On 06/11/2007, Alan Burlison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Shawn Walker wrote: > > and voting on every issue is likely to end in deadlock either due to > > the apathy of eligible voters [31] or a vocal minority that prevents > > consensus from being achieved. > > Bearing in mind there's only ever been one vote I think it's a little
As was pointed out, there have been two: http://poll.opensolaris.org/1/ http://poll.opensolaris.org/2/ However, if you look at discussions among the community, you'll see that one of the problems we have right now is the lack of a clear way to achieve consensus. A bunch of emails with +1 or -1 flying around make things difficult. > premature to say that our existing mechanisms don't work. And the It has been well over a year that we have been a self-governing body. The fact that the mechanisms we have are not used and that so little progress in certain areas has been made implies to me that they do not work. > voting system is specifically designed to prevent deadlock. And I don't > really care too much about minorities, vocal or not. What I care about > is majority opinion, measured by a vote when necessary. And no I'm > *not* advocating voting on everything, just when appropriate - and that > itself is a topic that needs further discussion. One of the primary purposes of this proposal is to provoke productive discussion. It is my hope that we can achieve better definition of these areas where the community does indeed have the right to vote. The current definition in the constitution is too vague. > > The author believes that Sun must be allowed to fulfil this role as a > > key leader for many reasons. Sun is accountable to their shareholders > > for their significant financial support they provide to the > > OpenSolaris project; whether that is directly or through a foundation > > is immaterial. The potential for our sustained growth and success, and > > to a certain extent, Sun's, is directly tied to the community. Failure > > or Success by either Sun or of the community will affect both. > > Sun can't be a 'leader', whatever that is. Sun is a company, not a > person. When you say 'leader' you mean 'person'. Who would that person > be? Which part of the company would they be from? From outside Sun > it's tempting to view Sun as a homogeneous whole, but like any big > organisation, that isn't the case. If you are invoking 'Sun' as the > central point of control you aren't actually solving any issues, you are > just moving them from one place to another. No, I mean Sun as a leader in the role defined in change #3 listed in the proposal. I do not mean a specific individual since those change at Sun quite frequently from what I've been told :) > > In conclusion, to resolve these deficiencies, it is the author's > > belief that our existing governance structure must be revised to > > ensure that clear, inspired leadership is provided to our community > > (as a whole). Communities surrounding the Linux kernel [32], Ubuntu, > > Python [33], OpenBSD, Apple, et al. have shown us how significant, > > sustained growth and success can be achieved when a specific > > individual helps provide the clear, inspired leadership every > > community needs. Our community would not even exist today if were not > > for the decision of leadership (notably, Jonathan Schwartz) [34] at > > Sun to provide the source code that provides the reason for our > > existence. > > You've ignored one of the main inspirations for the OpenSolaris > governance model - The Apache Software Foundation. In fact one of the > founder members of the ASF helped draw up the OpenSolaris constitution. No, I haven't ignored them. I merely omitted them from the document for the sake of my personal sanity and brevity. I also felt that I was not qualified to properly comment on their model as I have little to no experience with them and given one of our prominent community member's personal involvement; felt that it would not be appropriate. > From http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html: > > "Unlike other software development efforts done under an open source > license, the Apache Web Server was not initiated by a single developer > (for example, like the Linux Kernel, or the Perl/ Python languages), but > started as a diverse group of people that shared common interests and > got to know each other by exchanging information, fixes and suggestions." That's great for Apache. However, I don't feel that their governance model works for us; they seem to have the strong leadership they already need. I believe that our community needs clearer direction. > That's far, far closer to the OpenSolaris situation than any of the > examples you've quoted. I wasn't involved in the drafting of the > constitution, but I can understand why the ASF model was chosen as an > inspiration, and I think it was a good choice for OpenSolaris. I'm quite aware that this was the "inspiration" given it's primary drafter. > Where I *do* agree with you is that the OGB has not been the guiding > force it should perhaps have been. It seems to me 'from the outside' > that the OGB has sometimes become bogged down by constitutional > minutiae. I know it must be very difficult when you are effectively the > 'First Watch', but I think the OGB needs to try to see the constitution > as empowering it, not restricting what it can do. However I don't think Clear leadership an direction are two of the key points behind this proposal. As such, I am glad to hear that you understand what I am trying to say. > the answer to the current teething problems is to throw out what we have. Nowhere in this proposal is there a suggestion to throw out what we have. Specifically, it has suggested that what we have is changed. If you look at the suggested changes, you'll note that this is far from throwing out what we have. > > 1) The OGB is empowered to make more decisions for the community. > > Which decisions? When? How? If you are going to make a proposal for > constitutional change it needs to be *very* specific. I'd need to see > far more detail before I could agree or disagree with this assertion. As this proposal stated; it is intended to provoke productive discussion. I intentionally left this open to discussion since: 1) I believe some of the areas in which they should be empowered should be apparent given the recent debates. 2) I wanted to hear what areas others believe this should be done in instead of forcing my particular view on them. > > 2) An individual is chosen by our community to work with the OGB. They > > will provide clear, inspired leadership and vision. It must be made > > known that this position is one that is likely to be full-time and > > require their complete focus. Any individual that is part of our > > community should be eligible for this position regardless of whom they > > are or are not employed by. > > What does 'with' mean? Who gets the final say? This person would br > doing what, exactly? ('leadership and vision' is way to vague). If it > is full-time, paid by who? What about conflicts of interest? Again, > far more detail is needed. Again, the proposal is intended to provoke productive discussion. I have merely pointed out a few examples of leadership with the subtle suggestion that they would have a similar level of authority. I would like the community to discuss and decide amongst themselves how such a role might work for us. As for the questions of full-time, paid, etc.; as an OGB member you should be painfully aware of the time commitment already required that goes without compensation. Past members of the OGB/CAB that were not paid often had to make choices between paying work and volunteer work that directly affected the ability to provide for themselves or their families. As for conflict-of-interest, that is something the community has to decide. > > 3) That Sun is permitted, as the principal stakeholder in our > > community, to play a key role in product development and marketing of > > the OpenSolaris trademark (which they own) given their clear > > experience, accountability to their shareholders, and success in this > > area. This role must be given a greater degree of authority than what > > is currently granted by the constitution. > > The only mention of trademarks in the constitution is a stipulation that > you can't use an established one as a community name. And nobody is > disputing that Sun is a) a principle stakeholder b) plays a key role in > product development or c) owns the OpenSolaris trademark. Sun doesn't > need the 'authority' of the OGB any more than OGB requires the > 'authority' of Sun to carry out its work. As far as I know, what has > been asked for by the OGB is a discussion of the issues and a subsequent > agreement on how the trademark is to be used. None of that requires > constitutional change. Yes, but the current constitution doesn't make it clear enough who has this authority. As a result, we have people arguing over exactly how much control the community does have over the usage of the trademark that bears our name, and how that can be used to represent us. Without that clear definition, we will continue to have disagreements over whom can do what. > > 4) That the role of product development and marketing, as outlined in > > our constitution, should be shared with Sun in a well-defined manner > > with qualified members of the community. > > Unless I've missed it the constitution doesn't say anything relevant > about product development and marketing - or are you referring to some The constitution does mention it; which is why I had citations in the original proposal. Specifically, if you look at [25]: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/governance/#ARTICLE_III.__Structure.2C_Participation.2C_and_Roles You will see that the link above is to a section where the first paragraph specifically states: "The OGB, in turn, delegates the organization and decision-making for specific OpenSolaris activities, such as ****product development and marketing tasks****, through the creation of Community Groups." > future version of the constitution? And in any case, neither of those > things requires constitutional change, all that is required is an > agreement between the OpenSolaris community and the appropriate people > and groups within Sun. It is unworkable to propose that we have to make > constitutional changes for what are purely organisational issues. How is it unworkable? If it is, it is no more so than the current situation where almost two years later, the groups are supposed to be responsible: 1) Have not been designated 2) If they have been designated, have no fulfilled their responsibilities. 3) Have utterly failed, apparently, as should be shown by recent debates. > It is not realistic to expect that every aspect of the functioning of > the OpenSolaris community is promulgated in the constitution. The > constitution is supposed to lay down a framework within which the > community can operate and come to decisions, it is not supposed to > rigidly define the permitted types of interactions, or the decisions > which are made. It also not realistic to expect a community to achieve sustained growth and success if we don't have a document defining areas of responsibility and expected tasks. Because we do not have such a document at the moment, our community continues to debate who exactly has authority over what, and has bickered endlessly over topics that should have been decided long ago. > I'm not saying that the constitution couldn't do with tuning in some > areas, but I disagree with the areas and justifications that you've chosen. Fair enough; I look forward to further productive discussion on this topic. Cheers, -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics are not in our favor..." --Larry Wall _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
