Re: [gentoo-dev] GLEP system worthwhile?

[Ian Leitch <port001@gentoo.org>]

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Grant Goodyear wrote:
~ > Really?  It's usually just a matter of e-mailing me.  I read through
| it, and if I see that the GLEP fails to answer some questions that I
| predict will arise, I will generally mention it to the GLEP author and
| suggest that such issues be addressed, even it is just to add a
| section labeled "open questions".  Very occasionally I will mention to
| an author that I don't think a GLEP is actually needed, and suggest
| that the author just talk to the appropriate person and implement it.
| I don't believe that I have ever outright refused a GLEP, or even added
| more than a day to the time for it to be posted.

For example, I first proposed the Planet idea long before GLEP 30 came
along. Basically the idea got shot down on IRC because infra were
worried about storing unmoderated material on Gentoo hardware. At that
point it was pretty much a "no", so I didn't bother following it up with
a GLEP.

Moving forward 1 year, we have Planet Gentoo. How the hell did that
happen then? Daniel persevered and produced a GLEP but which looked to
be doing nothing (like most other GLEPS) until gentooexperimental.org
came along setup a non official Planet. This made it obvious the idea
was popular and the implementation of the GLEP soon followed, as did
infra's concerns seem to disappear.

If we'd had a voting system, the popularity of the GLEP would have been
obvious from the start, and no doubt we would have had the Planet
implemented _much_ sooner.

In a nutshell, we need a system where ideas can be put forward so that
they have maximum exposure AND accessibility to vote. Posting them to
- -dev sure gets them a lot of exposure (though mostly only to devs), but
the majority of people likely to respond are those not in favor. Having
a simple voting system will allow people to put their voice forward with
maximum ease.

The thing I dislike about the current system is that most devs/users
will never hear about an idea until it makes onto glep.g.o. GLEPs need
to be put our there for everyone to see at an early stage so people can
vote on the IDEA, not the specifics or the quality of the GLEP itself.

| Most of these issues are moot, however, because in many cases GLEP
| authors prefer to post an informal GLEP on -dev first, gather comments,
| and then submit a formal GLEP after an initial revision.

Having all those in a central place would be far better, I'm sure there
are many GLEPs sitting in devspace that I or you have never seen.

| It's worth noting that a GLEP author need not be a dev, so those
| people, of course, would always require a surrogate to submit/revise
| GLEPs.  As for devs being able to upload/revise GLEPs, I'm not opposed.
| The reason that devs cannot update their own GLEPs right now is purely
| technical: the GLEP page is part of the www tree, and that tree has
| fairly strict permissions.  If opening up the GLEP directory isn't too
| much of a pita for infra, I certainly won't oppose it.  I would still
| prefer that GLEPs be run by one of the editors before being posted,
| since we may be able to help, but I wouldn't insist on it.  I would be
| very sad, though, if people took advantage of a more liberal policy to
| post poorly-thought-out junk.

If someone posts a poorly thought out GLEP then people will vote against
it. If the author wishes, he/she can post a revised version and the
voting process beings again. It's up to the author to make sure their
idea is of decent quality first time round, unless they want to spend
hours revising it.

Regards,
Ian Leitch

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