On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 9:32 PM, Chad <innocentkil...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu Jan 15 2015 at 8:05:18 PM Rob Lanphier <ro...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >> >> So, where does that leave us? Do we need a BFDL? If so, who should >> pick? Should it be someone in the project? Should the WMF hire >> someone to lead this? If not, do we keep the committee? Do we just >> let this be consensus based? >> >> > The thing about a BDFL is they don't tend to be appointed or picked, > they just naturally emerge from the developer community. In that respect, > Brion and Tim are MW's BDFLs regardless of what committee they may > or may not be a member of. We could hire someone to facilitate the > process perhaps, but it would take a very long time for them to be in a > position to really help arbitrate any disputes that may arise. And I would > be hard pressed to call them a BDFL as they just haven't been around > for over a decade. > > I'm a huge fan of consensus. And even though we've invested the current > committee with the power to decide, they've basically let the process > run by consensus as it should be. So maybe we need less of a BDFL > committee and more of a group who help facilitate RfCs? Such a group > could be very fluid (people joining/leaving as they have interest and time) > and would probably end up with more people from various areas of > expertise.
I like the idea of a rotating committee that helps examine the designs proposed and determines when consensus has been reached. It would probably also be useful to have other support staff who can help with the more mechanical parts of the process like polling RFC authors to see if they are ready for a review meeting, handling calendaring, posting meeting minutes and following up on the status of action items generated from the meetings. I'd honestly like to see a lot more RFCs discussed. I see RFCs as the closest thing we have to a formal design review for a software feature. I know that up front design has fallen out of favor with many software developers but personally I think that a few days or weeks of planning can save weeks or even months of implementation time for non-trivial projects. Bryan -- Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation <bd...@wikimedia.org> [[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] Sr Software Engineer Boise, ID USA irc: bd808 v:415.839.6885 x6855 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
