[openbeos] Re: Openness

  • From: "Axel Dörfler" <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 17:16:03 +0200 CEST

Hi Hugo,

"Hugo Santos" <hugosantos@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 5/14/07, Axel Dörfler <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 1) the fact that most work was done by few people surely has many
> > reasons and IMO cannot be used to support your argument
>   I believe it influences the amount of people that could approach 
> the
> project as contributors.

How so?

> > 2) who would expect to have a say in a large project from the day 
> > on he
> > decides to contribute to that project? It cannot work this way.
>   I didn't say that. What i said is that it should be clear how 
> people
> may eventually get involved in the decision making process. It is not
> clear now, and the group is closed. You mention that people should 
> ask
> to enter the admin team, Michael said that people do not ask, get
> invited. So it seems to me it is not clear at all.

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.

> > 3) we still have mostly the same people because they are committed 
> > to
> > the 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.
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.

> > 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, 
> > and
> > that'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?

> Im not a lawyer, but i believe this distribution "guidelines" 
> indirectly affect
> the code as well.

No, it doesn't.

>   "Neither the name of the <ORGANIZATION> nor the names of its
> contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
> this software without specific prior written permission."

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.

Bye,
   Axel.


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