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

[Alan DuBoff]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Darren Reed wrote:

> In short, the OpenSolaris community hasn't built itself or sat
> down and thought about what structure is best for it.  And we;ve
> now got a structure where various groups are uninterested in
> change because it might mean that they are "demoted" from
> being a community because there is a perception that being one
> is a good thing or means you are important or....
>
> Compare, for example, the decision to have communities for
> ZFS and SMF with that for security and networking.  On the
> one hand you have two (ongoing) projects within Sun, on the
> other you have two communities of people with lots of different
> projects involved.  The problem we have is that there's only
> one level or way to represent a group here: as a community.
>
> But who made all of the decisions about this?  Sun.
> Not the OpenSolaris community.

I was talking with John Plocher today, and one of the things that we both 
agreed with is that we need some way for the community members to 
understand where and how they can participate, so that we can grow the 
community as a whole.

This would make a great topic for the summit, and possible give some of 
the community people that are attending, the knowledge and/or 
understanding on how they can contribute and help.

As it is, I think a lot of folks (myself included) are trying to find a 
place to help, but having a hard time.

I know there's a lot of other community people that in the same boat, and 
it would be good if we could come up with some type of solution where it 
is known, to be of help.

I don't think that the above scenario and/or some of your point were 
intentional from Sun, even though some exist, it's just the nature of 
evolution and getting from point A to point B. I don't know how else they 
would have done things differently without causing too much rocking of the 
boat.

Moving forward is going to need more help and participation from the 
community, outside of what is ON as we know it today. There's a lot of 
software that we need to port and or bring over to OpenSolaris, and 
getting the community members to understand how they can help in that 
would be most useful, IMO.

--

Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group