Re: GOP-PROP 2: mentors and Frogs - probably decision

[Jan Warchoł]

2011/6/22 Graham Percival <address@hidden>:
> On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 04:06:17PM +0200, Jan Warchoł wrote:
>> Problem 1: a Frog tries to modify wind diagrams code and experiences
>> some difficulties.  (S)he sends an e-mail to -devel, but gets no
>> answers because developer X (who wrote that code) overlooked his/her
>> e-mail, and noone else knows the answer.
>> Solution: a list of developers with "specializations", for example:
>
> No.  I absolutely reject any solution which lays any kind of
> obligation (implied or explict) on people.  See the second
> paragraph of "rationale":
> http://lilypond.org/~graham/gop/gop_2.html

I remember it.
I don't want to suggest laying implied obligations on anyone.
Maybe there's a misunderstanding, so let's make things clear: do you
say that asking Mike (who wrote automatic beam collision avoidance)
"Mike, I'm trying to improve automatic beam collision avoidance, but i
can't figure out what foobar does. Can you give me some clues?" is
laying implied obligations on him?
I don't think so.  I think it's natural to ask questions to people who
are experienced in the area that interests you, they can always say no
or ignore you.  Of course it should be made clear that they are free
to ignore you - and i see nothing wrong in that.
I have an impression that if we were to follow this "no implied
obligations" policy strictly, we should delete authors list entirely.
Yet i don't suppose anyone wants to do this.
One thing that i definately agree is that it mustn't be obligatory to
be on the list i proposed.  I know that i would gladly be; if anyone
has a problem with flags code i'll gladly help, no need to bother more
experienced devs.

>> Problem 2: an Enthusiastic User writes to -devel: "it would be great
>> if Lily supported foobar!". Graham replies: "sure, add it yourself."
>> and nothing else happens. Graham is right, but user gets discouraged.
>
> Is that a problem?  :)

We don't know, but probably it is. You said that Carl started as a
documentation writer, so maybe that Enthusiastic User would become
next project leader, after 3-4 years?
You wrote yourself that recruiting new developers is crucial for the project.
Of course encouraging enthusiastic users is a job for Frog Meister,
not you, i agree.

A question: are there (m)any people in the development team who
started as developers right away, without being "just users" for some
time? (besides Jan and Han-Wen, of course)

cheers,
Janek