Hi, On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 12:55 PM, Mark Wiebe <mwwi...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 12:09 PM, Matthew Brett <matthew.br...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Benjamin Root <ben.r...@ou.edu> wrote: >> > >> > >> > On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Alan G Isaac <alan.is...@gmail.com> >> > wrote: >> >> Can you provide an example where a more formal >> >> governance structure for NumPy would have meant >> >> more or better code development? (Please do not >> >> suggest the NA discussion!) >> >> >> > >> > Why not the NA discussion? Would we really want to have that happen >> > again? >> > Note that it still isn't fully resolved and progress still needs to be >> > made >> > (I think the last thread did an excellent job of fleshing out the ideas, >> > but >> > it became too much to digest. We may need to have someone go through >> > the >> > information, reduce it down and make one last push to bring it to a >> > conclusion). The NA discussion is the perfect example where a >> > governance >> > structure would help resolve disputes. >> >> Yes, that was the most obvious example. I don't know about you, but I >> can't see any sign of that one being resolved. >> >> The other obvious example was the dispute about ABI breakage for numpy >> 1.5.0 where I believe Travis did invoke some sort of committee to >> vote, but (Travis can correct me if I'm wrong), the committee was >> named ad-hoc and contacted off-list. >> >> > >> >> >> >> Can you provide an example of what you might >> >> envision as a "more formal governance structure"? >> >> (I assume that any such structure will not put people >> >> who are not core contributors to NumPy in a position >> >> to tell core contributors what to spend their time on.) >> >> >> >> Early last December, Chuck Harris estimated that three >> >> people were active NumPy developers. I liked the idea of >> >> creating a "board" of these 3 and a rule that says any >> >> active developer can request to join the board, that >> >> additions are determined by majority vote of the existing >> >> board, and that having the board both small and odd >> >> numbered is a priority. I also suggested inviting to this >> >> board a developer or two from important projects that are >> >> very NumPy dependent (e.g., Matplotlib). >> >> >> >> I still like this idea. Would it fully satisfy you? >> >> >> > >> > I actually like that idea. Matthew, is this along the lines of what you >> > were thinking? >> >> Honestly it would make me very happy if the discussion moved to what >> form the governance should take. I would have thought that 3 was too >> small a number. > > > One thing to note about this point is that during the NA discussion, the > only people doing active C-level development were Charles and me. I suspect > a discussion about how to recruit more people into that group might be more > important than governance at this point in time.
Mark - a) thanks for replying, it's good to hear your voice and b) I don't think there's any competition between the discussion about governance and the need to recruit more people into the group who understand the C code. Remember we are deciding here between governance - of a form to be decided - and no governance - which I think is the current situation. I know your desire is to see more people contributing to the C code. It would help a lot if you could say what you think the barriers are, how they could be lowered, and the risks that you see as a result of the numpy C expertise moving essentially into one company. Then we can formulate some governance that would help lower those barriers and reduce those risks. > If we need a formal structure, maybe a good approach is giving Travis the > final say for now, until a trigger point occurs. That could be 6 months > after the number of active developers hits 5, or something like that. At > that point, we would reopen the discussion with a larger group of people who > would directly play in that role, and any decision made then will probably > be better than a decision we make now while the development team is so > small. Honestly - as I was saying to Alan and indirectly to Ben - any formal model - at all - is preferable to the current situation. Personally, I would say that making the founder of a company, which is working to make money from Numpy, the only decision maker on numpy - is - scary. But maybe it's the best way. But, again, we're all high-functioning sensible people, I'm sure it's possible for us to formulate what the risks are, what the potential solutions are, and come up with the best - maybe short-term - solution, See you, Matthew _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@scipy.org http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
