new module decisions [was Re: gnome-screensaver]

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 2/16/06, Danilo Šegan <danilo gnome org> wrote:
> Hi Vincent,
>
> Today at 8:24, Vincent Untz wrote:
>
> > We'll be trying something new for new modules in 2.16. I think most of
> > us agree that it didn't turn out well for this cycle.
>
> Like: lets remove all desktop modules, and reevaluate them again?
>
> Not that it would bring any concrete results, but I'd love the
> flamefest (d-d-l is seriously lacking these days :)
>
> Now, seriously, can you at least give us a hint of what you have in
> mind?  And who is "we" dammit? :)

There are a couple of ideas floating around, so there's no concrete
change to propose yet.  But you'll note that we have sucked at new
module decisions in all release cycles for the past
who-knows-how-long.  I personally think part of the problem is that
the end date for new module proposals coincides with the date for the
final decision.  The "discuss it" period is also way too wide open
making it hard to keep on top of.  One of the suggestions is to have
the cut-off date for new module proposals be sooner, have a focused
and relatively short (a week or so?) discussion period after that
(though still allowing the open ended discussion period that currently
exists, just making it in some sense less official than the focused
one), and then followed by an actual date by which decisions need to
be made.

I brought this up at a recent release-team meeting and other ideas
were also brought up that were somewhat similar in nature (read: I
don't remember the details).  We didn't have anything concrete and
were running out of time, and besides, 2.14 is taking precedence right
now.  So we agreed to discuss more later and get some community input
maybe near or after 2.14 is out.  But now that it has come up...

Anyone else have any ideas on making us not suck at getting module
decisions done two months before the release as specified on the
schedule as opposed to one month like we usually achieve?


For completeness, I should also note that there are two other big
problems involved which I don't know how to solve on a short timescale
(e.g. before 2.16):
  - Havoc's recent points about identifying our target audience is
important in many ways; in relation to this email, it's hard to judge
what should be part of the desktop when we don't have a defined target
audience (some who are working on Gnome have a defined target
audience, but I don't think all of those who do agree)
  - David's recent point in this thread about the desktop release set
not being so important also rings true to me.  It's a binary in-or-out
yet there are lots of really rocking "Gnome" programs that are well
integrated but aren't in the set.  We've talked about franchising the
release process and blurring the in-or-out line, but don't yet really
know how to do that and haven't gotten any traction on the problem.

Cheers,
Elijah