[Sugar-devel] Private vs Public conversations.

Tue Oct 29 17:18:35 EDT 2013

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org> wrote:
> About phase two: What is wrong with our actual Feature process?

There is nothing wrong with the feature process. The project
specification ( please see
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Community_Edition/0.4/Project_Specifications
) is supplemental to the feature process. It the case of Sugar I would
expect that features end of taking the place of services.

The goal is to create a single point of reference where people with
different backgrounds, interests, and levels of participation can see
how they fit into the big picture.

> About topics you are not talking, I would like AC spend some time trying to
> push features upstream. That was almost not done in the last year,
> and I am working on that right now, but would be good some help from your
> part.

I was hoping to sit on this for a while. Internally we are
restructuring our Dextrose team around providing long term support
across multiple platforms. Short term this means building our team.
Mid term this means aligning AC's git repo as branches on the Sugar
Labs github repo. Long term the goal is that AC will actively
participate in maintaining a long term release of upstream Sugar.

My thinking was that as organizations we can build trust (on both
side) by working on the easier tasks of 1 and 2. In the meantime AC's
internal Dextrose team can figure out enough of a strategy so that
when we present something to the community we are not talking about
half baked ideas and showing half baked code.... Cause lets be honest.
If after this thread AC shows up with crap, you and any other Sugar
Labs hacker will kick AC out on our asses, and we would deserve it.

I am happy to revisit this, but I would like to clarify our
organizational priorities and why we chose them.

> Gonzalo
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 4:29 PM, David Farning
> <dfarning at activitycentral.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 11:01 PM, David Farning
>> > <dfarning at activitycentral.com> wrote:
>> >> I would like to thank everyone who has provided valuable feedback by
>> >> participating on this thread.
>> >>
>> >> The three things I am going to takeway from the the thread are:
>> >> 1. Jame's point about my position about not representing the median.
>> >> Due to my history and role in the ecosystem, I have upset some
>> >> apple-carts :(
>> >> 2. Martin's point about the right hand not always being aware of what
>> >> the left hand is doing. This unfortunately seems to happen too
>> >> frequently.
>> >> 3. Finally, and most importantly, Daniel's point  about getting back
>> >> to the business of improving Sugar.
>> >>
>> >> My proposal is that Activity Central make the next step of funding two
>> >> developers to work on HTML5 and JS. If we can find a mutually
>> >> beneficial relationship around this, we can see how we can expand the
>> >> relationship in the future.
>> >>
>> >> Seem reasonable?
>> >
>> > Proposals aside (of course more eyes and hands would be appreciated)
>> > there is still the underlying issue of mistrust that you have raised.
>> > I think it is important that we clear the air and I think it is not
>> > unreasonable to ask you to be specific about your perceptions that
>> > somehow Sugar Labs is not acting in a transparent manner.
>>
>> Agreed, let's do it step wise:
>> Phase one -- Code and Roger will will start on the HTML5 + JS work
>> with Daniel and Manq.
>>
>> Daniel has struck me as 'fair but firm.' On Activity Central's side,
>> we are probably not going to incorporate that work in customer facing
>> products for 6-9 months. Thus, it can be a trial of AC supporting
>> upstream on innovative work without subjecting upstream the to
>> changing desires of customers.
>>
>> Phase two -- Let's look at lessons learned from other projects. We can
>> focus on the road map and product specification. From my experience,
>> these two piece can provide an anchor for the rest of the project:
>> 1. The act of sitting down and hashing out the roadmap and project
>> specification causes everyone to sit back and assess their individual
>> priorities and goals.... and how they fit into the project as a whole.
>> 2. The act of deciding which items are above the line and which are
>> below the line, which are targeted for this release and which are
>> pushed to a future release, help find the balance between what is
>> possible some day and what is probable in X months of work with
>> existing resources.
>> 3. Sitting back and preparing for a release forces us to asses what is
>> good enough for release what is not. It is a good feedback loop.
>> 4. Finally, after a successful release everyone can sit back bask is
>> the satisfaction that maybe we didn't save the world... but we make
>> enough progress that it is worth getting up again tomorrow and doing
>> it all again.
>>
>> Phase three -- Let's look at some mechanism for balancing the need to
>> push the project forward through innovation and support existing
>> deployments by providing stability.
>>
>> David
>>
>> > -walter
>> >
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 7:53 PM, Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>> On 29 October 2013 01:14, David Farning <dfarning at activitycentral.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> As two Data points:
>> >>>> In a private conversation with an Association employee they told me
>> >>>> that they conciser Activity Central a competitor because Activity
>> >>>> Central increased deployments expectations. Their strategy with
>> >>>> regard
>> >>>> to Activity Central was to _not_ accept patches upstream with the
>> >>>> goal
>> >>>> of causing Activity Central and Dextrose to collapse under its their
>> >>>> weight. As it was private conversation I am not sure how widely
>> >>>> spread
>> >>>> the opinion was held.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> The patch queue is currently empty. In the last six months only one
>> >>> patchset
>> >>> was rejected. It was by Activity Central and it was rejected by me
>> >>> (not an
>> >>> OLPC employee) for purely technical reasons. The proof being that the
>> >>> same
>> >>> patchset landed after being cleaned up and resubmitted properly by
>> >>> another
>> >>> Activity Central developer.
>> >>>
>> >>> More in general, no single developer is in charge of patch reviewing,
>> >>> OLPC
>> >>> couldn't keep code out of the tree for non-technical reason even if
>> >>> they
>> >>> wanted to. More specifically the ability to approve patches was
>> >>> offered to
>> >>> one Activity Central developer, which never used it.
>> >>>
>> >>>> Recently there was a call for help testing HTML5 and JS. Two
>> >>>> developers Code and Roger have been writing proof of concept
>> >>>> activities. They have been receiving extensive off-list help getting
>> >>>> started. But, interestingly, their on-list request for clarification
>> >>>> about how to test datastore was met with silence.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Mailing list posts going unanswered isn't really uncommon in free
>> >>> software
>> >>> projects. But most of the time it just means that no one knows the
>> >>> answer or
>> >>> everyone is too busy.
>> >>>
>> >>> Only me and Manuel are usually answering about HTML5. I have not
>> >>> answered
>> >>> because... gmail put those messages in my spam folder, sigh! Most
>> >>> likely the
>> >>> same happened to Manuel or he has been busy. (I need to take some
>> >>> sleep now
>> >>> but I'll try to answer asap).
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> David Farning
>> >> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Devel mailing list
>> >> Devel at lists.laptop.org
>> >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Walter Bender
>> > Sugar Labs
>> > http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> David Farning
>> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
>

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