Without taking any sides in the ongoing OpenDS dispute, I do
note a couple of items that we can and should learn from the
situation:
1) Tracking changes to the goverance documents
Whether or not the OpenDS changes were authorized, their
storage in a SCM made it trivial to see the change history.
Our webapp seems to make this impossible - I can't even tell
you when the Constitution was last changed (it has two very
different change dates on it - February & May, and no record
of what changed at those dates - I assume the May date merely
reflects our move from the CAB community to the OGB community).
Right now, any OGB member or anyone with site-wide editing
privileges can change our governance documents, and no one would
be notified, able to see what changed, or know who did it.
Knowing that software isn't perfect, and humans make mistakes,
we're also vulnerable to people outside that set breaking in.
(Given the current site staff and OGB members, I think we're more
at risk from hackers than those we trust, but I can't guarantee
that will always be the case, and would still like to be able to
bring up the change history to prove it.)
We should fix this, whether it be simply setting up a OGB documents
project to store the official copies in a Hg repository or putting
them in a real wiki, like genunix's.
2) Knowing who at Sun can speak for Sun regarding the project
The changes to the OpenDS governance model were made by Sun
employees - the question seems to hinge on whether they included
the ones given voice to speak officially for Sun in that project.
We're more fortunate in that we can point to the definitive approval
of the OpenSolaris Charter by Glenn Weinberg, and of the OpenSolaris
Constitution by Jeff Jackson (both of which were the VP of Solaris
engineering at the respective times).
If we need an official statement from Sun on an OpenSolaris issue,
who can make it? The VP of Solaris engineering? A director
on his staff he appoints (such as Mr. Franklin)? Ian? Simon?
--
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
