On 10/08/2009 11:58 AM, inode0 wrote:
On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Jeffrey Ollie<jeff@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Unless a clear mission and purpose is defined, Fedora will just kind
of float along pushed around by whatever currents are strongest at the
moment. Maybe that sort of philosophy suits you, but I'd rather have
an idea of where we're headed.
The currents that push the strongest, those the contributors want to
spend their time on, are the currents we will ultimately float along
with. We can't force people to work on something they aren't
interested in working on and have the sort of community we have today.
There is a strong hint in all of this that some people prefer a
traditional hierarchical management structure to this project.
Fundamentally that is what fills me with the trepidation I mentioned
in my very first post on this thread.
I don't think traditional hierarchical management is a foregone
conclusion with strong vision statements.
Having a strong vision of what we're trying to achieve can help us drum
up more enthusiasm for the project attract more contributors. I kind of
liken it to some of the experiences I've had dealing with product
requirements in the past, for example along the lines of this little
diatribe:
http://blog.monochrome.co.uk/2009/02/if-architects-had-to-work-like-software-developers/
That blog post is how Fedora operates today. Who wants to work on a
project like that? Yes, good things happen within this model when strong
contributors stand up and take responsibility for their swath of the
community. But it is confusing and disjointed, and at times highly
frustrating and demotivating.
There's no reason though that contributors can't get involved and move
up the ranks of meritocracy, getting things done, underneath a shared
vision of where Fedora is going. Rather than something like this guy's
scattered rants about how he demands alumnium siding and the approval of
his mother-in-law and his 1952 refrigerator, which is scary to face...
we could maybe have a nice story of where we want Fedora to be in the
future and just a little more direction.
~m
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