Re: [forum] communication

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Owen Taylor writes:
 > 
 > But the fact that nobody other than Keith was working on these
 > issues and getting stuff into XFree86 makes one wonder about structural 
 > problems; from my perhaps biased perspective, this stuff is really
 > a lot more interesting than support for flavor-of-the-day of some
 > chipset, so you'd think that interested developers would be 
 > crawling out of the woodwork. Perhaps the problem is that
 > without current developers around to discuss, and review changes
 > in this area, there is no way for developers to become engaged
 > and eventually trusted.

Well, involvement in a project usually starts with an ache
to fix. This is certainly how my involvment started back in 1995.
I just figured that nobody but me would care about my problem.

We don't have an expert there for every field. But is
stopped from acquiring the expertise, and get started 
on something.
Look at Kamil Toman and Ivan Pascal who dived into xkb
and added various enhancements. There wasn't  an
expert on xkb in XFree86, now there is one.
I think it is more a matter of attitude: In the one case somebody
identified a problem and didn't hesitate to get his feet wet,
in the other case someone just went and called for help.
The rule is: if there is no expert on this subject, this call
will stay unanswered. This is not going to change with 
any new form of governance. In an OpenSource project you 
don't delegate work you volunteer for it.
The solution is: get involved, get expertise start to do
some work. Do it within XFree86: announce your ideas on
devel@xfree86.org. Even if you don't receive an answer 
immediately, people start noting that there is somebody 
looking into a subject.

 > 
 > Anyways, I just wanted to give some more details on where I see the
 > problem; it's not necessarily that people are shutting their ears
 > to the needs of the desktop, it's just that the needs of the
 > desktop (other than for a working X server) don't seem an 
 > interesting problem for the bulk of XFree86 developers. 

It is. But at the end of the day somebody needs to do the
work. 

 > 
 > The desktop projects don't just need the assurance that they
 > can mail devel@xfree86.org, they need the assurance that there
 > will be someone there paying attention.

We do pay attention. But if you are asking questions and noboby
knows the answer you are not getting an answer. 
I know that we have to get more expertise on some areas.
But we only can get the expertise if somebody volunteers
to dig into the subject.
And let me assure you: The core team and not just the core
team will welcome such efforts.

[...]
 > 
 >         The current system where direction is by the consensus 
 >         of people working on XFree86 for a long time is, I think, 
 >         very vulnerable to the project becoming isolated to a narrow
 >         set of concerns without any realization of that or intention
 >         in that area. Clearly having someone forcing developers 

This is not true. The fact that nobody grabbed your ideas and
implemented them doesn't proove your point.


 >         to work on stuff they aren't interested in working on
 >         (or can't work on because they are paid to do drivers)
 >         isn't going to work, but I think there would be major
 >         value in having some group able to look at the big picture
 >         and try to figure out how to get people involved to address
 >         areas not being addressed.

I'm not sure if that's the way OpenSource projects work.
People are not looking for ideas others propose. They are
getting started on things that they find interesting or
give them aches.

 > 
 >         Second, I think XFree86 is discovering something here that
 >         has been discovered by many other projects previously.
 >         Direction by consensus of developers works great only
 >         as long as there is consensus of the developers. When
 >         consensus breaks down, having a body that is formally
 >         charged with the smooth running of the project can do
 >         wonders for getting disputes resolved in a constructive
 >         way. 

When did you see consensus breaking down?

Egbert.


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