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

[Garrett D'Amore]

Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Darren Reed <Darren.Reed at Sun.COM> wrote:
>
>   
>> By presenting projects at the same level as a community,
>> I believe we've done ourselves a disservice and have
>> possibly made it harder to engage the broaders communities.
>>     
>
> I did not like this disposition from the beginning. 
>
> It prevented e.g. the creation of a general filesystem community and it
> artificially limits the power of important people who did not become
> a "community leader" because of this sructure.
>
> I believe we should have an interest based structure where people who are 
> interested in the same topic just communicate with each other.
>
> One place where this should already happen is ARC cases. Unfortunately, 
> it is possible to foil the ARC by using "fast tracks" for things that need
> a detailed discussion. The fact that nobody is able to stop this creates a
> sense of powerlessness.
>   

Actually, that is totally untrue.  ARC members can derail any case that 
they feel needs a full review.  They can (and often do) ask for more 
time, as well, when ongoing discussions need more time to converge.

In the past, the ARC members have done this frequently.

However, in the one particular case I know about, where you were pretty 
much the only dissenter, and where everyone else had converged, the 
membership voted to go ahead and approve the case.  Note that in that 
particular case it was an active decision to approve the fasttrack... 
there was enough discussion between the membership to ensure that the 
ARC was pretty much unanimous in the belief that a) the case didn't 
warrant derailing, b) letting the case run for more time would not have 
resulted in any further convergence, and c) the case would have been 
approved if it were a full case.  Furthermore, you were not present at 
the ARC meeting where this was decided, despite the fact that you could 
have dialed in and that the agenda was public.

Penalizing the project team and the ARC because one person in the 
broader community objects doesn't seem fair.  (The cost of effort to go 
from fasttrack to full case review is fairly high for both the project 
team and the ARC.)  Nobody has absolute veto power.  However, the ARC 
membership (which is only a small handful of technical leaders) can 
derail the case, if it is warranted.  It doesn't happen *often*, but it 
does happen occasionally.

If you're not happy with the way ARC runs its affairs, then I'd 
recommend that you volunteer as a PSARC intern.  Or at least attend a 
few meetings to see how the process goes, before complaining.

    -- Garrett
>
> Jörg
>
>