[Sugar-devel] core maintainers

[Martin Dengler]

[we're just arguing for fun now, I guess]

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 12:59:01PM -0500, David Farning wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 6:57 AM, Martin Dengler
> <martin at martindengler.com> wrote:
> > David,
> >
> > When you have the time, some clarity here would be appreciated.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 12:49:33AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote:
> >> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 01:58:32PM -0500, David Farning wrote:
> >> > Over the past couple of months, Activity Central has been establishing
> >> > a network of developers to provide service and support for
> >> > deployments.
> >>
> >> I assume they're paid, otherwise why would you (Activity Central) not
> >> just "establish" such people into the normal SugarLabs network.
> 
> Some developers receive a salary from AC, some are paid by
> deployments, and some are paid by third parties.  The significant
> difference is that Sugar Labs is entirely voluntary (as it should be.)

It seems like you're setting up some kind of dichotomy between people
that are volunteers (in some way) and people that (in some way) are
paid to work on Sugar.  That seems both odd and beside the point.

> The developers for the deployment support network work on particular
> task and bugs which _someone_ is willing to pay to be fixed.
> 
> It is the standard upstream downstream division of labor.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.  The only reason for such a
division is if the needs diverge.  Plenty of "downstream" people are
"upstream" as well.  Again, I think this is a useless and false
dichotomy.

> >> > On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > What is "Deployment Support Network"?
> >> >
> >> > Sugar Labs has expressed the importance of more code contributions
> >> > from deployments.  Deployments have expressed an interest in fixing
> >> > their own bugs.  The Deployment Support Network fills that gap.
> >>
> >> What gap?  The gap between getting code from deployments and...
> >> deployments who want to write code?
> 
> Many deployments would like to participate in the upstream process but
> for some reason don't.  The biggest hurdle is that it takes time,
> money and effort to push things upstream.  As such many deployments
> are sitting on local patches... or worse just not bothering to fix
> issues.

It seems like now you've got an organisation that has as a for-fee
service the act of getting code from downstream to upstream.  I can
see that being either constructive or destructive.

> >> What is "Deployment Support Network"?  In particular, who are they and
> >> how/why are they distict from Sugar Labs "members" (basically anyone
> >> who wants to submit a patch or write an email to sugar-devel@)?
> 
> The Deployment Support Network is a subset of Sugar Labs members who
> work on tasks requested and paid for by some body interested in having
> those task accomplished.

Literally, if someone you don't know about is paid by somebody to work
on Sugar they're automatically part of the DSN?  Or is the DSN trying
to be the _only_ group of paid people working on Sugar?  The first
sounds overly broad and the second sounds a bit odd.  I guess AC is
just trying to present the DSN as a service to people who want to pay
for help with Sugar, but I can see paranoid people bleating on about
"DSN competes with SL for attention of deployments' coders' time".
Let's not feed such speculation with sloppy descriptions of DSN.

> >> > Initial, I had reservations about the maintainship roles these
> >> > developers would hold at Sugar Labs.  In light of the current backlog
> >> > of patches and the heavy burden a few core developers are holding, I
> >> > would like  work with the Sugar Labs development team to determine the
> >> > process for experienced developers to become maintainers.
> >>
> >> You've totally avoided Walter's question (AFAICS) and then gingerly
> >> formulated an missive that, despite some mysterious reservations,
> >> seems to imply that you think the "[SL] development team" will resist
> >> having "experienced developers [...become] maintainers".  Why would
> >> you think that?
> 
> Because change is disruptive.  The Sugar Labs code base development is
> premised on individuals "Scratching their own itch" by writing code
> which is reviewed and committed.

SL developers have constantly lamented the lack of feedback from
deployments.  Again, paranoid people could easily read your statements
as indicating that AC has an incentive to poison deployments' coders'
opinions about how receptive SL will be to their code unless it goes
through paid gatekeepers like AC.  Please don't characterise SL
development as 'premised on individuals "Scratching their own itch"'.

> david

Martin
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