[Mageia-discuss] [ul-developers] Re: [Cooker] Transparency & open invitation to a united foundation..? [Was: forking mandriva]

Tue Sep 21 14:47:28 CEST 2010

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 4:30 AM, Per Øyvind Karlsen
+<peroyvind at mandriva.org>wrote:
+
+> 2010/9/21 Wolfgang Bornath <molch.b at googlemail.com>:
+> > 2010/9/21 Per Øyvind Karlsen <peroyvind at mandriva.org>:
+> >>
+> >> Oh well, I fear that this I with this post and the proposition might
+> >> just be flamed to death no matter how sane and justified I may find
+> >> this that others might consider a flamebait pipedream, or perhaps just
+> >> ignored which wouldn't surprise me that much either, but as there
+> >> might just be slight chance of constructive discussion taking place
+> >> and something of use to someone rather than a new round with
+> >> distribution of blame and angry voices, I take my chances in the
+> >> spirit of the greater good for everyone. :o)
+> >
+> > Hmm, now here we have our old Per Øyvind back, while his person was
+> > occupied by a demon lately?
+> Nah, he just rather felt the motivation and ideas about organization
+> being too different and in contrast, getting in the way of any mutual
+> goals and hopes, making them irrelevant. But I'd rather focus on
+> bringing these in line and of mutual interest as well now rather than
+> criticizing further. ;)
+> >
+> > What you propose makes the same sense as it made a couple of months
+> > ago, but the circumstances have changed a lot meanwhile. Yoou can't
+> > turn back the pages and read again like "Forget what was, here is a
+> > born again world". Now such a system as you suggest will depend not
+> > only on technical and economical questions as it was some time ago but
+> > also on how much trust you can still have / want to have in the
+> > current powers at Mandriva as well as how much motivation the makers
+> > of this fork can show to cooperate with a company which has treated
+> > them as seen in the previous months. This can only be answered by
+> > those people, not by any other.
+> Well, you and me both has managed to stay focused on and more care
+> around the community part despite getting canned from the company
+> since quite a while ago, and even both had our quarrels with some of
+> the community as well, independent of our employment, we're still
+> around. Personally I'd feel rather hypocritical otherwise as any
+> claims and beliefs of mine about Mandriva Linux being a community
+> distribution wouldn't be consistent with letting my professional
+> relations interfer with community involvement. I'd experience it as if
+> I were setting myself and my own personal feelings towards the
+> employer in that context, especially if imposing it on the community
+> and allow for it to dictate their direction..
+>
+> I also feel that the claim about all talents and core developers of
+> the distribution being quite unfair to those people employed at
+> Conectiva, which AFAIK still has more people despite all it's previous
+> departures (which to my understanding most of likely wouldn't have
+> left either under the current situation where remaining staff chose to
+> stay) assigned to work on the community distribution than Edge-IT had
+> when liquidated. This kinda suggests a notion of the whole
+> distribution and anything of importance revolves around these
+> relatively few people at Edge-IT, and that the staff at Conectiva,
+> despite being made up of more people, they're less important.. Same
+> can be said for community contributors..
+>
+> So, is this the case? If it's not, then there shouldn't be anything in
+> the way of continuing involvement in the community and help improve it
+> and setting up a community organization together with and around it,
+> after all, we're grownups and should know better than taking out our
+> grudges on others..
+> I don't really like implying such and feel uncomfortable about raising
+> the questions, but there's several details concerning this that raises
+> the question on where you're actually acting in the community's best
+> interest or not, if your intentions really are, then I urge you to
+> reconsider participate in this attempt on establishing a dialogue..
+>
+> Certainly there can be other technical differences and desires
+> motivating the fork as well, making it more desirable for both parties
+> and allowing for them different focus and priorities without being at
+> conflict, but this doesn't have to mean that a split has to happen in
+> the community nor that we cannot work together on creating an
+> organization together and collaborate rather than burning bridges and
+> creating grounds for controversy and hostility. As the interest and
+> desires expressed by Matthew and Unity Linux, and their efforts all
+> along has shown, there is room for diversity and different focus while
+> at the same time actively working on improving relations and how to
+> better complement eachother.
+> As there's obviously interest for these things in both the Unity and
+> Mandriva community, why wouldn't there be so in the Mageia community?
+> If there's not, it wouldn't seem very professional of you, and
+> certainly not community friendly nor in the community's best interest,
+> would it?
+> The official news and strategy announced by Mandriva certainly doesn't
+> seem to  rumours on bad intentions threatening the community or the
+> distribution's future either, so that shouldn't be the concern
+> either...
+> >
+> > And of course it depends on how the powers at Mandriva (I do not mean
+> > Laprevote but rather his peers) will see such an obligation, which it
+> > will be for them. Would they see it as a necessary move, I mean
+> > necessary for their plans, not ours? As we do not know their plans we
+> > can't even speculate about that. I remember an investor talking to a
+> > former member of the Mandriva board, advising him to get rid of the
+> > enduser community because they only keep the company away from
+> > important work. I don't say that all investors think like that, but
+> > it's a good example.
+> Then I guess we should be happy that investor is no longer on the board. ;)
+> But certainly with regards to the company and related to the changes
+> in it's management, verifying their current position on the matter and
+> ensure their actual interest would certainly be useful before assuming
+> or expecting anything. If we have it and a good dialogue is
+> established, then much can be done from there.
+> >
+> > Of course, a Mandriva company which really means to carry out what
+> > Laprevote mentioned in his motivation "news", a Mandriva company which
+> > starts being communicative and transparent where it is possible, a
+> > Mandriva company which starts doing what it always claimed to be their
+> > commitment ("we are committed to the community"), this could be a good
+> > partner, /me thinks, day dreaming.
+> Yupp, and we can only find out by giving the chance and try contribute
+> to this ourself, it's a two-way street after all.. :)
+> > But as I wrote: I have no voice in this anyway.
+> Yupp, but we can at least hope to influence in the best interest, for
+> Mageia I personally didn't really have any real knowledge of before
+> after it's announcement, so I'm not expecting to even have much of a
+> voice in by myself, yet I'm hoping logic, reason and mutual benefits
+> and goals will come out winning in the end.. :)
+> >
+> > BTW: I thought the chief in hugs was François Bancilhon? :)
+> Well, I'm his secret twin, and as he weren't granted this overwhelming
+> responsibility at the first assembly meeting, he has to share the
+> duties with me, tipsy or not. ;)
+>
+> --
+> Hugziez&kizzez,
+> Your BFF <3
+> Per Øyvind
+>
+>
+I am coming in a bit cold into this conversation. Frankly, I am not even
+clear on what this discussion is even trying to achieve, so please forgive
+me if I steer this off topic.
+
+What I think is being discussed here is the desire to join the various
+communities, at least on a certain level, in an attempt to make
+collaborative work easier, if not on a daily basis, then at least on a
+roadmap planning basis. Having been part of two MDV derivative developments,
+I have come to accept what I believe to be inherent truths governing any
+such effort:
+
+   - it is impossible to satisfy everyone all the time. As long as there are
+   multiple people involved in a community, there will always be diverging
+   opinions. In large part, it is these ideological disagreements which drive
+   the communities to fraction. Trying to get everyone on the same page is a
+   vein effort. The basis for any collaborative work has to be the underlying
+   understanding that people have their own reasons for doing what they want to
+   do. Others may not agree with those reasons. Those reasons may not even be
+   expressed clearly enough to formulate a proper opinion about them. The
+   bottom line is that communities have to accept this inevitability and work
+   with it instead of around it.
+   - nominal participation does not constitute joint development. It takes
+   more than just an occasional email or attendance of a meeting to claim that
+   there is "participation".
+   - there must be numerous participants. Having just one or two delegates
+   simply does not provide enough penetration across the development
+   communities to be effective. For example, personal motives can come in the
+   way, availability of the delegate may be limited due to life events, etc. In
+   order to guarantee successful sharing across communities, there must be more
+   than a couple of people sharing the information.
+   - every participant on all sides must be empowered to contribute to the
+   decisions. Clearly, this has to be governed by some guidelines. Otherwise,
+   this may become a free-for-all mess. However, if the contributing members of
+   the individual distributions don't feel that they have influence over the
+   partner communities, then the entire communities will drift, or worst still,
+   rip apart.
+
+I am 100% for transparency in development and collaborative work. But I do
+feel that in order for any such efforts to be successful, the items on the
+above list have to be addressed first. In my mind, the success of any
+attempt to unite effort will depend on the success of addressing these
+topics first.
+
+Just my 2 cents,
+Paul (gri6507).
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