[openbeos] Re: Openness
- From: "Hugo Santos" <hugosantos@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 02:42:25 +0100
Hi Axel,
On 5/14/07, Axel Dörfler <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I believe it influences the amount of people that could approach
> the
> project as contributors.
How so?
From my experience, the idea that it is a small group of people
which know each other can be a demoralizing factor to newcomers, as
they feel they'll never really get inside the group.
Alright, if all you ask for is more clarity, then I'm with you :-)
Personally (and from prior experience in Haiku), I'd say everyone can
suggest everyone to become part of the admin group. The group itself
then votes if the new member is accepted (ie. is invited) or not.
Yes, clarity. :-)
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.
Linux works a bit differently, there aren't a lot of non-paid kernel
developers (at least of large contributions), and those which are
non-paid are usually close to the core group anyway. There are several
people in Linux that limit what gets in, usually each subsystem
maintainer, although Linus has the veto power. It is a small issue as
most companies involved ship their own tree instead of vanilla.
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 it's more to the fact that people tend to trust people they
know. The good thing about elections is that they tend to reflect an
updated view on trust (or awareness). Trusting someone because they
achieved something in the past makes sense while there is a connection
between those people and newcomers. I have a great deal of respect for
all of the people that contributed to Haiku and brought it to where it
is today, however, there must always be space for new people to
eventually shape Haiku, so the project may continue evolving.
All we do is protect the name, not the code; ie. you must not call a
Haiku distribution Haiku - what part is so hard to understand here?
The only thing you could criticize (from an open source POV) is that we
are not as free with our trademarks than we are with the code. But not
very surprising, most open source projects are.
Ben Allen pointed to me offlist that the trademarked material is not
considered software within the MIT license definition. So this is
clear to me now.
Hugo
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