Re: PMC 2009: Platform for Ticket

Robert Town wrote:

> 
> Roadmaps for code and project
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Xaraya has been lacking coherent and decisive direction for some time.
> As mambers of the PMC, we will engage the community in determining what
> goals, milestones, and processes should be implemented for our codebases
> and the project as a whole.

This concerns me greatly. The core development team, whoever that is,
are surely best informed to make decisions about the goals and
milestones of the project, and processes that should be implemented in
the codebase? Or have i misunderstood this statement?


> 
> Relaunch xaraya.com
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The current design of our website is old. As a web-based project, we
> have a certain responsibility to keep our site fresh and modern.
> 
> A new theme and content reorganization has been in the works for over a
> year. Certain aspects of completing this are made more difficult while
> the current theme is the default. We will activate the new theme and
> finish the content changes afterward. This includes new publication
> types, new categories structure, updates to existing content, and an
> ongoing effort to create new content, sourced from all members of the
> community.

Is this hands on role really the key task of the PMC? I'm not precluding
 and overlap of roles here, and certainly members of PMC can take on
other hands on roles. However - isn't the primary role of the PMC with
managing and coordinating others for the benefit of the project overall?
This is a massive task and would be pretty much all consuming without
some team to do this - how will this affect the role of the PMC in
actually doing PMC work?


> 
> Encourage contribution and openness*
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> A project such as Xaraya is too big for only a select few to do
> everything. Without a broad base of contributors, a lot of work rests on
> too few shoulders. When more people contribute, everyone benefits from
> the project's ability to achieve more and better things. When we foster
> and genuinely consider new ideas, our community becomes stronger.

In an alternative thread, I've just been told that some pmc nominees are
actively involved in 2x development in private, with closed code. This
has been going on for months and this will supplant the existing branch
in 2x once they win PMC position.

How does this encourage openness or collaboration? Is this going to be
the normal form of collaboration, development and decision making on it?
ie "I'm PMC so i'll put in what i want in the code". Seems to also clash
directly with " Roadmaps for code and project" above.

Please excuse me if i've misinterpretted but it seems to clash.

 > Jumpstart 2x efforts with a release
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The new codebase is not complete, but it is functional enough that it
> can be used. In order to attract users and developers, 2x needs to be
> accessible. Development releases are a critical part of the development
> process. Xaraya put out 15 betas and four release candidates before our
> 1.0 release, there is no reason not to arrive at a 2.0 release the same
> way. We must "release early, release often".


The number of betas and release candidates that 1x put out seems
irrelevant to 2x.

Releases are indeed a critical part of the development process but
usually there is a development process first.

Release early and release often is also my view, but sometimes it is
difficult to determine when early is too early or early enough.
Developers already have ready access to follow development and test with
monotone and nightly downloads of 2x (or would have if development was
open and at xaraya.com).

A release implies something is ready at a certain level of operation as
opposed to a mass of code that is good but could lead to a continous
redoing of modules or sites and frustration on the unsuspecting user.

How will you as PMC determine when it is too early or early enough? And
what is the development process being used to decided the first thing
you will do is release 2x? Given that 2x development is currently being
done in private and out of the xaraya project realm no one else in the
community can see what you're basing this on.


> New naming scheme for core branches and releases
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The name Xaraya led to our logo, a manta ray, as raya is spanish for
> this animal. In order to eliminate possible negative perception about
> the code that could come from using terms such as unstable, we propose a
> naming scheme for monotone branches and core releases based on the
> taxonomy of rays. Details will be forthcoming.

Is this going to involve the community too as you said things were?
I like the idea of naming scheme for branches, which has been proposed
before a number of times (gee we even got to setting some names) -
however replacing 'unstable' all together ( usually fairly normal in the
development process) by a taxonomic ray name makes me wonder even more
about the development and release project you have in mind.

What is it?

I appreciate any time in response to clarify sometime conflicting
information as i've interpretted it in the statement.

Thanks
Jo