[Sussex] Gentoo forked...

[Mark Harrison]

Steve,

I have to disagree here.

I've been trying to cat-herd a bunch of developers in an OpenSource project
(a protocol) for the last year. We have about 6 developers who are KEY to
development of the feature set.

In the year, we've formed a very good working relationship, and are very
open with each other, but not at all guarded. This has only been possible on
the basis that all our discussions are absolutely confidential, and that we
will always present a united front to the wider community once we have
agreed on something.

95% of agreement is made by discussion till we all agree on something better
than any of us had originally agreed. About 5% has come down to a simple
vote.

I do not believe that we would have anything like as good (technically) or
useful (in terms of deployment among the interoperability community) if we'd
just had open discussions... I believe this because after 3 years of open
discussions, we were still left with NO actual products used by more than
the author .... until we changed to a different basis.

I am not for a moment saying that the approach we took is universally
applicable - instead I am saying that I don't believe that ANY approach is
universally applicable.

Regards,

Mark

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Dobson" <SDobson at manh.com>
To: <sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 1:20 PM
Subject: RE: [Sussex] Gentoo forked...


> Geoff
>
> On 27 June 2003 at 12:37 Geoffrey Teale wrote:
> > .. a lot of good points from Steve.
>
> Glad to like them.
>
> > One thing I'd like to address - Gentoo has a closed developers list -
> > unlike Debian.  This causes some controversy.
>
> I didn't know that and I'm not surprised that it causes some controversy,
> because it is wrong; very, very wrong!
>
> > The list is readable  by anyone online, but only invited developers can
> > post to it.  This isn't about secrecy (after all, anyone can read it!) -
> > it's about allowing the developers to use the list to get on with work
> > rather than dealing with a million posts and flames off topic.  Anyone
> > who's been on the Debian developers lists know that they are polluted to
> > the point of irrelevance.  Gentoo tries to avoid this and uses it's
> > forums for public debate.
>
> While the may cut down on the amount of spam read by the developers (a
good
> thing) it cuts you off from ideas from outside the list (which is bad).
> Okay so you could post to one of the open forums, but which one?  Which
one
> it the developer I need to target reading (if any)?
>
> While this may not be about secrecy but it is censorship, and _all_[1]
> censorship is bad.  The restriction implies that only some developers'
views
> are valid or worth reading.  Good ideas can come from anywhere, and by
> blocking
> views in this way Gentoo is restricting itself from "getting the right[tm]
> answer".
>
> Steve
>
> [1]
> Only censorship of some materials to minors is justified.
>
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>