Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[Daniel Narvaez]

On Thursday, 7 November 2013, NoiseEHC wrote:

>
>  Sugar Labs has found itself in a position where there is a high degree
>>> of conformity. This tends to create an echo chamber where similar
>>> opinions are respected and encouraged. That can be effective at
>>> building passion and energy, but it tends to crowd out dissenting
>>> opinions and marginalize the people who hold those opinions. These
>>> people can be the most productive members of the community in their
>>> particular areas of interest.
>>>
>> Of all the people who participated in this discussion,
>> you are the only who is repeating this. Is possible this is only
>> your personal point of view?
>>
>>
> Actually that is my experience as well. But of course I am very biased
> because I write to the mailing list only when I have a differing viewpoint
> and have to say something different than others. Otherwise there are
> usually enough agreeing people that I do not write to the list just to
> agree.
> All that told, usually I did not get other than I should not tell others
> what to do or CADT... Maybe it is my fault and I just should not think
> differently. Who knows?
>

I think it would be very useful if you could link a thread where you have
been told that you should not tell the others what to do. I'm confused
because I don't really remember anything like that... Either my memory is
bad or we are interpreting people words differently.


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[NoiseEHC]

Sugar Labs has found itself in a position where there is a high degree
of conformity. This tends to create an echo chamber where similar
opinions are respected and encouraged. That can be effective at
building passion and energy, but it tends to crowd out dissenting
opinions and marginalize the people who hold those opinions. These
people can be the most productive members of the community in their
particular areas of interest.

Of all the people who participated in this discussion,
you are the only who is repeating this. Is possible this is only
your personal point of view?



Actually that is my experience as well. But of course I am very biased 
because I write to the mailing list only when I have a differing 
viewpoint and have to say something different than others. Otherwise 
there are usually enough agreeing people that I do not write to the list 
just to agree.
All that told, usually I did not get other than I should not tell others 
what to do or CADT... Maybe it is my fault and I just should not think 
differently. Who knows?



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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers? [ Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 21]

[Sebastian Silva]

El 06/11/13 10:00, Daniel Narvaez escribió:
On 6 November 2013 07:15, Sebastian Silva > wrote:


I too feel the overall attitude within this list has been
dismissive of
non-conforming ideas and individuals, sometimes bluntly. The spanish
speakers, from Xavi who did so much translation, to Homunq who
started (and abandoned) Develop Activity, to Yama whose ideals always
seemed to clash with reality, I miss them. I myself have been often
frustrated, having retreated biting my tongue more than once.

It makes me think of the eastern spiritual ideal of speaking only when
necessary, and then only the truth, and then only with sweet words.

Probably we have all broken that ideal here, and it is not clear
how to
facilitate constructive non-conformism.


I can think of at least a couple of cases where the list could have 
been more welcoming to  non-comforming contributors.


That said I hope this thread doesn't discourage people to get 
involved. Everything can be improved but Sugar is perhaps the most 
welcoming free software community I know of... For good or for bad, 
"sweet words" aren't really what you are normally met by if your ideas 
or patches are not considered high quality enough by the existing 
community.
I realize I chose my wording poorly. I did not mean "this list" but 
"this community".
You have to realize that Sugar community is explicitly more than just a 
Free Software community.
It's Supposed to be an Education Project, it's an ideal, it's more than 
just development, it's a diverse
community of people who believe in the value of collaboration and 
freedom as ways to impact

learning and therefore to change the world.

Therefore we should excersize care in making this a welcoming 
environment not just for developers,
but for any kind of contributors. It may be painstakingly slow, but I 
see the advent of freedom culture
within the educational systems and therefore governments as an 
unstoppable force, and Sugar as

a big part of that.

By the way, you always manage to respond constructively and positively. 
Kudos for that.


Regards,
--
Sebastian
@icarito
R+D SomosAzucar.Org
Sugar Labs Perú
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers? [ Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 21]

[Daniel Narvaez]

On 6 November 2013 07:15, Sebastian Silva  wrote:

> El 06/11/13 00:40, Yioryos Asprobounitis escribió:
>
>> Looking at the archives of this list you can find several cases (some
>> recent)
>> of "non-conforming" contributors that are not contributing anymore,
>> supporting the
>> "high conformity" hypothesis.
>>
> I too feel the overall attitude within this list has been dismissive of
> non-conforming ideas and individuals, sometimes bluntly. The spanish
> speakers, from Xavi who did so much translation, to Homunq who
> started (and abandoned) Develop Activity, to Yama whose ideals always
> seemed to clash with reality, I miss them. I myself have been often
> frustrated, having retreated biting my tongue more than once.
>
> It makes me think of the eastern spiritual ideal of speaking only when
> necessary, and then only the truth, and then only with sweet words.
>
> Probably we have all broken that ideal here, and it is not clear how to
> facilitate constructive non-conformism.
>

I can think of at least a couple of cases where the list could have been
more welcoming to  non-comforming contributors.

That said I hope this thread doesn't discourage people to get involved.
Everything can be improved but Sugar is perhaps the most welcoming free
software community I know of... For good or for bad, "sweet words" aren't
really what you are normally met by if your ideas or patches are not
considered high quality enough by the existing community.
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers? [ Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 21]

[Sebastian Silva]

El 06/11/13 00:40, Yioryos Asprobounitis escribió:

Looking at the archives of this list you can find several cases (some recent)
of "non-conforming" contributors that are not contributing anymore, supporting 
the
"high conformity" hypothesis.

I too feel the overall attitude within this list has been dismissive of
non-conforming ideas and individuals, sometimes bluntly. The spanish
speakers, from Xavi who did so much translation, to Homunq who
started (and abandoned) Develop Activity, to Yama whose ideals always
seemed to clash with reality, I miss them. I myself have been often
frustrated, having retreated biting my tongue more than once.

It makes me think of the eastern spiritual ideal of speaking only when
necessary, and then only the truth, and then only with sweet words.

Probably we have all broken that ideal here, and it is not clear how to
facilitate constructive non-conformism.

Regards,
Sebastian
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers? [ Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 61, Issue 21]

[Yioryos Asprobounitis]

>> The big idea is that open sources projects thrive when they create
>> conditions and cultures where people with overlapping yet 
>> non-identical goals can come together collaborate around a common
>> goal.
>> Sugar Labs has found itself in a position where there is a high 
>> degree of conformity. This tends to create an echo chamber where similar
>> opinions are respected and encouraged. That can be effective at
>> building passion and energy, but it tends to crowd out dissenting
>> opinions and marginalize the people who hold those opinions. These
>> people can be the most productive members of the community in their 
>> particular areas of interest. 
> Of all the people who participated in this discussion,you are the only 
> who is repeating this. Is possible this is only your personal point of view?

Sorry for intruding, but although the uniqueness of DF can not be excluded 
(:-), 
if his "high conformity" claim is true it will give the same "lone participant" 
result. 
Looking at the archives of this list you can find several cases (some recent) 
of "non-conforming" contributors that are not contributing anymore, supporting 
the 
"high conformity" hypothesis.
As the current state of affairs indicates, previous "course decisions" 
might have not been optimal. Of course things are always easier with hindsight 
but still they indicate that it may worth being more perceptive to "lone 
participants".



> I think is clear SugarLabs do not  have the resources
I also think that is a good idea to refrain from the "limited resources" 
as the "ultimate argument" when current priorities are different from the 
proposed ones, because it is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

PS: This mail was rejected as spam from the list server yesterday 
(AI improvements  I guess ;) but I think is still relevant today.
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[Gonzalo Odiard]

> The big idea is that open sources projects thrive when they create
> conditions and cultures where people with overlapping yet
> non-identical goals can come together collaborate around a common
> goal.
>
> Sugar Labs has found itself in a position where there is a high degree
> of conformity. This tends to create an echo chamber where similar
> opinions are respected and encouraged. That can be effective at
> building passion and energy, but it tends to crowd out dissenting
> opinions and marginalize the people who hold those opinions. These
> people can be the most productive members of the community in their
> particular areas of interest.

Of all the people who participated in this discussion,
you are the only who is repeating this. Is possible this is only
your personal point of view?

>
> 1. Phase one requires that we work together on a relatively straight
> forward project. HTML5+JS is the current focus of Sugar Labs. While it
> is not AC's primary focus, we consider it a key strategic project.
>

Ok.

> 2. Phase two will be a bit more complicated as we ask various
> developer to publicly agree on various core priorities for the next
> release. This related directly to manq's post about being focused on
> individual priorities. Without an understanding of everyone's
> priorities and the value they bring to the project, it can be easy to
> feel ignored, or even attacked, when one's own priorities are ignored.
>

I do not agree in this point. We never requested developers to agree
in priorities. In fact, everyone proposed the area where want work
(the Features process) and the community provide feedback,
decide if is something the project needs/want,  do a peer review work,
and the work with the quality needed is accepted.

Is strange you request this, because:
* you think we have a high degree of conformity (if that is wrong, get consensus
surely will be more difficult) .
* you said AC will not work in sugar upstream at all, then, what
we need agree? I don't understand.


> 3. Phase three -- Dig into the balance between stable and leading
> edge. Historically, this has been a touchy subject because of the high
> degree of interest in innovation by key Sugar Labs members. However,
> large deployments consider stability and LTS very important.
>
> My assumption is that if Sugar Labs and Activity Central can set an
> example for working together, other marginalized parties with rejoin
> the project.
>

I think is clear SugarLabs do not have the resources to maintain a LTS release,
and AC is free to do it without any question. The only think to request is:
be good members of a community, if you take, give in the same way,
if you found a bug and fix it, check if is upstream, fill a ticket,
and if you can provide a patch.

Diclaimer: All these are only my opinions, and I am really tired.

Gonzalo
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[Samuel Greenfeld]

I think you realized but failed to emphasize an important point:

There is not a single community rallying around Sugar at this time.
Instead, I see at least two if not more.

Each has its own expectations and social norms, yet claims to speak for
(and sometimes control) the Sugar world as a whole.

If there were more people involved then having RHEL/CentOS/Fedora-style
development could work.  This would allow some parties to do commercial
support while others do rapid development.  But given the current
population size all I see this leading to is more fragmentation.


That being said:


   1. I definitely am in the "put up or shut up" crowd with the
   accusations.  Attempting to justify positions without evidence does not
   work very well.
2. Personally it feels to me like you are trying to engage the rest of
   the Sugar community as if it was another business.  I do not think that is
   the right approach, although I am not quite sure what would work.


(And as long as everyone else is mentioning their disclaimers, I also
should mention that I left OLPC last month.)



On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 5:42 PM, David Farning
wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:59 PM, James Cameron  wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:28:35AM -0500, David Farning wrote:
> >> Have we achieved general consensus that the three phase approach I
> >> proposed earlier this week has the potential for establishing a
> >> mutually beneficial relationship while progressively rebuilding trust
> >> on both sides?
> >
> > I got lost in the discussion again; I couldn't see how your three
> > phase approach answered Walter's question about your perception that
> > Sugar Labs is not acting transparently.  ;-)
>
> The big idea is that open sources projects thrive when they create
> conditions and cultures where people with overlapping yet
> non-identical goals can come together collaborate around a common
> goal.
>
> Sugar Labs has found itself in a position where there is a high degree
> of conformity. This tends to create an echo chamber where similar
> opinions are respected and encouraged. That can be effective at
> building passion and energy, but it tends to crowd out dissenting
> opinions and marginalize the people who hold those opinions. These
> people can be the most productive members of the community in their
> particular areas of interest.
>
> The transparency challenge is that many potentially valuable members
> leave in frustration when their voices are not heard. Conversations
> escalate from civil to uncivil. This reduces the rate of development,
> quality of support, and potentially the future viability Sugar.
>
> Attempting to prove that via examples would create personal feuds
> which are unproductive at all levels. Instead, I would ask you to talk
> to people in the ecosystem, outside of the current core sugar
> developers, and gather feedback about what they think works and
> doesn't work.
>
> Instead, I would like the opportunity to prove the premise by showing
> the theory in action. My assumption is that if that we can work
> together on a series of tasks which require increasing amounts of
> acceptance for divergent opinions, we can identify and reduce the
> sources of the underlying tension.
>
> 1. Phase one requires that we work together on a relatively straight
> forward project. HTML5+JS is the current focus of Sugar Labs. While it
> is not AC's primary focus, we consider it a key strategic project.
>
> 2. Phase two will be a bit more complicated as we ask various
> developer to publicly agree on various core priorities for the next
> release. This related directly to manq's post about being focused on
> individual priorities. Without an understanding of everyone's
> priorities and the value they bring to the project, it can be easy to
> feel ignored, or even attacked, when one's own priorities are ignored.
>
> 3. Phase three -- Dig into the balance between stable and leading
> edge. Historically, this has been a touchy subject because of the high
> degree of interest in innovation by key Sugar Labs members. However,
> large deployments consider stability and LTS very important.
>
> My assumption is that if Sugar Labs and Activity Central can set an
> example for working together, other marginalized parties with rejoin
> the project.
>
> David
>
>
> > Regarding your need to rebuild trust on both sides; perhaps a
> > quantitative approach; you could list the areas and extents in which
> > Sugar Labs trusts Activity Central and Activity Central trusts Sugar
> > Labs now.  e.g. feature discussion, design review, patch review, go
> > no-go release decisions, support for released code.  Gain general
> > agreement.  Then do a diff against past and future.  But this begins
> > to sound like a developers' social contract, and not specific to
> > Activity Central.
> >
> > My gut feel is that Sugar Labs treats all technical contributions
> > fairly, regardless of funding source, and that promising funding gains
> > no 

Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[David Farning]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:59 PM, James Cameron  wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:28:35AM -0500, David Farning wrote:
>> Have we achieved general consensus that the three phase approach I
>> proposed earlier this week has the potential for establishing a
>> mutually beneficial relationship while progressively rebuilding trust
>> on both sides?
>
> I got lost in the discussion again; I couldn't see how your three
> phase approach answered Walter's question about your perception that
> Sugar Labs is not acting transparently.  ;-)

The big idea is that open sources projects thrive when they create
conditions and cultures where people with overlapping yet
non-identical goals can come together collaborate around a common
goal.

Sugar Labs has found itself in a position where there is a high degree
of conformity. This tends to create an echo chamber where similar
opinions are respected and encouraged. That can be effective at
building passion and energy, but it tends to crowd out dissenting
opinions and marginalize the people who hold those opinions. These
people can be the most productive members of the community in their
particular areas of interest.

The transparency challenge is that many potentially valuable members
leave in frustration when their voices are not heard. Conversations
escalate from civil to uncivil. This reduces the rate of development,
quality of support, and potentially the future viability Sugar.

Attempting to prove that via examples would create personal feuds
which are unproductive at all levels. Instead, I would ask you to talk
to people in the ecosystem, outside of the current core sugar
developers, and gather feedback about what they think works and
doesn't work.

Instead, I would like the opportunity to prove the premise by showing
the theory in action. My assumption is that if that we can work
together on a series of tasks which require increasing amounts of
acceptance for divergent opinions, we can identify and reduce the
sources of the underlying tension.

1. Phase one requires that we work together on a relatively straight
forward project. HTML5+JS is the current focus of Sugar Labs. While it
is not AC's primary focus, we consider it a key strategic project.

2. Phase two will be a bit more complicated as we ask various
developer to publicly agree on various core priorities for the next
release. This related directly to manq's post about being focused on
individual priorities. Without an understanding of everyone's
priorities and the value they bring to the project, it can be easy to
feel ignored, or even attacked, when one's own priorities are ignored.

3. Phase three -- Dig into the balance between stable and leading
edge. Historically, this has been a touchy subject because of the high
degree of interest in innovation by key Sugar Labs members. However,
large deployments consider stability and LTS very important.

My assumption is that if Sugar Labs and Activity Central can set an
example for working together, other marginalized parties with rejoin
the project.

David


> Regarding your need to rebuild trust on both sides; perhaps a
> quantitative approach; you could list the areas and extents in which
> Sugar Labs trusts Activity Central and Activity Central trusts Sugar
> Labs now.  e.g. feature discussion, design review, patch review, go
> no-go release decisions, support for released code.  Gain general
> agreement.  Then do a diff against past and future.  But this begins
> to sound like a developers' social contract, and not specific to
> Activity Central.
>
> My gut feel is that Sugar Labs treats all technical contributions
> fairly, regardless of funding source, and that promising funding gains
> no advantage except better phrasing of the responses; 'cause the
> funding bias is better understood to be present.
>
> However, looking carefully at your three phase approach on 29th
> October:
>
> 1.  you are funding work;
>
> fine by me, thanks, expect some responses to these developers to be
> coloured by the awareness of funding,
>
> 2.  you want more discussion about features and whether features as
> built are ready for release;
>
> fine by me, this is no material change to current process,
>
> 3.  you speculate that there is a conflict between supporting existing
> deployments and developing the next releases;
>
> this doesn't fit with me, the two workloads are very different vectors
> in the phase space of possible work, and Sugar Labs primarily operates
> on only one of the vectors, solving support problems in the next
> release.
>
> --
>
> Disclosure statement: the author provides consulting to OLPCA, and
> OLPCA does benefit from Sugar Labs releases.  The author receives no
> direct funding from Sugar Labs or any deployment.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/



-- 
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Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[James Cameron]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:28:35AM -0500, David Farning wrote:
> Have we achieved general consensus that the three phase approach I
> proposed earlier this week has the potential for establishing a
> mutually beneficial relationship while progressively rebuilding trust
> on both sides?

I got lost in the discussion again; I couldn't see how your three
phase approach answered Walter's question about your perception that
Sugar Labs is not acting transparently.  ;-)

Regarding your need to rebuild trust on both sides; perhaps a
quantitative approach; you could list the areas and extents in which
Sugar Labs trusts Activity Central and Activity Central trusts Sugar
Labs now.  e.g. feature discussion, design review, patch review, go
no-go release decisions, support for released code.  Gain general
agreement.  Then do a diff against past and future.  But this begins
to sound like a developers' social contract, and not specific to
Activity Central.

My gut feel is that Sugar Labs treats all technical contributions
fairly, regardless of funding source, and that promising funding gains
no advantage except better phrasing of the responses; 'cause the
funding bias is better understood to be present.

However, looking carefully at your three phase approach on 29th
October:

1.  you are funding work;

fine by me, thanks, expect some responses to these developers to be
coloured by the awareness of funding,

2.  you want more discussion about features and whether features as
built are ready for release;

fine by me, this is no material change to current process,

3.  you speculate that there is a conflict between supporting existing
deployments and developing the next releases;

this doesn't fit with me, the two workloads are very different vectors
in the phase space of possible work, and Sugar Labs primarily operates
on only one of the vectors, solving support problems in the next
release.

--

Disclosure statement: the author provides consulting to OLPCA, and
OLPCA does benefit from Sugar Labs releases.  The author receives no
direct funding from Sugar Labs or any deployment.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[Daniel Narvaez]

I think

Phase 1. We certainly need more hands.
Phase 2. We have been trying to do a bit of that with the features
discussion. We are going to bootstrap 0.102 very soon and there will be a
chance to improve on what we did for 0.100. I won't personally have time to
write down a specification but I think it would be great if someone did.

On Wednesday, 30 October 2013, David Farning wrote:

> Have we achieved general consensus that the three phase approach I
> proposed earlier this week has the potential for establishing a
> mutually beneficial relationship while progressively rebuilding trust
> on both sides?
>
> I will be happy to answer any questions, but I would like to get to
> work. Talk is little more than a distraction without the accompanying
> code and credibility:(
>
> --
> David Farning
> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
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[Sugar-devel] Have we achieved consensus among activite Sugar developers?

[David Farning]

Have we achieved general consensus that the three phase approach I
proposed earlier this week has the potential for establishing a
mutually beneficial relationship while progressively rebuilding trust
on both sides?

I will be happy to answer any questions, but I would like to get to
work. Talk is little more than a distraction without the accompanying
code and credibility:(

-- 
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
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