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

[Maxim Udushlivy <maxim udushlivy gmail com>]

BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
> I think you are 100% right and that it is important for GNOME to
> narrow its focus. For example, if GNOME limited its focus to computers
> with 256 MB of RAM, then...
I was proposing to narrow Gnome by ideology (implementation style), 
Havok - by desktop tasks (implementation scope), you - by hardware 
requirements (implementation details). What is more viable?

> And it is not just the memory requirements for GNOME that needs to be
> decided. I agree that choosing a specific target niche would be very
> useful. Problem is, how are you going to do it? GNOME doesn't have a
> BFDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFDL) so WHO would decide what the
> target niche is? Many of the most successful free software projects
> (Linux and Python for example) have a BFDL, that person has a clear
> vision about how they want their product to be. Everyone else has just
> to accept that vision or leave the project. GNOME is different in that
> regard, different developers have different visions and when they
> clash, big debates erupt on this mailing list.
>
> Debates that really doesn't solve the problems and doesn't find a
> common ground...
>
>   
There is an interesting observation on how laws are being developed in 
the USA: they are formulations of common practices. I.e. those laws do 
not try to change behavior of people, instead they enforce something 
that already exists and works. That's why I propose with a pure 
conscience a position of Gnome Moderator (who is not a Dictator but an 
anti-crisis manager). It is very common for an on-line community to have 
a moderator.

With a moderator endless debates would be impossible since there will be 
a man to whom you could prove that your practices (of vision of 
practices of others) are efficient and deserves to become a law. 
Currently people just express their opinions without any effect - a 
boiling water inside a teapot that could otherwise become a steam engine.