[ogb-discuss] Community Facilitators

[Alan Burlison]

Shawn Walker wrote:

>>> 2) New contributors are scared away and don't know how to contribute
>>> since almost none of the projects or communities have a simple "How to
>>> contribute" page
>> That's an easy fix, and one that the communities and projects could do now.
> 
> Since the OGB shouldn't have to tell projects to do this, is there a
> better way to communicate such suggestions to projects?

Umm, other than telling them if they haven't done so, I can't think of 
one - but you seem to think that the OGB shouldn't be telling them...

>> Welcome to a distributed community, working on a huge software project.
>>   This has been a fact of life for me in *all* my time in Sun
>> Engineering.  I work in the UK, not MPK and most of the time I have
>> little idea what is happening in areas that I'm not directly involved in
>> - why would someone from say, ZFS, consult *me*?  I really think there
>> were enough hints that something was up in the packaging area - even *I*
>> in my bunker in Darkest Derbyshire realised that.  If you want to know,
>> you have to ask.
> 
> Regardless of the reality, the perception is that the *Open* in
> OpenSolaris implies this consideration being given without being asked
> for. Whether that is reasonable to expect is beyond my abilities to
> qualify.

My point is that people inside and people outside are treated 
identically in this regard, as far as I can tell.  I'm not saying that 
communications couldn't/shouldn't be improved, just that people in the 
external community shouldn't feel they are being victimised when they 
are being treated just the same as everyone else.

> Let's not play a blame game. I don't blame Sun for all of the failings
> of the community, and vice versa should be true as well.

No, I can fully understand (and indeed I share) many of the frustrations 
of the external community.  However I feel that the criticisms were 
becoming unjustifiably vituperative, and something had to be said. 
Those of us working on the project need the *support* of the opensolaris 
community (of which we are a part, after all), not its censure.

-- 
Alan Burlison
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