[Axiom-developer] Re: ChangeLog on Silver

[Martin Rubey]

Tim, Gaby, *

I wonder why this is on list.  Did I make a mistake?

address@hidden writes:

> > I felt quite bad when I saw Gaby's post announcing the ChangeLog format
> > change and a little while later Tim's reply:
> 
> Right. So the sequence went: Gaby's post, my objection, Gaby's change to
> trunk, Gaby's reply
> 
> So there really was no voting, no attempt at democracy, no effort your part
> to enforce the "democracy" you so badly wanted. Just silence.

true.  I tried to explain this in my post.  By the way, there has so far been
no decision to adopt my proposal.  Ralf recently sent me
http://producingoss.com, and I think it is indeed good advice, but I currently
do not have enough time and I do have enough other trouble.

> > Meanwhile I feel much better. There has been a vote.
> 
> Right. After the fact. You're happy that you didn't have to 
> step in and enforce your new "democracy" because the vote came
> down in your favor.

No it didn't.  Please reread my post:

> > I really didn't know what to do.  I somewhat liked Tim's format, but I
> > understand well, that it is not really common use.  More importantly, I
> > remember too well how I felt seeing the noweb change in trunk.

In any case I will never accept that from now on XXX decides.  

> My anger will be dismissed as the complaints of "the one who lost" but that
> will certainly miss the point. The format of the changelog file is not a
> problem, the method of handling the voting is.

And this is *exactly* the reason why I posted at all.  Otherwise I would have
kept silent.

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Gaby:

I did read your amendments, and I do believe that they are a good (very likely:
necessary) complement to democracy.  However, given our personalities (for
example: my personality), there will always be disagreement about certain
things.  The model I proposed has as intention to encourage people to keep
their branches synchronised with trunk.

This would be adressed also by the idea of a college:

>    * A College (or Steering Committee) whose job is to make sure that
>      the project is not over taken by an individual.  I truly believe
>      we need that.  I've spoken to and received emails from some
>      original Axiom developers who also promote the College view.
> 
>      The College's job is not to make technical decisions.  The
>      College will be discussing and making decisions about political
>      issues.  Any developer can at any time request the College to
>      consider any matter of his/her importance.
>      The College appoints maintainers and release managers.
> 
>      The College should not consist only of developers.  Users should
>      be represented.  In general, people with either long term
>      committement or interest in Axiom should be represented there.
> 
>      I suggested to keep the number of College members small.  I
>      suggested 7 for concreteness.

I thought that the idea of voting what goes into trunk was simpler to
implement, but I'm open to any model that avoids leaving people (also Tim) in
the dark.

How is the college formed?  How will the college decide internally?  Currently
there are not so many developers - are there more than ten?

Maybe you could add this to MathAction, maybe to the same page I set up.  Do
you think the two models are fundamentally incompatible?

Martin