On Dec 6, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Ruth Hoffman wrote: > You, David, have the power to give developer's commit access to the source > code repository. You, David, can take it away. Or am I wrong about that? Who, > BTW, gave all these people commit access to the source code repository > initially?
That is not correct, I don't have the power to give commit access or to take it away. For more information, please see: http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#structure and http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#meritocracy and http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBADMIN/Apache+OFBiz+PMC+Members+and+Committers Anyone can take on the role of "QA Manager", but chances are no one will ever be paid to do so. Yes, it's true that the PMC can vote to revoke commit privileges, but that is the only "force" available. And, if we went around removing a bunch of commit privileges do you really think that would get people to start testing better and doing analysis and design in a coordinated way before implementing so that they even know what to test? My guess is mostly that answer is no. People would get offended and simply stop contributing. In other words, trying force people to do something by not allowing them to do things is simply not very effective. You won't get more out of people, you'll get less. Things are not done here by force, but by influence. This is a volunteer organization driven from the edge, not some sort of centralized managed and controlled organization. Since there is no one around with power to force people to do things the best option is influence. For people committing stuff that breaks things, that means using peer pressure. Fortunately in recent months there has been a LOT more peer review and feedback among the committers (and in some rare cases other people, though there is nothing stopping anyone from doing so), and that should lead to significantly better code and commits over time. Up until earlier this year I personally reviewed basically every commit, but I don't do that any more and only review a fraction of all commits. Fortunately, and perhaps partly because of that, others are stepping up and doing an excellent job of sharing that load, and I'm really happy about that. In spite of conflicts, mistakes, and people venting publicly now and again the community behind OFBiz is really coming together, and really acting as a community. -David
