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[flux <flux AT sourcemage.org>]

David Kowis (dkowis AT shlrm.org) wrote [11.08.01 02:38]:
> From our last meeting:
>  * Better communication and planning - whoops...
>  * IMP - going along pretty well
>  * Grimoire Splitting - Haven't heard anything
> 
> So, in an effort to get better communication and try to get us a common
> direction, I'm sending this email. I would like to know, preferably in a
> tl;dr version, what you think needs to be fixed in this distro. Not
> specific things, like "keep version blah up to date." Those are trivial
> things to fix, I want to know things like:
>  "We don't have good quality because..."
>  "We don't bring in new users because..."
>  "We don't have enough new things that are interesting to do because..."
>  "The grimoires are too complicated because..."
>  "The grimoires are too simple because..."
> 
> I want to know, if any, what problems you all think we have, rather than
> what's rattling around in my head as to what I think the problems are.
> Or maybe I just perceive those as problems.
> 
> So, it's rant time, but please put a tl;dr part at the top summarizing
> the points of your article. Mostly to save us all time. Also, if your
> problem is so specific that it needs 3 paragraphs to detail it, maybe
> it's not at the scope that I'm talking about :)
> 
> Ultimately, I'd like to use this information to set goals that the
> entire project wants to work toward. Or, maybe I don't need to do this,
> and the majority is happy where things are. Either way, feedback is a
> good thing.
> 
> Thanks for your time,
> David
> 

== the tl;dr summary ==
I honestly think it boils down to a combination of two problems: 1) lack
of _real_ communication about aspects of the project between developers
(not just within component, but everyone to everyone, about all parts of
the project), and lack of voluntary action to actually take
responsibility for improvements.
==  end of summary   ==

New users don't come in because they don't know why they should. They
don't know what the distro really is, who it's really for (type of user,
not dev vs. user), or what direction it's going in. And you can't blame
them - we don't have these answers ourselves. Individual SMGL devs may
have answers, but likely all different answers. There's a lack of
discussion on these things, and (perhaps more importantly) a lack of
documentation of them. For every person who has ideas, those ideas are
only in that person's head. They're not written down anywhere.

We can all produce laundry lists of problems the distro is facing, and
even extensive lists for each component separately, when asked to. But
that's only when asked. Why not write it down in a roadmap or similar?
And what happens when it's written down? Nobody steps up and says "Ooh,
a bug! I'll take that one!". Bugzilla had the "assigned to" flag, but
it was under-used.

I don't think the problem is really interest. I think people have the
interest to do things, but lack motivation. Certainly time is a problem,
as many of us are more busy right now than we used to be. I definitely
feel the isolation through lack of communication hurts the process (you
do your thing, I'll do mine, and leave me alone). We need to find ways
to integrate the components back together more. But what else is there?
Can developers be motivated through some kind of rewards system? What
rewards would we have? Do we need to have negative rewards
(punishments)? What would those be?

-- 
Justin "flux_control" Boffemmyer
Cauldron wizard and general mage
Source Mage GNU/Linux
http://www.sourcemage.org

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