Re: IRC channels in gnome development

[Paul Cutler <pcutler gnome org>]

You're asking to change the way things have been done for years -
which isn't an argument to not do things that way, but just pointing
it ou.

However, the GNOME Design team has regular office hours in IRC where
everyone is welcome to come and ask questions - I'm not a designer,
but I don't know what more you can ask for if IRC is going to be used.
 Development is not a democracy - and for those who are going to do
get things done, discussion via IRC and its immediacy is a powerful
tool.  I personally think asking IRC not to be used for "important"
(which is relative) decisions is not realistic.

Paul

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Maciej Piechotka <uzytkownik2 gmail com> wrote:
> IRC channels seems to be used in gnome development. It may be just me
> but I believe that recent power setting "crisis" show (I contrast them
> to mailing lists):
>
>  - Requires presence. Many people cannot afford being on irc 24/7 - both
> developers, potential developers or just interested users. The houres of
> the meeting may clash with working hours or other real live constraints.
>  - Not logged. Sometimes during discussion it was said that something
> was discussed extensively on #gnome-design. That is good however there
> is no method of figuring out what the arguments where.
>  - Provides less informations. In e-mails I can do smart things like
> marking read/unread, putting into folders to read/to respond/ignore (or
> simply - unread: requires action, read: still important, in archive: no
> action required). Smart clients can even filter out irrelevant threads
> etc. With IRC I cannot do anything except reading it. There is no side
> informations and I cannot attach informations.
>
> Could there be a recommendation against discussion of important
> decisions on IRC? While I understand that it may slow down process
> probably but it would improve developer-user relationships as well as
> transparency and inclusiveness of process.
>
> Regards
>
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