Hi Axel, Axel Dörfler wrote:
Hi Hugo, "Hugo Santos" <hugosantos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:On 5/14/07, Axel Dörfler <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:I believe it influences the amount of people that could approach the1) the fact that most work was done by few people surely has many reasons and IMO cannot be used to support your argumentproject as contributors.How so?
Actually, many people may not even be interested in becoming an admin. But I am sure that even they would appreciate knowing more about the decision-makers (who comes, who goes), what is being discussed, and what the reasoning is behind the decisions taken (even if it's in the form of brief summaries).
Having some transparency is a good thing. Not that it's to create an flood of new contributors overnight; but it would definitely be a positive contributing factor over time. A good of mix of transparency/openness, good communications and advocacy would definitely have a positive effect in attracting new talent.
3) we still have mostly the same people because they are committed tothe success of Haiku - that's not a disadvantage.Right, i'm not saying that people should leave, i was pointing at the fact that the developer count hasn't grown.You start contributing to a project because it interests you, or you share a similar goal. It's clear that nebulous leadership can move people away, but I doubt that's the reason we didn't grow that much in the number of active developers.
Would you at least be open to the possibility that it may be *one* of the reasons? :)
Just take Linux into the comparison - the sheer number of contributors makes it more or less impossible that you have a say. In fact, there is only one person that rules it all - and yet it seems to work quite well for whatever reason.
Is this a valid comparison? I think Linux (the kernel) has very different needs from Haiku (the full fledged OS) relative to what the project would need in terms of contributors. No?
Trust is hard to measure. It obviously plays a role in selecting the members of the admin group, but trust (in your commitment) will come automatically when you're a long term contributor. It's not even that everyone in the current admin group was invited; some just asked, andthat's probably the best way to actually get into the group.You mention the trust the project has on you, not the trust onst must have on the project's admin team, which my point was all about.Oh, I missed that, sorry. The trust in the project's admin group should be determined by the actions of that group, and what they achieved in the past, right? Most people that are in the admin group today had a big part in shaping Haiku to what it is today - why shouldn't you trust them?
I think the actual problem with the trust factor is that one thing is to make code contributions, and another to manage a project.
If the admin group would only be tasked with engineering-related activities (as in a technical council of sorts), then I would understand if one of the main yardsticks for admission would be the quantity and quality of the code contributions that the admin candidate makes.
But if the admin group is to be the one and only decision-making body dealing with a wide range of topics, including many not directly related to software development, then I have my reservations about using code contributions as criteria for automatically granting admin status.
Just to illustrate, I trust that you will make sound decisions about the Haiku kernel; but my confidence level would drop dramatically if you had to make a decision about, say, marketing or advocacy (please, don't take this as a personal offense).
Cheers, Koki
