Re: About the role of the Release (again)

[Piñeiro <apinheiro igalia com>]

On 08/05/2013 11:27 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> > IMHO, the first thing to debate if we are willing to expand our role and
> > scope, assuming that is what the Foundation members want us to do. If we
> > are, then let's ask the community if that is what they want. If not, we
> > should document with more detail what we are, what we do, and how far we
> > will go on our duties. I mention "how far" because that was raised by
> > Colin on our meeting here at GUADEC with the specific example of bluez
> > migration.
> We have been quite a  bit more active in setting direction, in the
> past year. Big decisions:
>
> - replacing fallback mode by classic mode
> - wayland

I didn't mention those specifically, but I mentioned that we were
already proactively involved on discussions like:

 * middle-click button: this one was raised by one person, I mentioned
that we were aware and talking on the mailing list about that
 * bluez migration: I mentioned this when some person mentioned that
under his perception "the power" of the release team is smaller compared
with the past. It was mentioned the process to approve external
dependencies. I mentioned that what was changed is the procedure. Now we
have a feature proposal process. Each feature needs to say how to
achieve it, including dependencies. If it includes a crazy dependency
the feature is not accepted etc. So, some people thinks that
release-team has less power that he had in the past. And AFAIK, that is
not true.

> I have personally be involved in turning both of these from decisions
> into reality, by publicising the decisions, providing resources,
> organizing meetings, etc.  So, I think we've followed the mandate from
> last years AGM pretty well.
Yes. In the end probably all this is about personal impressions. People
complaining are usually somewhat more noisy, and people don't realize
the other stuff we are doing. And as you say, you were publicly pushing
for that, so I can't say that is a marketing problem that we need to solve.

> I have the impression that the current discussion is about unhappiness
> in certain circles with decisions that have been made in individual
> modules. I have zero interest in turning the release team into a
> commit police, and I'm not going to participate in that kind of
> activity.
AFAIU the idea is not becoming a commit police, but more visible being a
mediator. Some people see that there are discussions without a neutral
party involved. I included the word "veto" on the poll text because it
was something mentioned on the meeting. In any case, is what I said: no
matters if we agreed or not with all those people that want us to have
this kind of power. After this thread we need to explain properly what
is the release team and what is not, and what does and what not.

In that sense, and about my "I have some doubts" on my original mail.
Let's say that what people want is that commit police thing, and that we
agree on that new power. Someone could wonder, why the release team has
that power? Because after all, nobody elected us. In the end we can end
on a situation where the blame and the control conspirancies are just
moved to a different place (so to us) instead of solving anything.

BR

-- 
Alejandro Piñeiro Iglesias