Re: Getting to Topaz (Was Re: getting on a longer release cycled)

[Maxim Udushlivy <maxim udushlivy gmail com>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:
> I think the best shot at this would be to gather a small group that 
> agrees on some audience they want to try and do stuff for, and just 
> start doing it; I'm not sure how the overall GNOME boat can be turned up 
> front, it's probably not possible. The small group would have to be 
> prepared for potentially large divergence from the existing 
> gnome-panel/nautilus/etc. desktop codebase - they would need to be open 
> to doing very different things either instead or in addition, if that 
> made sense to provide the benefits to the audience.
>   
"...gather a small group" - this reminds the infamous lack-of-leadership 
Gnome problem (at least from the outsider perspective)

I was once lurking around planet.gnome.org and there was an interesting 
accident. One guy said about Israel that "it is evil" and another (Jeff 
Waugh?) was trying to moderate him.

One Russian philosopher said that the government should not lead people 
to heaven. Instead it must prevent them to fall into hell. That accident 
hinted me an interesting solution to Gnome leadership problem.

From the business point of view the majority of foss projects 
(including successful) are in a strange state that may be called as a 
"permanent crisis". When something is in a crisis, who is needed? 
Anti-crisis manager! So, some (if not majority) foss projects instead of 
leaders need permanent anti-crisis management. This is especially true 
for Gnome due to a nature of its community - a union of several 
development groups who cannot fully unite because they develop different 
applications (at least I see it this way). It seems that Gnome is like a 
country with several political parties, but if Gnome is meritocracy this 
country does not need traditional government that is elected by 
democratic procedures.

Now to the point. Every society needs some mechanism to protect itself 
from falling into hell. For example, on many public forums there is a 
special position that is called Moderator. As I said, Gnome is not 
suitable for traditional form of leadership, so the most logical way to 
keep order here is to introduce a position of Moderator, an anti-crisis 
manager. You may call him Gnome Sheriff if you like Westerns as I do.

Gnome Sheriff must be elected by some formal procedure (better by 
democratic voting). His main responsibility - moderate mailing lists 
from bullshit, destroy crazy ideas before they infect people, protect 
project ideology, etc.

I think it is not only useful and fun but will bring some stability and 
direction here, won't it?!