Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Jeremy Blosser <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>]

On Jan 12, Jeremy Blosser [jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org] wrote:
> On Jan 12, Eric Sandall [eric AT sandall.us] wrote:
> > Hey all,
> > 
> > It's time for voting for your new Project Lead. Andra?? "ruskie" Levstik
> > has volunteered to count your votes, so please send your votes to
> > ruskie+vote AT mages.ath.cx.
> > 
> > The following candidates are available (plus the usual NOTA[0] or 
> > Abstain):
> >   * Jeremy Blosser (emrys)
> >   * Eric Sandall (sandalle)
> 
> I obviously haven't sent a speech yet; I haven't forgotten, I just realized
> I wanted to take more time figuring out what I wanted to say.  There's a
> very good chance I'd be a different kind of PL than Eric has been, and I
> want to communicate that correctly so people have the right expectations in
> front of them.  But now that the vote is open I obviously need to say
> something.  I'll get it done today, ASAP.

So... why should you vote for me.  Well, I don't know if you should.  I
hope people don't mind if I don't actually talk about "why [I'm] running
for the position".  I'm up for vote because people nominated me, simple as
that.  I assume they had reasons for that, and I can talk about that a bit,
but Eric's been Project Lead through some hard times, and we're still here,
and I still enjoy working with this project, so I'd be the last person to
say he needs replacing or anything.  But if people want to vote for me
it'll be because they think I'll do things a bit differently, so I want to
describe what that might be.

So far most of what I've done around here that has been major has been
process-oriented.  I've tried to help us figure out what works for us and
what doesn't, and document how we want to do things, and then either stick
to those decisions if they do work for us or modify them if they don't.
Obviously there's still way more to do but so far that's included things
like recovering after the server meltdown, getting good controls in place
so that wouldn't happen again, getting off P4, getting voting guidelines in
place, etc.  Since those are the things I've done so far, I'd expect if I
got elected that those are the kinds of things people would want more of.
Of course, as relaxed as things are around here I wouldn't claim I need to
be PL to work on more of those things, but rather would say that if you
want to elect me PL, I'd take it as indication those are things you want
done and make myself accountable to getting them done.

Looking at the recent threads around SMGL "sucking" or not and the real
issues they're bringing up, I guess I'd say the biggest thing I'd like to
see anyone working as PL doing is breaking through some of the chaos we
currently have.  We have policies, but we don't really follow most of them
that well, and people get confused about what's going on.  We have projects
that we admit we need done, and we have people supposedly working on them,
but there's not a lot of accountability to make sure those things actually
get done.  We have a lot of general housekeeping things we neglect, like
consistently closing things in bugzilla to keep it manageable, or having
regular meetings and communication about where things are.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about micromanagement or becomg
a dictatorship or beauracracy or anything.  I'm a big fan of delegating
responsibility, and I'd never tell a Lead what to do with their piece of
the project without the majority agreeing with me.  I work on this project
*because* we don't tell people what they have to work on and let those who
do work decide what to do.  And I don't pretend that process is always a
means to progress.  But I do think that if we have leadership it's so that
someone can help keep things on track, and I think that process helps do
that.  Based on past discussions most people around here seem to agree that
we need process, and we do have some defined, we just don't carry it out
very well.

So if you want to make me PL, that's where I'll make myself accountable.
I'll setup a regular developer meeting schedule and make us stick to it.
I'll triage the various things we said we needed but didn't do and
prioritize them and get people working on them.  Or if I can't get people
working on them, I'll get them off the list; if we can't actually do them
then we need to be honest with ourselves so we can focus on the progress we
*can* make.  I'll push the other Leads to follow through on their
obligations or move over so someone else can, and otherwise push for more
accountability.  I'll go over the policies we have written up and make sure
we're following them if they work or get them modified if they don't work.
And I'll ask you to hold me accountable as well: if I don't do what I say
I'll do, vote me out and put in someone else who can.  (I do mean that, by
the way.)

To be fair I'll also lay out some things I have no intention of doing:

- I don't intend to spend a lot of time on a 1.0 release roadmap.  I
  frankly think it's wasted energy and not something we're ready for as
  things stand right now.  We need to solve a lot more basic problems
  before we're ready to even decide what "1.0" means.  Things like how to
  reliably do stable releases, how to have decent documentation, etc.  If
  the distro solves those things and is ready to figure out what "1.0"
  means for us then I'd look at that again, but for now I think it
  distracts and confuses us more than anything.  It just doesn't fit the
  model of who we are.  That's my opinion, anyway; if you disagree, I'm
  probably not who you want.

- I do intend to make sure the other Leads' jobs get done; I don't really
  intend to do their jobs for them.  I don't have time for that and like I
  said above, I'm interested in keeping things delegated, not making a
  dictatorship.  For areas where we've said we want the buck to stop with
  one person I expect we mean that, and I'll expect them to do that work
  and if they're too busy I'll make them appoint assistants who will cover
  for them so things get closure.

- Included in the above to me is the idea of code review, and I won't
  commit that as PL I'll review every line myself.  That may seem a minor
  thing to some of you but I know there's history for us as a project there
  so I'm putting it out there.  The Component Leads have code review
  responsibility for their own Components, and I'll hold them to getting
  that done themselves and/or with assistance.  If they want me as another
  developer for that assistance then they can ask me for that but I
  wouldn't accept it as an absolute requirement for the Project Lead.
  Again, there are bigger things we need to sort out that I think the PL
  should be working on so the CLs can worry about their own things,
  including their code reviews.

So, there it is.  Again, this is the stuff I'd probably work on regardless
even if you keep Eric as PL and he keeps me as APL, but if that sounds like
the kind of PL you want, I'll give it a go.

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