to do" so maybe we need to clarify this and
say these are suggestions

What we want to avoid is endless discussions, there are so many times when
a project is held up because of endless discussions and this IMO is not
okay - this is where voting (openly, publicly, and through call AND email)
is best. A 2 week period to allow everyone to get their thoughts down and
then allow a vote to me seems most democratic - this is vs. 1 person (not
saying you, just a single person) disagreeing and leading to an endless
stream of thoughts where nothing moves forward.

When we say "AGREED" on agenda it means those people who made the call
agreed to something, if someone has an issue with this, they can voice it,
we can have a 2 week talking period (through email, again publicly) and
then we need to make a decision - this is how any successful project is
run. Sometimes an individual may end up on the "losing side" of a decision
but we will ALWAYS respect their opinion.

One thing I did notice, and I was irked, was that you requested the end of
a "pointless conversation" because you disagreed with where "most people"
that were involved thought - we need to encourage debate/conversation, not
squash it.


These are my thoughts, I really hope you reconsider and I apologize if I've
done something to push you to this point.


Warm Regards,
Joel





> I'm so sad to read that, you're a key person for QA and that's a so long
> time I read and learn from your advices that I can't imagine you
> leaving. Please, may I ask you to reconsider your decision, we really
> want you in the project, not only in QA but as member of our project.
> I'm sure the organization can be discussed and modified, sometimes
> decisions are taken without knowing all the outcomes and consequences,
> but we are able to communicate about that (and there is a point here
> about the lack of communication in our LibreOffice project) may be
> because we are too short in resources in some areas so we go straight
> where we should take more time to discuss.
>
> Kind regards
> Sophie
>
>
> On 25/04/2013 19:40, Rainer Bielefeld wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > in discussions I sometimes read statements like  „...formal vote next
> > call”. I think here some clarification is required.
> >
> > The QA call has no command of the QA community. The calls and their
> > participants are not a formal entity of TDF. The only legitimation of
> > the results of these calls can be that decisions are wise, well and
> > comprehensible founded, what would be an appropriate base that community
> > might follow. Only a logic decision, promising success and plausible for
> > the other members of the community grant acceptance. The sight of an
> > accidental majority of accidental present laymen is irrelevant. TDF is a
> > meritocratic institution, not a democratic one, and that's the same with
> > the QA community.
> >
> > So, of course, the calls may coordinate the work of the participants as
> > they want. And some of the results are really great, for example the
> > rework and additionally new creation of the QA Wiki and web pages. But
> > if the talk is about things affecting other people's work or even do
> > something what might be called decisions, the results should be
> > presented to the community in clear, brief, transparent way like: „Our
> > conclusion was that we should do abc because of def, we also thought
> > about ghi and jkl, but we dismissed those alternative because of mno and
> > pqr. If we don't hear concerns, xyz will proceed”.
> >
> > So please think about the presentation of the results of the calls. To
> > be honest - my regard concerning the QA calls is not good. All the
> > "decisions" are reasoned with "we agreed". That's not sufficient, the
> > call has to reason why the rest of the community should accept and
> > follow those ideas. Currently for many issues (not only related to QA
> > calls) I only see actionism what often shows a lack of understanding of
> > the complex matters. Because I do not want to compromise someone here in
> > the project I choose an example from somewhere else, "advice" I got the
> > last weeks often was very similar to this joke:
> > .
> >
> > The working sphere in the LibO project caused considerable discomfort
> > for me, and because I doubt that t

Re: [Libreoffice-qa] Role of the QA calls

[mariosv]

Hi Rainer,

I am with Sophie in asking you to reconsider the decision.

Miguel Ángel



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Re: [Libreoffice-qa] Role of the QA calls

[Sophie Gautier]

Hi Rainer,

I'm so sad to read that, you're a key person for QA and that's a so long
time I read and learn from your advices that I can't imagine you
leaving. Please, may I ask you to reconsider your decision, we really
want you in the project, not only in QA but as member of our project.
I'm sure the organization can be discussed and modified, sometimes
decisions are taken without knowing all the outcomes and consequences,
but we are able to communicate about that (and there is a point here
about the lack of communication in our LibreOffice project) may be
because we are too short in resources in some areas so we go straight
where we should take more time to discuss.

Kind regards
Sophie


On 25/04/2013 19:40, Rainer Bielefeld wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> in discussions I sometimes read statements like  „...formal vote next
> call”. I think here some clarification is required.
> 
> The QA call has no command of the QA community. The calls and their
> participants are not a formal entity of TDF. The only legitimation of
> the results of these calls can be that decisions are wise, well and
> comprehensible founded, what would be an appropriate base that community
> might follow. Only a logic decision, promising success and plausible for
> the other members of the community grant acceptance. The sight of an
> accidental majority of accidental present laymen is irrelevant. TDF is a
> meritocratic institution, not a democratic one, and that's the same with
> the QA community.
> 
> So, of course, the calls may coordinate the work of the participants as
> they want. And some of the results are really great, for example the
> rework and additionally new creation of the QA Wiki and web pages. But
> if the talk is about things affecting other people's work or even do
> something what might be called decisions, the results should be
> presented to the community in clear, brief, transparent way like: „Our
> conclusion was that we should do abc because of def, we also thought
> about ghi and jkl, but we dismissed those alternative because of mno and
> pqr. If we don't hear concerns, xyz will proceed”.
> 
> So please think about the presentation of the results of the calls. To
> be honest - my regard concerning the QA calls is not good. All the
> "decisions" are reasoned with "we agreed". That's not sufficient, the
> call has to reason why the rest of the community should accept and
> follow those ideas. Currently for many issues (not only related to QA
> calls) I only see actionism what often shows a lack of understanding of
> the complex matters. Because I do not want to compromise someone here in
> the project I choose an example from somewhere else, "advice" I got the
> last weeks often was very similar to this joke:
> .
> 
> The working sphere in the LibO project caused considerable discomfort
> for me, and because I doubt that this incompatibility can be solved, I
> decided to leave the LibO project. In future I will contribute to Open
> Source PLC Programming Libraries.
> 
> Bye
> 
> 
> Rainer
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-- 
Sophie Gautier 
Tel:+33683901545
Membership & Certification Committee Member - Co-founder
The Document Foundation
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[Libreoffice-qa] Role of the QA calls

[Rainer Bielefeld]

Hi,

in discussions I sometimes read statements like  „...formal vote next 
call”. I think here some clarification is required.


The QA call has no command of the QA community. The calls and their 
participants are not a formal entity of TDF. The only legitimation of 
the results of these calls can be that decisions are wise, well and 
comprehensible founded, what would be an appropriate base that community 
might follow. Only a logic decision, promising success and plausible for 
the other members of the community grant acceptance. The sight of an 
accidental majority of accidental present laymen is irrelevant. TDF is a 
meritocratic institution, not a democratic one, and that's the same with 
the QA community.


So, of course, the calls may coordinate the work of the participants as 
they want. And some of the results are really great, for example the 
rework and additionally new creation of the QA Wiki and web pages. But 
if the talk is about things affecting other people's work or even do 
something what might be called decisions, the results should be 
presented to the community in clear, brief, transparent way like: „Our 
conclusion was that we should do abc because of def, we also thought 
about ghi and jkl, but we dismissed those alternative because of mno and 
pqr. If we don't hear concerns, xyz will proceed”.


So please think about the presentation of the results of the calls. To 
be honest - my regard concerning the QA calls is not good. All the 
"decisions" are reasoned with "we agreed". That's not sufficient, the 
call has to reason why the rest of the community should accept and 
follow those ideas. Currently for many issues (not only related to QA 
calls) I only see actionism what often shows a lack of understanding of 
the complex matters. Because I do not want to compromise someone here in 
the project I choose an example from somewhere else, "advice" I got the 
last weeks often was very similar to this joke: 
.


The working sphere in the LibO project caused considerable discomfort 
for me, and because I doubt that this incompatibility can be solved, I 
decided to leave the LibO project. In future I will contribute to Open 
Source PLC Programming Libraries.


Bye


Rainer
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