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.