[CentOS-devel] Reality V/s Fantasy

[Karanbir Singh]

Hi Florian,

On 11/26/2010 10:41 AM, Florian La Roche wrote:
 > you should make sure to grow the CentOS development to a
 > bigger group and make it more stable. AKAIK this is the
 > goal of this list and there should be plenty of work to
 > distribute and get done.

I am not sure where that came from - there is some level of fantasy that 
some of you guys seem to live with. Lets take for example the request 
for help with branding and trademark searches in the el6 source base. 
Then look at the people who really did anything to help, take the usual 
suspects out of the loop, and then see what the number reduces to..

Consider this : the distro was ready to QA in 72 hrs from when upstream 
dropped all srpms into the right places. I actually requested the 'usual 
suspects'[1] to not get involved with the branding issues, we all have 
quite a bit going on and adding onto that at release time usually means 
slowing down or dropping other efforts; the intention was to not do 
that, and to bring in a larger user base who can help cover issues that 
don't need specific centos resources. Also, the QA effort tends to be 
exceptionally manic, with things changing on an hourly basis, and some 
of us pushing for testing, results quite aggressively.

Besides that, new release, new buildsys, new repo structure and new 
process meant that this would be fantastic time for a larger number of 
people to get involved, and stay involved. Starting from the root of 
what we do, and having a good understanding of context around it, why 
its a big deal and appreciate it in specific terms by working on it.

The original email asking for help on this was posted on the 12th Nov. 
Its the 26th now. Check https://bugs.centos.org/ to see what level of 
participation has been forthcoming.

Lots of people will argue that open source works in a way where people 
do what they want to do, so you cant tell them what needs doing - and 
they will do what they want, when they want. Its what many imagine is 
the 'fun' in the open source way. Fortunately, or unfortunately we dont 
have that luxury. What comes down the pipe needs to be addressed, 
sometimes its what we want to do - and sometimes its what needs doing 
because that's the issue on hand. The process we have in place is mostly 
finite, with a specified origin and a specified delivery expectation. We 
need to join those dots. And if people don't want to help with that 
joining-the-dots effort, they are never going to be a part of the process.

So when people imply that there are lots of potential-contributers who 
would want to get involved and help etc : What fantasy world are they 
looking at ? I, or one, would like to get in on that action please.

 > No fights please, CentOS has such a wonderful source
 > base to extend upon...

If we cant get traction to get on with just doing what our primary aim 
is, extending the code base looks to be a bit of another fantasy world.

Slightly frustrating ? Absolutely.

- KB

[1]: The usual suspects being the people already doing quite a bit, the 
core/dev team, the qa guys, artwork effort. And I am truly grateful for 
their support.