[openbeos] Re: Open Letter: Project Administration - Was: Re: FalterCon 2007 Permissions - Official Response
- From: "Michael Lotz" <mmlr@xxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 18:56:53 +0200
On Mon, 6 Aug 2007 13:58:25 +0100, Euan Kirkhope wrote
>> Stop right there. "Haiku has established a decisive body". Who was
>> Haiku when the decisive body was established? Two options, the
>> community that wanted to rebuild BeOS, or the developers that were
>> actually doing it. To be honest, I think in the early phases those two
>> were the same thing. How has Haiku changed? Does it include the
>> enthousiasts? Does it include the people contributing on the web? Or
>> is the definition of Haiku still the people that are in the admin
>> team? I wouldn't know the answer, since there never were a clear list
>> of tasks and obligations published for members of the admin team.
OK, wait a second. I am a bit confused right now. What are you asking here? If
I understand you correctly you ask the admin team whether it thinks it is the
whole 'project' and the single thing that defines Haiku. While I won't speak
for others, to me this sounds just silly. It is not like I started to be
interested in Haiku and then right away became part of the admin team. In the
first time I was just observing a bit, read the mailing lists and commits.
Sometime I got involved into coding by small contributions and then tackled
bigger objects. During this time I always felt that I was part of Haiku. From
the very beginning, because in my eyes Haiku is defined by everything that
supports it - the code in the repository, the website, the people that
contribute to the website by posting into forums and blogs, those who write
articles to be published, those who post to the mailing lists with suggestions
or different viewpoints to consider. I even go as far as to say even those
who just visit the website or lurk on one of the lists, because they obviously
have an interest in Haiku.
This view hasn't changed since I became a member of the admin team. I don't
suddenly see myself as some kind of god that has the power to overrule other
people. While I am part of the decision making process and could actually
overrule people, this is not my intention. Who would profit from that? Do you
think it gives me something to decide in an opposite direction than everyone
else just for the sake of it? After all I am part of what Haiku defines like
everyone who is reading this. If I do my part in the decision making process I
will always try to do so in the best sense for Haiku. I consider it as one of
my duties as an admin team member to read this very mailing list and to
understand the viewpoints that are expressed here. I consider and balance them
to find my final opinion.
I don't know everyone on the admin team personally, but those I do know are
all pretty reasonable people. They also participate on this list and state
their opinions. That's why I assume that they care about Haiku in a similar
way and will take other opinions seriously.
>>>> I think the questions that that needs asking RIGHT NOW isn't if things
>>>> like this should be allowed or not allowed. It should be why is the
>>>> community so polarized on their opinions. Get that sorted and you
>>>> won't need an admin team.
Now this was a very bold statement. As a member of the admin team it hits me
personally right in the face. I sincerely hope it was not meant as it was
written, because this would be incredibly shortsighted. The admin team,
coupled with Haiku Inc. for example is there to centrally manage funds. While
Haiku Inc. is there, it is simply an entity to get tax deductibility for
donations. The decision what to do with funds is done by the admin team. It
spends them for example to pay for hosting our website. In the future, the
admin team will probably use Haiku Inc. also to approach businesses, like for
getting device specs or SDKs.
Maybe it would be possible to organize this without an admin team, but in the
end how would that look? Probably some person would step up to manage funds,
maybe even a group would come together to do it - so you would get pretty much
the same setup. The question is would you trust this random group more than
the group that does that now? The group, that after all consists of people
that have been working actively on and for Haiku in the last few years.
>> In my view, the administration team is the body that evenly
>> distributes the resources that are available for a purpose. Three
>> things that need to be defined:
Agreed.
>> First there is the word 'resource'. In the case of Haiku it means
>> things like donation money, trademarks, image and influence (by means
>> of official recognition), etc. Even people, though limited because of
>> the fact that it is an open source volunteer effort. What is a
>> resource that the administration team controls and what is not?
I'd say you summed it up pretty nicely.
>> Then there is the 'purpose'. What is the purpose? Flesh it out. It
>> currently is to rewrite an open source BeOS R5 clone. That's somewhat
>> clear. But what's the definition of clone? How do the interface kit
>> layout changes fit in? Is that part of the purpose? Should we allow
>> resources (read: svn commit acces) for that? How do other non-clone
>> contributions fit in? What's the magic recipe? Also, think about the
>> other side of purpose. Is it the purpose of the project to create a
>> completely stable operating system, or is the purpose at the moment to
>> lure in as much developers. _Purpose_ is not fixed, it will change
>> over time. But it should be clear at all times.
As you say, purpose is not fixed. In my eyes it is clear enough right now. The
target that I see is a binary backwards compatible, stable, usable and
polished system. Stable in the sense that it is not crashing for my everyday
work and also if I wanted to use it as a small server. Not stable in the sense
that we will only release it if it runs for years under heavy load and does
never have issues. Usable in the sense that I can use it without constantly
asking myself why something annoys me. Polished in a sense that I don't have
the moment where I look at the screen and think "no that's an ugly glitch" or
"that part was obviously forgotten". I try to simply employ common sense.
How do the changes fit in you ask? To me this is also pretty clear: they are
here to be used later on. The layout system is supposed to be a private API in
R1 for example. But I think it is justified to build and use it, when it helps
us making internal applications being font sensitive with less effort.
Other changes like better posix compliance are a kind of natural thing. We
happen to implement these parts correctly from the start, instead of limiting
ourselves now just to have to fix them later.
I honestly don't know where exactly you're pointing at. Most if not all of the
changes are improvements, in a way that they speed up the system, make porting
easier or lower the barrier to write good applications. They are implemented
by people for free at their own will. It doesn't cost Haiku anything to get
those little extras.
If you try to say that we need an exact guideline what changes are allowed and
what not to not deviate from the R5 clone too much, then I say this is at
least very difficult. I haven't yet found anything where I would ask myself
"does this really fit in?". If this ever becomes the case, we certainly have
to talk about it.
If you want to address something specific, then please feel free and bring it
up.
>> Then there is 'evenly distributes'. What are the criteria for evenly?
>> What resources belong to the community? What kind of things should be
>> decided on? Where does the bulk of the 'evenly' go to? To proven
>> contributors? How are the resources distributed? By an administration
>> team vote? Does the administration team have members with different
>> roles that can decide on their own?
Usually someone in the admin team brings up a request to fund something. If
necessary a vote will be held and the decision is carried out. This request
can very well come from an outside source like a mailing list, it is not that
we would only care for ourselves. Generally I have found the members of the
admin team everything but greedy. I myself have spend a large amount of money
in for a donation to Haiku. I did this because I trust that something good
will come out of it. Paying Axel for some time to work on Haiku would for
example be such a thing.
Then again you ask what resources belong to the community. I think we did not
do soo bad in this regard. After all there is a website, there are mailing
lists, commit logs and even announcements about events of others. I see those
as community resources.
>> Now if you define these three things, you will have a model that will
>> shape two things. First of all it will shape the administration team,
>> its members and it's decision making process to fit with the purpose
>> of the project. And you know what? I don't think the current structure
>> is that fitting. But because of the obscurity that is created without
>> this clear mission statement, and the lack of a clear description of
>> the role of the administration team, there's no way to judge it or to
>> suggest changes.
I don't see what exactly is not fitting here. I admit that we have no "mission
statement" and that we have not documented the decision making process. Those
are items we are working on. In part due to this very discussion. I wasn't
aware of the need and lack of such a clear mission statement, so I didn't put
something like this forward until now. Generally I would have liked that the
circumstances and way to "request" those things from us being better ones, but
oh well.
>> Secondly it will give interested people a chance to decide whether or
>> not they align with the ideas the 'project' has. For people that
>> don't, they might end up deciding not to put in their resources in the
>> mix. Some might decide that they largely agree and are willing to
>> fight for the rest of their individual ideas. But what it will do is
>> that anyone currently on this list will be able to decide whether or
>> not they belong to the community.
I'm sorry to say that, but whether to put resources into something or not is a
decision everyone has to do themselves. I understand that it is difficult to
judge if there is no real mission statement, but for me personally this has
not been a problem. I don't need the project to tell me whether I should
contribute or not.
>> Now what should you do with this idea? Since the administration team
>> currently holds control of all resources, it's logical that this
>> should be discussed on _your_ mailing list. I know that there must be
>> a legion of people that want to comment on this. That's why I said we
>> should put our heads in the sand: we don't control the resources (or
>> at least, not a significant enough part of it), so any discussion is
>> pointless.
This again hits me personally. You imply that the discussions held here are
completely ignored. This is simply unfounded and unfair towards the admin
team. You make us sound like a selfish group of people that sucks in money
from others to do whatever they please. This is simply not the case. We are
all thinking human beings and try to do our best to shape up a project. If you
have proposals for doing something better, then make them heard, maybe we
simply didn't yet think about it.
>> So what can an ordinary mailing list reader do? Whether or not you are
>> a lurker, a casual contributor or a frequent contributor, evaluate if
>> you are currently happy with the direction the project is going. But
>> as soon as you feel you are wasting your time, fly away. There's so
>> much more to experience.
What bothers me here is "the direction the project is going". I don't
understand this. Is the project going anywhere different than a year ago? Does
it go anywhere else than getting a more stable codebase with each fixed bug?
It is not like the admin team suddenly announced a focus shift or something.
If you can point me to concrete examples I will be grateful, because I
honestly don't see what you mean right now.
>> Currently, I feel alienated. I hardly can put in the effort on the API
>> documentation. I have a sort of Haiku-tiredness. I think defining the
>> purpose of Haiku is important to me, to check whether or not I align
>> with the community. Because in my world, a community is a group of
>> people that support a common purpose, and I'm just not sure that I'm
>> on the same line as those that control the resources.
I really hope that this mail at least somehow makes sense and clears up
something. Mind you I am completely speaking for myself here. I don't imply
that my view is the right one, it's just an opinion. Sorry for the long mail
by the way, thanks for reading.
Regards
Michael
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