[gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[Fred Van Andel]

Gentoo is a rapidly growing distribution, with that growth comes
a number of problems. The workload on the core development team 
is increasing all the time and if something is not done to address
it the development of Gentoo will suffer.

It is clear that there are many dedicated individuals involved in
Gentoo who are not involved as part of the development team. Its
only necessary to monitor one of the mailing lists or browse 
through the support forums to realize that. A lot of these people
may not be qualified to be a full-fledged member of the core
development team but they still have skills/time to offer back to
the community.

Therefore I propose that a public ToDo list be created along with
a list coordinator so that the talents of these people can be used.
Tasks would be posted on the public list and assigned to specific
individuals who volunteer. Tasks should be kept specific rather
than open-ended and have a scheduled completion date, if necessary
tasks can be broken up into smaller independent tasks to achieve
these goals.

By the creation of such a list we could help free up the core
developers to do other things, and at the same time speed up the
completion of many of the necessary but routine tasks that seem to
take up so much time.  By taking some of the workload off of the
developers we can allow them to do what they do best, and that is
to develop and refine the features that have attracted us to Gentoo
in the first place.

Some tasks that might be suitable for inclusion on the list:
   - Creation and proofreading of new translations of the 
     documentation.
   - Monitoring of the package list for version changes.
   - Creation of a troubleshooting guide based on the Q & A from
     the mailing lists and forums.
   - Testing of the ebuild scripts/compilation on less common
     platforms.
   - Creation of new ebuild scripts base on user requests.    
   - Updating/testing of ebuild scripts when new versions of 
     packages are developed.
  - The role of ToDo list coordinator(s)

The core developers should be in control of the contents of the 
list to prevent a loss of focus and would have veto powers over the
tasks to be assigned and the results of the completed tasks.

I now having said my piece I open it up for public discussion.

Fred Van Andel

Re: [gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[Alan]

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[snip]
> Therefore I propose that a public ToDo list be created along with
> a list coordinator so that the talents of these people can be used.
> Tasks would be posted on the public list and assigned to specific
> individuals who volunteer. Tasks should be kept specific rather
> than open-ended and have a scheduled completion date, if necessary
> tasks can be broken up into smaller independent tasks to achieve
> these goals.
[snip]
> I now having said my piece I open it up for public discussion.

All I can say is "excellent idea!"  I think the key to getting people to
help out is to make it as easy as possible... ie: if you want them to
make ebuilds, or modify ebuilds, have a document standing ready that has
an explanation of making simple ebuilds there so that there is as little
barrier to entry as possible.  Ditto for things like submitting them
(though I wonder if auditing new ebuilds would take more time than
creating them themselves?).

A great idea though, and even if the ToDo list was a link to a list of
general bugzilla bugs, it would probably still be a Good Thing.  I
wonder what the core gentoo dev people have to say about this though?

Regards,

alan


-- 
Alan "Arcterex" <alan@ufies.org>   -=][=-   http://arcterex.net
"I used to herd dairy cows. Now I herd lusers. Apart from the isolation, I
think I preferred the cows. They were better conversation, easier to milk, and
if they annoyed me enough, I could shoot them and eat them." -Rodger Donaldson

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Re: [gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[Mark Bainter]

Fred Van Andel [fred@vanandel.net] wrote:
[snip]
> through the support forums to realize that. A lot of these people
> may not be qualified to be a full-fledged member of the core
> development team but they still have skills/time to offer back to
[snip]

Or maybe they are qualified, but don't have time to take it on 
full time and could throw their effort into ocaisional short term
projects.

> take up so much time.  By taking some of the workload off of the
> developers we can allow them to do what they do best, and that is
> to develop and refine the features that have attracted us to Gentoo
> in the first place.

Sounds like a great idea to me.  I would point to the kernel-janitor
project as an additional example of the sort of thing this could
do.  We don't have as much cleanup right now, but I'm sure there
are points where there are time consuming but simple/repetitive 
tasks that could be offloaded to non-core members.

-- 

Re: [gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[Mike Frysinger]

i would have to disagree on this ...
running a todo list is kind of out of scope of opening public access to the
-core list.  plus, turning -core into the center of todo operations is outside
the scode of the -core list.
discussions that happen on -core are meant for the 'core' of Gentoo.
also, as we've seen in the past, some topics that are discussed on -core
can lead to an explosion of misguided discussions.
-mike

On Monday 30 September 2002 12:12 am, k wrote:
> there seems to be a cultural issue here as well, in that core development
> takes place beyond public introspection. without the knowledge transfer and
> insight into core direction that naturally takes place on such core lists,
> 'outsiders' will be at a natural communication disjoint when trying to work
> on tasks. at a minimum opening up the archives to public inspection should
> accompany any todo list, and in my opinion should be accessible regardless
> of the outcome of any todo list initiative.
>
> two cents,
>
> -k
>
> On Friday 27 September 2002 03:13 pm, Fred Van Andel wrote:
> > Gentoo is a rapidly growing distribution, with that growth comes
> > a number of problems. The workload on the core development team
> > is increasing all the time and if something is not done to address
> > it the development of Gentoo will suffer.
> >
> > It is clear that there are many dedicated individuals involved in
> > Gentoo who are not involved as part of the development team. Its
> > only necessary to monitor one of the mailing lists or browse
> > through the support forums to realize that. A lot of these people
> > may not be qualified to be a full-fledged member of the core
> > development team but they still have skills/time to offer back to
> > the community.
> >
> > Therefore I propose that a public ToDo list be created along with
> > a list coordinator so that the talents of these people can be used.
> > Tasks would be posted on the public list and assigned to specific
> > individuals who volunteer. Tasks should be kept specific rather
> > than open-ended and have a scheduled completion date, if necessary
> > tasks can be broken up into smaller independent tasks to achieve
> > these goals.
> >
> > By the creation of such a list we could help free up the core
> > developers to do other things, and at the same time speed up the
> > completion of many of the necessary but routine tasks that seem to
> > take up so much time.  By taking some of the workload off of the
> > developers we can allow them to do what they do best, and that is
> > to develop and refine the features that have attracted us to Gentoo
> > in the first place.
> >
> > Some tasks that might be suitable for inclusion on the list:
> >    - Creation and proofreading of new translations of the
> >      documentation.
> >    - Monitoring of the package list for version changes.
> >    - Creation of a troubleshooting guide based on the Q & A from
> >      the mailing lists and forums.
> >    - Testing of the ebuild scripts/compilation on less common
> >      platforms.
> >    - Creation of new ebuild scripts base on user requests.
> >    - Updating/testing of ebuild scripts when new versions of
> >      packages are developed.
> >   - The role of ToDo list coordinator(s)
> >
> > The core developers should be in control of the contents of the
> > list to prevent a loss of focus and would have veto powers over the
> > tasks to be assigned and the results of the completed tasks.
> >
> > I now having said my piece I open it up for public discussion.
> >
> > Fred Van Andel
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gentoo-dev mailing list
> > gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> > http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev
>
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[k]

there seems to be a cultural issue here as well, in that core development 
takes place beyond public introspection. without the knowledge transfer and 
insight into core direction that naturally takes place on such core lists, 
'outsiders' will be at a natural communication disjoint when trying to work 
on tasks. at a minimum opening up the archives to public inspection should 
accompany any todo list, and in my opinion should be accessible regardless of 
the outcome of any todo list initiative. 
 
two cents,

-k


On Friday 27 September 2002 03:13 pm, Fred Van Andel wrote:
> Gentoo is a rapidly growing distribution, with that growth comes
> a number of problems. The workload on the core development team
> is increasing all the time and if something is not done to address
> it the development of Gentoo will suffer.
>
> It is clear that there are many dedicated individuals involved in
> Gentoo who are not involved as part of the development team. Its
> only necessary to monitor one of the mailing lists or browse
> through the support forums to realize that. A lot of these people
> may not be qualified to be a full-fledged member of the core
> development team but they still have skills/time to offer back to
> the community.
>
> Therefore I propose that a public ToDo list be created along with
> a list coordinator so that the talents of these people can be used.
> Tasks would be posted on the public list and assigned to specific
> individuals who volunteer. Tasks should be kept specific rather
> than open-ended and have a scheduled completion date, if necessary
> tasks can be broken up into smaller independent tasks to achieve
> these goals.
>
> By the creation of such a list we could help free up the core
> developers to do other things, and at the same time speed up the
> completion of many of the necessary but routine tasks that seem to
> take up so much time.  By taking some of the workload off of the
> developers we can allow them to do what they do best, and that is
> to develop and refine the features that have attracted us to Gentoo
> in the first place.
>
> Some tasks that might be suitable for inclusion on the list:
>    - Creation and proofreading of new translations of the
>      documentation.
>    - Monitoring of the package list for version changes.
>    - Creation of a troubleshooting guide based on the Q & A from
>      the mailing lists and forums.
>    - Testing of the ebuild scripts/compilation on less common
>      platforms.
>    - Creation of new ebuild scripts base on user requests.
>    - Updating/testing of ebuild scripts when new versions of
>      packages are developed.
>   - The role of ToDo list coordinator(s)
>
> The core developers should be in control of the contents of the
> list to prevent a loss of focus and would have veto powers over the
> tasks to be assigned and the results of the completed tasks.
>
> I now having said my piece I open it up for public discussion.
>
> Fred Van Andel
>
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://lists.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] A proposal for discussion

[Fred Van Andel]

At 12:08 AM 9/30/02 -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>i would have to disagree on this ...
>running a todo list is kind of out of scope of opening public access to the
>-core list.  plus, turning -core into the center of todo operations is outside
>the scode of the -core list.
>discussions that happen on -core are meant for the 'core' of Gentoo.
>also, as we've seen in the past, some topics that are discussed on -core
>can lead to an explosion of misguided discussions.
>-mike


I must agree. The openness of the -core list is unrelated to a todo list 
and should be considered as a separate issue.

The person who maintains to todo list must have to support/guidance of the 
core developers and should have access to the -core list to ensure that the 
todo list does not conflict with the direction that -core is going.  The 
obvious way to accomplish this would be to have one of the core members 
maintain the todo list.  This is exactly the type of non-technical routine 
work that the todo list is designed to off load from the core group. Only 
the core developers can decide what direction that they want to go on that one.

Fred Van Andel