[mapguide-psc] RFC process...

[Robert Bray]

Jason,

Personally I would like to avoid subcommittees, mainly because of the 
pain OSGeo is feeling now due to fragmentation. Whether we need an RFC 
for the web site is a different debate, maybe / maybe not. It really 
depends on the scope of the change.

To address your core concern though, I expect a mix of RFCs. Some will 
start with lots of discussion on the dev list and evolve into a fully 
baked RFC. Others may come pre-baked, because the developer has already 
thought it through pretty thoroughly (and maybe even has a prototype 
running). It really depends highly on the author and what is being 
proposed. The key is to welcome active discussion of ideas on the dev 
list. Also remember that an RFC is a living document up until the time 
it is voted on and approved. It can start with just an idea and no 
implementation detail. We should make that clear on the how to create an 
RFC page (hmm guess we need one of those).

Does that clarify or confuse the issue more?
 
Bob

Jason Birch wrote:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/MapGuide_RFC_Template
>  
> Do we really want the RFC process to apply to the web site?  Maybe for major overhauls, but personally I think that this kind of thing could be better dealt with informally, perhaps by a web site subcommittee.  
>  
> Also, I'm a bit scared of an RFC process that appears to expect the presentation of a well-thought-out canned solution, which is then subject to debate on the DEV list.  I think that we should be encouraging an informal process where a problem/solution pair (or just the problem) is put forward to the DEV list/channel as a rough WIKI page, and is then debated and polished into a form where it can be submitted as an RFC.
>  
> This kind of process gives us better solutions, and ensures that the original submitter only needs to do a limited amount of work before starting the discussion, reducing the emotional attachment to a particular solution.
>
> Jason
>
>