Re: Discussing issues

Havoc Pennington writes:
 > 
 > But all the examples put forward (Apache, Kernel, GNOME, KDE, Debian,
 > BSD, Perl, Python) are run by their contributors, not by the people
 > who rely on it.  As you say, moving direction to those who rely
 > instead of those who contribute is unprecedented. It isn't even
 > feasible; nobody is going to do work just because someone else says
 > they should.
 > 
 > I understand "community governance" to mean "community of
 > contributors," not "community of random users."
 > 
 > Are we all reading the same mailing list? ;-)
 > 

There seems to be a misunderstanding:
Havoc, you are talking about a project that deals a future
'base GUI platform for X11/UNIX' with library components
GUI projects want to rely on. While Mark is referring to
the realms that have traditionally been the focus of XFree86.
Therefore you define the "community of contributors" 
differently than he does.

I don't think anyone would argue that GUI projects should
have a say on the library base they are going to use in the 
future.
However this 'community governance' when implemented in the
way proposed would take away control over things people have
been working on for years from these and turn it over to a 
group that controls a much larger project than XFree86 
currently is.
This will naturally meet stiff resistance.
As Mark has very few ambitions to prescribe how this base
GUI platform and its APIs should look like he expects 
the GUI folks to leave control over his realm to him
and the group he has been working with for years.

As long as the object of the 'call for community governance'
is to dissolve the traditional organizational structures of 
XFree86 and 'surrender' the control over their traditional 
areas of focus to another group I'm afraid we are not going 
to arrive at a solution. 

I would think there are other means to achieve what you 
have in mind. Maybe by asking instead how your organization 
can most effectively interface with XFree86 and the 
structures it has chosen to have we can come up with
a solution which allows all of us to go back to work 
soon.

It has not been until yesterday that the entire scope of
this idea was revealed. Had it been done three or four
weeks ago we may be much closer to a solution now.

Just speaking for myself,

     Egbert.