[Sugar-devel] Sugar UI Dictator

[Michael Stone]

On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 at 09:16:41 +0000, Martin Dengler wrote:
>On Tue, Nov 09, 2010 at 12:27:18PM -0500, Michael Stone wrote:
>> On Tue, 9 Nov 2010 at 03:12:41 +0000, Martin Dengler wrote:
>> >On Mon, Nov 08, 2010 at 07:49:19PM -0500, Bernie Innocenti wrote:
>> >>[UX design might be better] if we agreed to delegate all design
>> >>decisions to one clever dictator
>> >
>> >Great idea.
>[...]
>> >[if noone steps forward], perhaps we could just agree
>> >on some group of people who will be the dictators, and not revisit
>> >that for a while.
>>
>> Agreeing on small group of people seems easy to arrange. Here's a strawman
>> proposal[1]
> 
> Your proposal seems like a good way to do it. I propose another decent way as
> an appendix[2]. I welcome someone else implementing either.  

Gentlefolks,

Martin and I talked for bit this evening and I believe that I managed to
persuade him to support my proposal.

Here were the key arguments:

   1. We're currently very vulnerable to "diffusion of responsibility".

      Concentrating responsibility in three specific people will help to address
      this problem.

   2. We don't really have a dispute resolution mechanism other than "drop it".

      The Oversight Board is ideally positioned to help resolve disputes
      generated by its committees' decisions and procedures.

   3. It's not okay to block patches on feedback or decisions from an absent
      Design Team.

      As with "diffusion of responsibility", being explicit about the time frame
      on which decisions will be made will help prevent these patches from
      languishing.

   4. We need to be able to work smoothly with OLPC if and when they succeed in
      hiring a Sugar UX Designer [1].

      Being able to elect said designer to a seat on a previously established
      design committee seems like a potentially good way to involve this person
      in our decision-making while still preserving fairness, transparency, and
      appropriate continuity with the past.

Regards,

Michael

P.S. - Later, after finding our common ground, we spoke further about the
issues that we each hoped the committee might be able to address. In the course
of the conversation, we discovered a confusion about the mandate of the
proposed committee; to wit:

   Is the main purpose of the committee to act as a UI Maintainer (e.g., by
   deciding which UI-related patches to merge) or is the main purpose of the
   committee to make UI-related decisions on an as-requested basis?

[1]: http://laptop.org/en/utility/people/opportunities.shtml#Sugar%20UI%20Designer