Le 12/09/2012 14:13, Boris Zbarsky a écrit :
On 9/11/12 10:32 PM, David Bruant wrote:
Would you work on what has been agreed on?
Maybe.
Would I spend every possible moment working on what has been agreed
on, if I disagree with it? Perhaps not.
Mozilla does not own its contributors, nor should it. Thought it
sounds to me like you think it should, and that someone who is not
committed to spending all their free time on whatever the current best
guess is for advancing the mission should not be welcomed. I,
personally, think that's a terrible idea.
I agree with you here. I didn't mean what you're describing. I'm
actually puzzled you're coming to such an interpretation just based on
what I wrote.
Being myself just a volunteer, I wouldn't even follow myself what you
describe, I think.
Now maybe that's not what you meant. But that's what it came across
as, at least to me. Sounds like to Justin too.
I didn't mean to describe something such a black and white situation.
We've traveled very far from my initial post it seems.
Agreeing on priorities as a group doesn't necessarily mean that every
single individual agrees with every single decision made by the group.
Agreeing on priorities, in the abstract, doesn't mean that people
should drop everything else.
I didn't say it did.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you wrote above about "owning
contributors" is something Mozilla is (understandably) frightened to be
accused of. A natural conclusion for Mozilla is to have this attitude of
considering
volunteers as "fragile birds" as I described in my initial message;
Mozilla (whoever that is exactly) would make decisions and the
volunteers can do whatever they want because they are not owned.
But what about volunteers who want to get involved more deeply? Are they
doomed to stay outside of the room of people who make strategic
decisions? Do they have to be hired to be part of strategic discussions?
Talking with other contributors, it is my understanding that a lot of
people are frustrated to not be included in any important decision
discussion. Not that they want to necessarily make the decisions, but
they just feel that's they're being imposed something. It does create
some tensions. I know some people left from the French community as a
consequence of that (that's an understanding I'm making only now).
Also, every single contributor was holding his/her breath during the
last MozCampEU last November in Berlin, not knowing what would happen to
Mozilla financially at the end of the partnership with Google. A month
later in December, everyone was happy that it got renewed, but I can't
help wondering what will happen when the current partnership will end.
There are business model discussions for which it could be valuable to
have volunteer input. A lot of Mozilla volunteers spend time in the
startup ecosystem of their city/region, are freelance or run their own
company. We do not have the answer to all questions or a definite
business model for Mozilla, but being part of the discussion couldn't be
harmful in my opinion. But money really is a sensitive topic and to my
knowledge, currently, volunteers are all excluded from any discussion
that would relate to money. Once again, why? If some volunteers are
interested in these topics and think they can make valuable
contributions in this area, it wouldn't hurt to have them sign an NDA
and let them contribute in these topics under the condition of not
revealing any confidential information.
Note that I don't think you need this "everyone must agree on
priorities" strawman to support your main point which is that
priority-setting is very opaque right now.
Maybe. I admit that what is needed is not very clear to me right. I feel
I have the finger on the right problem, but I'm still unsure what's the
exact scope and source of it and less of any exact solution.
I don't think that everyone must agree on priorities, but I'm confident
involving as many people as possible early in the decision-making
process will end up in a better alignment in priorities
David
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