Re: Discussing issues

On Wed, Apr 16, 2003 at 10:50:52AM +0200, Egbert Eich wrote: 
> Please try to be realistic:
> You are creating a new organization, fine. You plan to clone 
> the 'Gnome Foundation' governance model for your organization, 
> because you feel it suits your needs best - fine. 
> Talk about governance first and start working later - this
> is a rather unprecedented model in open source. If this is 
> how you want to organize things - fine.

Wait, I didn't say I was creating a new organization. At this point, I
am still trying to clarify what XFree86 wants to do.
 
The last thing I have the bandwidth to do is create my own
organization - my immediate agenda for action is to decide what course
of action to advocate to Red Hat, GNOME, freedesktop.org, or whatever
groups I'm involved with. I assume the other people in those groups
are simultaneously developing their own opinions and at some point
we'll have to decide what to do as a group.

If another organization is created, I'm willing to advocate supporting
it, if that makes sense. But that's what I'm trying to figure out, and
it depends on the organization. I'm also willing to consider
advocating either of the two existing organizations, or some combined
organization. Tell me what makes sense.

If I just leave things alone to run their natural course, it looks 
like we get:

 - a project that does most of the API/feature work and tries an
   ambitious server rewrite
 - XFree86 that does most of the driver work
 - X.org doing some other API/feature work and owning nominal
   standards

So everyone has the choice of a) a platform that moves forward and
innovates but is understaffed on drivers b) a platform with good
drivers but no new features or c) X.org.

Let me be crystal clear: this is NOT a favorable outcome while I'm
wearing any of my hats, from Red Hat to freedesktop.org to just plain
old Havoc.

Thus if it looks like any of the organizations or individuals I know
can use their influence or code to modify the outcome to be less
broken, I'll put in my .02 for them to do so. But first I have to
understand the situation.

> But why do you try to prescribe your governance model on an
> organization that's more than 10 years old?
> Risiking to 
> alienate people who have a lot of invaluable experience
> but who don't want to buy in on this governance model because
> they feel their model has served them well. Do you want to
> sacrifice their experience by trying to force a new model
> of governance upon them?

The reason I'm involved here is that the prospect of having 3
organizations, with none of them really meeting the need, is not a
good one. In fact it sucks.

If any group can show a credible path to being one organization that
simply provides an X platform that both works and innovates, I would
support that group 100%. If the path involves multiple organizations
that's fine, as long as the path is credible - as long as it actually
makes sense.

I don't want to prescribe what XFree86 does. It is up to you to decide
what to do.

What I do want is to *understand* what you want to do, and what you
want others to do, so I can understand what needs doing.

I want to install an X package that provides a) good quality working
drivers and b) new API features and innovations.  My question is *how*
do you propose that I get that.

If as you keep saying I can't expect XFree86 to do what it takes to
get that, then that is fine. 100% fine. I do not have a problem with
it.

I am not asking XFree86 to provide that. I'm asking XFree86 to say
what it's going to do, what it's interested in doing, so I can plan
where to go and look for an X platform.

I *completely* understand if you don't want to own the entire X
problem. I've been in a leadership role at an organization that owned
a problem like this, with multiple companies and hundreds of
developers and thousands of random bystanders. It isn't fun, it is a
lot of work.

However, there still needs to be an answer to this problem.

> Instead, why don't you try find ways how to interface best 
> with the exisiting organization and with their exisiting structures
> talking advantage of all the experites and skills rested within
> this organization?

What's keeping me from doing this is that you say you aren't
interested in working with others in order to address the goals that
I've discussed. If you aren't interested in working with me, how am I
going to find ways to interface with you?

Are you guys interested in being an X organization that scales and
meets both the driver need and the API/innovation need?  If you are, I
would love to work with XFree86.

The current natural course of events doesn't look like it's going to
lead to that, though. It looks like if we all just go code as the
Alans suggest, we'll have 3 organizations that are all insufficient by
themselves.

Havoc