Re: how to make decisions?

[David Kastrup]

"Trevor Daniels" <address@hidden> writes:

> Graham Percival wrote Monday, September 03, 2012 1:00 PM
>
>> That proposal became:
>> http://lilypond.org/~graham/gop/gop_4.html
>> 
>> I don't know where to go from here.  I spend a lot of effort
>> trying to organize such discussions, because I think that LilyPond
>> is a community project.  I think that we should encourage people
>> to participate, but telling people "ok, thanks for your work on
>> XYZ, now get lost while the real developers talk about ABC" might
>> discourage people from working.
>
> It did.

No doubt.  And I don't want to promote a setup which will essentially
end up as exactly that when viewed honestly.

Trying to empower non-programmers by handing them the decisions over
what the programmers should be achieving is something I just don't see
working out to the best interests of either.  The only thing I can think
of for evening out the balance is to make it easier for non-programmers
themselves to bring LilyPond to do what they want it to be doing.  That
requires documentation, and it requires moving LilyPond in a direction
where working with and on it with confidence becomes easier.

This kind of empowerment has been the main theme of most of my work on
music functions and Scheme/LilyPond interaction.  It is, however,
ongoing work, and I don't think I am doing anybody a favor by keeping it
half-finished.

I don't have good answers with regard to the questions what our policies
should be focusing on and ruling on.  And I am totally bad working
according to instructions myself.  But I definitely see that many people
can be more productive by having good guidelines to work with.

I am doing the best I can, but I don't really see how I can justly deny
the underlying gist of the characterization "ok, thanks for your work on
XYZ, now get lost while the real developers talk about ABC".  And I want
to avoid creating organizational structures that will cause exactly that
impression if I am trying to do serious work according to the best of my
conscience.

-- 
David Kastrup