[ogb-discuss] [opensolaris-summit] My comments (very subjective) on proposed Summit topics

[Jim Grisanzio]

Darren Reed wrote:
> The OGB doesn't appear to me to be actually doing anything. It
> appears more more like an arbitration council that also sanctions
> community decisions about which communities to create and how to
> make a contributor/core contributor.  "So what".  In this guise
> it feels more like a rubber stamp operation than anything meaningful.

There was a lot of discussion about this when the initial OGB was 
writing the Constitution. I think the intent was to distribute 
leadership and decision making power among the communities and projects 
and not centralize it in the OGB. I agree with that model because it 
offers significant incentive and opportunity for participation across 
the entire community. That one element is what makes the OpenSolaris 
Constitution so meaningful.

The OGB's job was to create and maintain the structure in which a 
community could grow. They did that. And they did that pretty well, 
actually. The OGB /represents/ the community, but it doesn't /run/ the 
community. Operations are distributed by design. The community runs 
itself via individual community groups and projects. When there are 
problems or meta issues to consider, the OGB has the authority to step 
in and mediate and resolve disputes. That seems to be a perfectly 
reasonable system to me. That's my impression of things, anyway.

Jim
-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris