On Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:50:57 -0500, Robert Schweikert wrote:
On 02/16/2012 06:03 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
On Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:50:31 -0500, Robert Schweikert wrote:
I'm generally fine with that. Just want to see it clarified that contribution is definitely not going to be part of renewal criteria.
It is all about contribution, that's in the end why we have a contribution criteria to become a member in the first place.
I'm kinda wondering if maybe the two being intermingled like this isn't problematic on some level.
It is or would be easier to express what we are after.
Maybe that's where we should be starting, then. :)
Being involved in project governance is definitely a contribution, at least in my book, and requires more patience that toiling away on technical items. However, our community is based around a technical "product" and I feel strongly that those involved in governance of the project should contribute to the technical content of the project or the promotion of our project. Just being involved in the governance is, in my opinion insufficient.
To some degree, I agree with Nelson's take on this - while certainly those involved in governance should have a stake beyond governance itself, at the same time, when one looks at how projects are managed, the project manager may or may not have a direct stake in the outcome of the project (beyond the project's success or failure). (As an aside - calling us the "openSUSE project" is in itself something of a misnomer - a "project" is something that has a defined beginning and end, whereas what we "do" here is an ongoing task, continually improving the openSUSE product.) If we step back from the discussion of what makes someone a 'member', perhaps the thing to look at is who the stakeholders in openSUSE are. There may be some overlap here (actually, there's guaranteed to be overlap), but I see the stakeholders as people like: * Developers * Users * Community Leaders * SUSE * Testers * Ambassadors * Those who manage the websites, wiki, etc. * Marketing * The Board Of course this list isn't comprehensive. But from such a list, then what can be identified is what contribution those in each role make, and from there determine which contributions constitute an ongoing commitment to openSUSE. As a broad example, is the mere act of installing openSUSE enough of a commitment to openSUSE? Probably not. But someone who takes the time to install every milestone and test it, reporting issues they run into in order to make openSUSE better - that arguably demonstrates a commitment to openSUSE that's beyond that of a user who just installs and uses the distribution.
Perhaps what we should be looking at is the various roles in the project and how they relate to the project as a whole. If we do that, then the discussion of project governance becomes just about another role in the project; how one gets involved in project governance then becomes a discussion more along the lines of how one would have patches accepted into the codebase rather than a "contribution merit" discussion (which seems to derail the discussion).
I think the governance roles are reasonably defined. However, within this definition there is nothing that strikes at the heart of the matter we are trying to resolve.
What do you do with those that are members but no longer contribute?
I think that's something we figure out once we figure out what constitutes a contribution. If we don't know what constitutes a contribution, then it's hard to define what to do with inactive members (since we haven't defined what constitutes 'activity'). It also is important, though, for the definition of 'activity' to be flexible enough to allow things to be added that hadn't been previously thought of. Jim -- Jim Henderson Please keep on-topic replies on the list so everyone benefits -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org