On 29.12.2011 01:06, Greg Freemyer wrote:
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:05 PM, Kim Leyendecker <leyendecker@opensuse.org> wrote:
On 28.12.2011 22:43, Per Jessen wrote:
Furthermore, my reasoning wrt a steering committee is that we (the project) might want to intervene if or when the developer(s) neglect to consider what the user(s) want. See e.g. the gcc/egcs story I have referred to in another posting.
Ok, completely agree to this, but how you want to do this? openFATE is right on the floor, and it doesn´t need an additional committee, maybe just give that task to the board? And, just to get clear, isn´t that also a task of a community manager?
--kdl
You mean Jos Poortvliet? I don't think he acts as a steering committee for the technical side of the project nor does his role call for it I don't think. I assume he impacts the marketing team as a steering leader.
I actually thought he´s also some kind of a moderator.
I suspect Coolo (release manager) and Andreas Jaeger (openSUSE Program Manager) have far more influence on fundamental technical decisions.
correct. (as far as I can say...)
I think a lot of it actually falls on squarely Coolo (release manager) now (or at least that is my assumption.). But I also suspect there is at least an informal steering committee somewhere already. The steering committee may change from item to item as Coolo looks for advice.
The reality is a lot of the project "decisions" are enforced by tools like rpmlint and other OBS configuration checking tools.
I agree with Per that the management and functionality changes to those tools should be made more transparent. As it currently is, the vast majority of packagers find out about changes to the policies (or whatever they are) when one of the tools is rolled into production with the new function/feature in place.
They are certainly not handled by openfate from what I've seen.
So my impression of the current state is:
Attachmate/SUSE names the release manager, project manager, and community manager: They in turn are the current effective steering committee with Coolo and Andreas acting as the technical leaders that I believe Per is talking about.
So my question back to Per is, "assuming I'm accurate and Coolo, Andreas, and Jos currently act as a steering committee designated by Attachmate/SLED, what is your proposal?"
=== One possibly trivial recent example of openSUSE already having a steering committee is the move from the old license tokens to the new ones from SPDX.
Old: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Accepted_licences#Good_Licenses
New: http://spdx.org/licenses/
ie. Old: GPLv2+ New: GPL-2+
I just searched openfate for SPDX I get zero hits, so that was not the source of this change.
I think it is great that license tokens be agreed on between multiple distros, so I see this as step forward, but it is not something individual maintainers can make happen. It has to happen at the overall project level.
But I doubt the board had any say in this change nor am I aware of it being discussed anywhere in particular. (but since the board doesn't use opensuse-board@opensuse.org there is no way I can confirm that theory.)
Certainly it wasn't voted on by the members and it should not be. It is not something we need a full community vote for.
I assume it would be Per's steering committee that he would envision making the decision of if the license tokens should be changed from the old values to the new values. And if so what enforcement tool would be used to ensure that only openSUSE approved license tokens are used in the specfiles.
Greg
So, I´d like to see openFATE more used for community decisions. Like: 1.) A proposal goes through openFATE first. 2.) After an achieved number of "okays" it goes through a steering committee 3.) If the steering committee approves, it will be applied by the distro, project etc. advantages: the whole community can decide where the distro and the project is going (democracy as it should be) disadvantages: It´ll take a lot of time, which we might not have. On the other hand, if a steering committee will be established, you also have to find people who act as it. Now, AJ and Coolo would be fine for that job, because they have big influence on the project and also have the necessary knowledge to do that. Now, whereas I´d be okay with them others may not. So, elections will be necessary. And here you have to define the committee. I would suggest the following: SUSE is naming three persons, and the community will elect other three persons so that no party will have a majority. "Kim, SUSE´s also a part of the community!" Yes, but it still pays for most of the marketing materials and still maintains our server infrastructure, not to forget who holds the copyright etc. Once a foundation is established, SUSE could give the right to name three persons up to the foundation. That´s only my version how to establish and use such a committee, it´s also not tested anywhere, so it might would fail. --kdl -- kind regards, -o) German Wiki Team Kim Leyendecker /\ Documentation& marketing www.opensuse.org __v leyendecker@opensuse.org ===================================================== my GPG Key: 664265369547B825 | IRC: k-d-l Twitter: kim_d_ley | Wiki-Username: openLHAG openSUSE - Linux for open minds - get it free today! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org