[arch-dev-public] discussions to death, rules - no innovations?

[Damir Perisa]

Wednesday 24 October 2007, Andreas Radke wrote:
 | In the last few weeks I've seen so many threads about rules and
 | votings we want to give ourself(e.g repo destinctions and repo
 | dividing lines, pkg signoff, iso naming, package movements,
 | license issues, cvs move,...).
 |
 | Wasn't it the big advantage to trust the ArchLinux developers that
 | made it fast growing and bleading edge with an acceptable level of
 | instability?
 |
 | I still like to decide myself what and when to move packages into
 | the repos or when to remove them. Now I have to ask and wait for
 | other devs to signoff packages even for minor bugfixes. And that
 | for two architectures.
 |
 | Didn't we elect Mr. T to become the release manager to let him
 | decide what to do?
 |
 | Now with all the discussions to death and often no actions
 | following - see orphans and cleanup - I loose some of the Arch
 | feeling. All these coming rules seem to slow us down more and more
 | without finding new skilled manpower.
 |
 | I'm sure we all only want the best for ArchLinux but is that
 | the right way? Some rules are always ok. But I have the feeling we
 | are on the way to become somewhat of an overcontrolled and
 | superduper planned Debian.
 |
 | Don't you feel the same?
 |
 | Andy

not ... yet :)

growing induces levels of complexity. a principle in biology.... or 
have you seen recently a 2 m big bacteria walking around and 
discussing things with us? if you want to grow, get more users, then 
you need to ensure some processes to work.

you wanted to have stable branches from what i read on the other 
thread (sorry, if i misunderstood... didnt get the whole discussion). 
one implemented thing is that two devs have to sign a pkg that is 
core. this works ... it spamms the ml a little, but it works. it 
slows down release, thats true, but with this additional line of 
complexity, it ensures not a single dev breaking the core. ... 
well... still 2 can break it :) hi hi... but that is less probable to 
happen :)

besides this, we discussed lots, thats true. i stopped also reading 
the "kill cvs" thread, because i expressed my opinion in the so 
named "Damiristic" way. the last status report summarises - as it 
should - the state of all this ongoing things. one email to summarise 
everything - i do not know that other repos have such plain 
organisation/documentation of processes *fg*. however, it lacks 
things, that i usually specify in my SRs: deadlines on when something 
will be decided. i know from the calcutta-project where i'm leading 
the public relations / fundrasing that deadlines are not easy to set 
in a all-volontary project. nobody wants to stress others on 
decisions. we all do it for fun, right? --- however, they should be 
done... and are done, but sometimes too slow or even get forgotten... 
or fall out becase of too-low priority. (e.g. i didn't find yet the 
time to write the patch for including the automatic emailing of news 
to the mls - i know, however it is under the priority limit i'm 
dealing now in my free time... it will come "soon" :)
however, i would welcome for group-decisions and discussions a 
deadline and schedule aware organisation. 

we discuss, but we need to set 

* the date how long we have to discuss, 

* who votes when and 

* till when it is decided.

i think this slowdown you feel a little bit... it is not not arch. it 
is not not KISS. it is just one of the strains of growing, while 
still being KISS :)

- D


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