Public SourceMage Discussion List

[flux <flux AT sourcemage.org>]

Warning: this post will likely not be pleasant. If it comes off as a
flame, I apologize. I truly do not intend for this to be a flame. I'm
just trying to be honest about what I believe the problem is and where
it comes from.

Ladislav Hagara (ladislav.hagara AT unob.cz) wrote [11.10.13 09:53]:
> > I plan to pull the branch into test in next few days. 
> 
> 
> We discussed on irc, just mention also here.
> In this sentence the "next few days" meant almost immediately.
> It isn't a problem. Problem is that nobody really care, nobody discuss,
> nobody review commits. This thread was discussed only by Bor alone.
> 
> Of course we have no time. Source Mage isn't our full time job. But we
> have to discuss. If mailing lists don't work we need regular irc
> meetings with logs on our web site, we need some regular voting with
> just +1 or -1. Some of our irc channel should be published so all can
> see the reasons of some activity.
> 
> BTW, the subject of this thread is "kde3 removal from grimoire". But not
> only kde3 spells have been removed. The spell qt-x11 was also removed
> together with all spells depended on qt-x11. How many developers have
> agreed with this?

IMHO, the real problem here is not how busy anyone is (which of course
we all are), or that "nobody" cares/discusses (which is true of
everyone, including those who participated in this thread, of other
issues, as basically everyone only participates about things they
personally care about). I believe the real problem is the absolute lack
of structure of the grimoire team. Where was the grimoire lead on this?
Did any of the grimoire devs try to get the lead's comment on this
change before pushing it out? Did any grimoire devs think to wait to get
the lead's OK on this?

I've seen too many large changes pushed out by devs where they didn't
even consider consulting the lead first, and there are only comments by
the lead a week or two after it happens as a kind of afterthought. In
other words, the lead is not leading the team, and the team is
completely ignoring the fact that there is a lead. By and large,
grimoire devs are one-man armies that don't really work cohesively. The
same can easily be said of sorcery or cauldron, but in those cases there
really is only one dev, so there's no one else to work together with
even if we/they want to.

If Source Mage is to survive, IMHO this *needs* to change. This is a
truly broken development pattern, and the longer it continues the more
splintered and factioned development will become. Developers: get the
lead's approval for large things (at least). Leads: actually *lead* your
developers instead of leaving development up to anarchy. Time is of
course an issue for all of us, so replies should not be measured in
days. Even weeks can be a bit short, especially depending on the
particular timing and who is involved (i.e., vacation, how many of the
community in total is really considered a consensus, etc.). If you are
repeatedly waiting for someone to give you a go-ahead and you feel that
they don't reply in a timely manner, bring that issue up on the ML
instead of just forcing the changes without getting the go-ahead.

Note: lead doesn't imply only *the* grimoire lead, as he may also
appoint assistants, and general leads should also help out (though they
aren't particularly responsible, they are still *general* leads), but
the grimoire lead does at least have the final say for the grimoire. We
are all responsible and all have to do our parts, but let's not simply
abandon the structure we already have, at least not without a vote to
that effect.

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

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