[ogb-discuss] Community Facilitators

[James Carlson]

Alan Coopersmith writes:
> John Plocher wrote:
> > I don't know how to "fix" this out in OS.o-land.
> 
> But we don't know how to fix it inside Sun either, where the project
> proposal is often not submitted to the ARC database until after the
> project is well underway.   (For instance, the IPS project hasn't done
> this yet either.)

At least for my projects, the internally broken part here is that the
1-pager is tied to both the architectural review and the business
review.  It's frequently the case that I know the details of one of
those two long before I know the other, and thus I sit on the 1-pager.
I end up with maximum delay, when I certainly want minimum delay.

That is the internally broken part, in my view.  It's caught us up in
so many places (such as those frequent "null" projects in PSARC that
are all business and zero archtecture) that I really wish we could
detangle these two things.  I know why they were forced together, but
it still seems like the cure is worse than the disease.

The external breakage is different.  The process for creating a
"project" in OpenSolaris terms, and at least for the time being, is a
bit higher overhead than Sun's old internal process used to be and
higher than in the CAB days.  The "higher overhead" part is that you
can't just run ahead with the 1-pager, consulting no-one, or just get
two +1s on some common list, but instead have to get one or more
community groups (and only core contributors) to endorse your project.
And once you've got an OpenSolaris project, you've still got zero ARC
visibility -- you still have to go through a separate exercise to get
on that path.  It's not automatic.

That's what I think John is referring to here.  I don't think it's
actually a bad thing in the long term, but it's going to be rough as
community groups (and their members) get used to their role in
shepherding projects.  After some experience, I hope this becomes a
snap.

-- 
James Carlson, Solaris Networking              <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive        71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
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