[GRASS-PSC] Re: GRASS PSC

[Massimiliano Cannata]

Paul Kelly wrote:
> Hello everyone
>
> On Thu, 26 Oct 2006, Helena Mitasova wrote:
>
>> In the section 2 regarding the developers who are not memebers of 
>> PSC, I suggest to replace
>>
>> "their input is encouraged and valued"
>>
>> with
>>
>> " PSC will seek and rely on their expertise and advice when making 
>> decisions in the relevant areas."
>>
>> I for myself don't feel confident to make decisions in areas where I 
>> don't have sufficient expertise
>> (and those are many) and I would have to rely on advice from people 
>> like Glynn.
>>>> I also wonder about a longer voting period - I recognize the
>>>> advantage of keeping it short, but two days still seems very short to
>>>> me.  Maybe a week, the other suggestion in the archives, IS too
>>>> long?  Maybe a compromise of 4-5 business days?
>>>>
>> We need definitely more time for voting - you actually have to THINK
>> before casting the vote (I have sometimes voted hastily right away
>> and then realized that was not what I wanted). The time should depend on
>> a complexity of the issue - for example you would need to study and 
>> understand
>> a proposal for new raster format for a few weeks before voting on it.
>> You may also seek some advice from others or discuss it with colleagues.
>> Once you cast your vote and the decision is made you cannot take it 
>> back.
>> So I agree with 1-2 weeks on small issues with extended period
>> for more complex projects.
>
> OK I think Helena's proposed changes sound good, BUT:- I wonder if 
> hacking at this first RFC for PSC operation is really the best way to 
> go. I feel the issues I brought up in my last e-mail about this:
> http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/2006-August/024700.html
> haven't really been addressed by any of the changes. My concern is (as 
> before) about limiting the amount of things we (i.e. the PSC) have to 
> vote on, because most of us only have expertise in a limited range of 
> areas and simply can't make meaningful decisions on most technical 
> issues. Speaking for myself, there's only a very limited range of 
> technical areas on which I'd feel comfortable prononuncing an opinion 
> strong enough to be counted as a vote.
>
> But the RFC says the PSC can make "major decisions on technical issues 
> and project management", and in general I feel the logic with the 
> concentric circles is wrong because it simply doesn't apply to the way 
> GRASS organisation is structured - as I said before it appears to 
> assume that the "inner circle" PSC know a lot of technical details 
> etc. but as I said there's loads of areas I wouldn't be capable of 
> making a competent decision on (an example being the recent C version 
> of r.out.gdal - how was I to see the major issue with it requiring the 
> whole map to be held in memory?). Also in our case some of PSC aren't 
> even developers (of course I'm not saying they shouldn't be there, 
> just that our PSC appears to be structured differently from the PSC 
> and project structure that the concentric circle model appears to have 
> been designed for).
>
> IMHO the PSC should fill the gap we currently have, i.e. project 
> management, rather than replace everything. I don't think it's fair on 
> Markus that he experiences most of the pressure for those types of 
> decisions at present. I think it might be a good idea to make it clear 
> that the PSC is only there to advise and if necessary make decisions 
> on project management (i.e. policy decisions, political and 
> promotional stuff and that kind of thing). And the final say on 
> technical decisions should rest with consensus on the developers 
> mailing list as it always has done. This part isn't broken and it 
> doesn't need fixed.
>
> Is it worth me trying to put that into a form of words and proposing 
> it as a replacement? Or would it be too radical a change?
>
> Does anyone know what OSgeo requires for a PSC's terms of reference? I 
> mean, is there any way we could come up with an unacceptable RFC that 
> could then be ruled "unconstitutional" for OSgeo membership or 
> something like that?!!! :)
>
> Also I guess the reason we're not having this discussion on the dev 
> list is that it has been delegated to us to sort a solution to this so 
> it's us who need to do it...
>
> Paul
>
Paul and others, I perfectly agree.
I think that PSC should just give some direction, not imposition!
It don't feel to have any right to define how to implement new commands, 
nor how to write the code, or what can be done or not....
It is a FOSS, and unless it can be considered as a danger (?) any new 
development it will always enrich the community...
For me, voting is just about of more general consideration (as you Paul 
said on "project managment"):
we could find out from a general point of view which are the priority 
tasks to be done in order to always improve and promote the GRASS  
project helping the community to go all together in the same direction.

Massimiliano



-- 

Dr. Eng. Massimiliano Cannata
Responsabile Area Geomatica
Istituto Scienze della Terra
Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana
Via Trevano, c.p. 72
CH-6952 Canobbio-Lugano
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