FW: [GRASS-user] RE: PSC: Nominations

[Sampson, David]

As posted to GRASS-DEV 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Kelly [mailto:paul-grass at stjohnspoint.co.uk] 
Sent: July 31, 2006 18:09
To: Sampson, David
Cc: grass-dev at grass.itc.it
Subject: Re: [GRASS-user] RE: PSC: Nominations

Hello David
(CC to grass-dev as I feel the discussion is more relevant there; feel
free to move back to user list if you have relevant follow-up comments)

There was a lot of very good discussion about the PSC on the grass-dev
list around the end of April. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to
contribute then as I was very busy with other work. But a lot of very
sensible and meaningful contributions were made to the discussion at
that stage by everyone and they don't need to be repeated.

The stumbling block as I see it is disagreement over the meaning of the
concentric decision-making proposal with PSC at the centre, surrounded
by developers with CVS write access, surrounded by users. This seems to
assume that the PSC are all major contributors with CVS write access,
which (a) doesn't look like it's going to happen and (b) may not even be
the best way anyway; I'm not sure.

What I do think needs serious clarification is the voting or other means
of making decisions on the proposals put forward by the PSC. There are a
few options for this:

Glynn proposed that developers who understand certain areas of the code
better than others should have more authority over changes made it that
area. This sounds good and is very like the way we work at present, but
of course there are always bits that aren't maintained from time to time
and bits that nobody really understands! But I would strongly hope that
the "moral authority" certain developers have over certain bits of the
code will not be undermined by the new decision making mechanism,
whatever it is.

Markus's proposal is the +1, 0-, 0+ etc. voting system on proposals put
forward by the PSC. I think this could be workable, but the following
two points need to be addressed:
* Only decisions that have a relatively clear resultant course of action
should be voted on like this (i.e. not hazy or vague issues were we
aren't totally sure what the decision actually means in practice)
* Who gets a vote needs a lot of clarification. I like Radim's idea that
anybody who has made a subtantial contribution to the code has a voice
here. I think it would be very important to incorporate something like
that to prevent people feeling disenfranchised.

FWIW I am certainly Willing to do the +1 -0 +0 etc. voting thing, and
would try my best to read proposals in the time available. At this time
I'm not willing to commit to a lot more time (although I *may* be able
to; it just depends on circumstances).

So there you go - no yes or no on the PSC nomination from me, and just
more questions really :/ Sorry... :)

Paul