Getting Things Done

Karsten Wade kwade at redhat.com
Thu Aug 2 05:31:56 UTC 2007


On Thu, 2007-08-02 at 06:07 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Karsten Wade wrote:
> 
> > 
> > I notice it and don't agree with you.
> > 
> > Rahul, don't make me waste time explaining why making an open source
> > project have a good infrastructure is necessary.  One word explains it
> > -- leverage. 
> 
> Steering committee or elections for who would be in the steering 
> committee is overhead. In a large team it might yield some visible 
> benefits but it seems that kind of overhead is unnecessary for a small 
> team. I mean, if everybody who is really part of the documentation team 
> is part of the steering committee who are you steering?

I think Paul responded to this bit just fine, so I'll leave it at that.

> Infrastructure improvements is all well and good and I have suggested 
> several myself including atleast one of what is part of the current 
> Google SoC work now so I do understand the value of that.
> > 
> > Also, do you think you should dictate what people spend their time on?
> > If someone wants to work on tools instead of content, who cares?  Who
> > are you to try to make people feel bad for working on what they are
> > interested in?
> 
> I am not dictating anything to anyone and I of course have zero control 
> on what people do so that's not the point but it is important to take a 
> step back and look at what we have accomplished that matters directly 
> for end users. I will say the only things that has mattered is
> 
> 1) Installation guide
> 2) Release notes

First, where is it written that value in Fedora is only measured in
benefit to end-users?

Second, what do you define as end-users?

How about those hobbyists?  I'm 100% certain there are people using our
toolchain as *downstream* consumers of the benefit of a solid,
easy-to-use DocBook XML chain.  We care enough about them to identify
them as end-users in the Docs Project:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/

"The Fedora Documentation Project ("Docs Project") provides 100%
free/libre open content, services, and tools for documentation."

If you remind me in a few weeks, I'll be glad to write up a, "What Docs
has done for Fedora" page.  We give benefit to end-users of all sorts,
in all sorts of ways, and have since FC1.

/me wonders why the SELinux FAQ didn't make it into Rahul's list of
useful stuff. ;-P

> > Another is a very noticeable lack of content from Red Hat when we got
> > started; quite different from the rest of Fedora, who had an entire
> > distro to start with.  Heck, even Infrastructure had more hardware to
> > start than Docs had content.  Every other team, from Art to Engineering,
> > has had a paid person supporting the project, and therefore some kind of
> > budget.  Everything we have done in Docs has been boot-strapped.
> 
> I have been through that flamewars and got that point through to 
> everyone I could possible but you know what? It's high time we moved on.

Goodness, Rahul, in all the email you have ever read from me, how much
time do I spend whining?

The reason I make that point is, "zero" to "where we are now" is not
nearly as bad a picture as the way you paint it:  "There doesn't 
seem to enough interest or progress being made."

Oh, uh, thanks?

> >   - And often those were the same people you are berating for spending
> > too much time dealing with "meetings, processes and tools".
> 
> That is indeed my point. If we focus more on end user documentation 
> could the same people have accomplished more instead of say dealing with 
> the election? Could the irc meetings be say monthly and more discussions 
> happen on list. Just maybe something to think about.

If you have some good suggestions about how to simplify the lives of
contributors to this project, by all means make them.

There isn't anything I can read in your original email that gave me an
idea you were bringing solutions to the table.  It read to me as
flamebait disguised as a mini-rant.  And it worked, because here I am
explaining obvious stuff to you instead of doing something *meaningful*.

> Everyone who is active is doing a good job. No doubt about that. The 
> question is only on whether we are having the right priorities here. My 
> suggestions are going to be simple
> 
> 1) Dissolve the steering committee and associated elections etc
> 
> 2) Try and reduce the barriers to the team itself so that we can spend 
> more time producing solid documentation for end users instead of dealing 
> with overhead.

Did you catch the last meeting minutes where I brought up the same
points?  Was that what sparked this discussion for you?

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SteeringCommittee/Meetings/Minutes/IRCLog20070731#t09:19

So, yes, I've been wondering similar things.  But the standing governing
body reached a consensus to proceed as planned with elections and keep
discussing over the next year.  Year.  Not, "discuss over the next
week."  If you want to kick up shit over that decision, fine, but be
aware YOU ARE CAUSING MORE WORK AND STRESS.

Above you profess an interest in helping the overworked, if I read you
correctly.  I request you follow Paul's suggestion and do more
recruiting.  I can't imagine how it would help a recruiting effort to
say, "Look, they just dissolved their steering committee and now they
just Do Stuff as an autonomous worker collective.  Sound like where you
can fit in?"

We supposedly already scare people with all our "barriers" and "tools"
and "processes", do you really think new contributors are going to be
comfortable with "anarchy"?

- Karsten
-- 
        Karsten Wade              ^     Fedora Documentation Project 
 Sr. Developer Relations Mgr.     |  fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
     quaid.108.redhat.com         |          gpg key: AD0E0C41
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