[IAEP] SoaS as a Sugar Labs project.

[Martin Langhoff]

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:22 PM, David Farning<dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> Eclipse and Apache both have criteria for becoming a official

Note that Apache's reason to run this "Apache Projects" is to _extend
the legal protection shield to other projects_. If doesn't care one
zot about what the resulting software _does_. And they only looked
into that once they had their main mission (the webserver) pretty much
cooked.

I've advised several projects that wanted to "do like apache", and
once they understood what apache does, they did not want to "do like
apache" no more :-)


And also... and completely from the outside... I'll apologise in
advance for saying something I know might be controversial. I worry
that SL seems to have -- for a external party like me -- more
bureaucracy than it has people "doing". IMHExperience, the projects I
enjoy working on, and that I see being productive have  a much lower
"procedure/label/committe " : contributor ratio.

Boards, subprojects and such are good things to remember to do when a
project gets big and tensions surface (aside from some specific things
you want "right" from the start -- license, etc).

This comment is not meant as a trolling attempt (though I fear it'll
end up in tears). The core of what I am trying to say is: doing these
things too early has some risks -- just off the top of my head

 - The FOSS version of being top-heavy, the distraction

 - Newcomers reading all these big names (board, procedures, the board
blessing the SIG) and getting the wrong idea about the project -- this
can discourage the go-getters that like get-it-done environments.

 - Fostering armchair quarterbackers (like yours truly right now :-/ )
and endless bickering (hmm! debian-legal) -- these are attracted to
"big name" and "big infra" projects.

I really like GregDek's line:
> I would avoid elections for as long as possible.  Vote with your work.

Time for me to shut up. From now on I assume you know about these
risks, and won't mention the topic in polite company no more. After
all, I am not working my ass off on SL, you are.

Thanks for your patience :-)



m
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 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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