Re: [OSCOM] Some questions about open-source project governance
Michael Wechner <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.cms.oscom |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Tony Byrne - CMS Watch wrote: >The recent split in the Mambo community got me thinking about project >governance. > >>From a distance I thought Mambo could benefit from a separate foundation >to govern the project, but it seems that the community couldn't get >there without splitting. Also, one of the subtexts to the dispute >apparently was a disagreement about software development -- specifically >over the trade-off between functionality & complexity. > >Meanwhile, the guys at Alfresco (www.alfresco.org) claim to be building >a broadly capable "enterprise" document management system, all while >keeping tight control over code commits, at least in the near term. > >So my questions for the group are: > > - Is some sort of foundation an essential step in the maturation of an >open-source project? > do you mean maturation code-wise or community-wise or both? I think from a user point of view a "real open" foundation is a good thing, but from a dev point of view it can be a PITA. I am very biased ;-) and I am not sure if there is a definitive answer, because it can have advantages and disadvantages. > It seems like a lot of major OS CMS packages are >going that way. > > but it might be a mistake though ... > - If so, what's the best way initially to create a board to govern an >open-source project? > > I think it depends where one puts the focus. If the project is commercially oriented that it seems to me it's about connections and knowledge-base and that things can be established quickly. If the primary focus is not commercial, but just the thing itself, then it's about building trust over time and letting only those people participate who "proved" trustworthy ... > - How do you balance broad community participation on the one hand, and >code quality & application simplicity on the other? > > the dev team would be small and in strong company, but transparent to the outside, whereas community input should be handled seriously and input should be made very easily. To be honest I start to believe in "friendly dictatorship" (which doesn't mean it has to be one person, because that normally scales badly), meaning that the dictator entity doesn't dictate for it's own good, but for the good of the community, whereas that's the tricky part, because what is the good of the community?! Whereas I believe one can setup criteria at least for an aspect of that, e.g. the software would require for instance the following criteria: - performance - scalability - backwards-compatibility - upgradibility - ... It comes to my mind the book of Assimov: Rules of Robotics and how at the end of the book the robots are taking over without the humans actually realizing (at least only a very few humans). > - Do projects that create an architecture for 3rd-party, add-on >"plug-ins" or "products" have a leg up here? > what you mean by leg up? add-on modules are a great community building tool ... > If so, how do you respond >to inevitable community demands to "certify" add-on modules? > > > - Do open-source infrastructure (webserver, DB, operating system) >projects have an easier go of this than CMS packages, despite the >formers' large size? It seems to me they do, particularly in setting >scope. > > maybe because the scope is clearer, whereas CMS packages are still defining themselves. HTH Michi >Thanks for any feedback. > >---------------------------------------------- >Tony Byrne Silver Spring, MD USA >Founder, CMS Watch V: +1 301 585 7004 > >Technology Evaluation Reports >http://www.cmswatch.com/Reports/About/ > >Feed: http://www.cmswatch.com/RSS/cmswatch.xml > > > >_______________________________________________ >General mailing list >[email protected] >http://oscom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/general > > > -- Michael Wechner Wyona - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org [email protected] [email protected]