Topic: Thoughts on Organizing SME

[Buddha_Joe]

I've come across some threads recently in regards to organizing the community and dev process better. now please forgive me for any assumptions I may make.. I am still fairly new to the SME community as well as Linux.. I admittedly have no development experience or programming skills. But that being said I have some suggestions.. granted they are based on only limited observations.

Here are some of the questions that have come to mind

How is the development team organized?

What teams are in place? who are the primary contacts?  what are the minimal requirements to join a team?

How are final decisions made? is it one persons decision or is it by committee? who is this person/ who is on the committee?

All this information should be easily acessiable on the site. other information that would be nice is what are the current goals for the next release, and what is the estimated time frame. A blanket statement from contribs.org saying that it is not responsible for development is nice.. but telling us who is would be more helpful.

It appears to me right now (and I may be wrong) that people are confused as to the current structure of the develeopment community and it's goals. There seems to be a lack of communication between the Developers and the rest of the community. in my opionion forums don't really count. Any body should be able to go the front page of the site to see what is going on and how to get involved.. and when I say this I mean to suggest that the infoemation should be easily found with out needing to dig. Remember that this distro is being advertised as being designed to be easy to use so it is going to attract newbs(such as my self) and non tech types. As a distro that is supposed to be community based there should be no surpise annoncments about changes that affect the community it should all be transparent.

Again I only bring this up in an effort to make things better. I would really like to hear the opinions of active developers and the rest of the community. My only wish is to help the SME community grow and make things easier for everyone involved. Users, developers and prospective developers.

I would really like to hear the opinions of the developers and the rest of the community.

[pcowley]

Yes there is a problem - lots of rowers but Leaderless and Rudderless means the boat is going in erratic circles.

As I posted a couple of times in the past, a well defined and clear administrative structure is needed. I created something along the line of what Debian is doing. A proposed structure is in the wiki under http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/Proposed%20SME%20Server%20Organizational%20Structure

The main problem is that the RSI (basically Jeff) which owns contribs.org, needs to give consent to establishing this (at least on contribs.org - and there is no viable alternative IMHO) as well as buy in from the rest of the community.   Since RSI owns contribs.org and all the facilities it provides, and pays for the bandwidth power etc, and does an excellent job (We owe a huge debt to RSI for keeping it all going) they get to make the decisions about what happens (or not) on the site.   The SME community in no way has any owenership whatsoever of anything to do with contrbs.org.

I proposed to Jeff, many months ago now, a poll to see what the majority of folk think about getting organised, but it never happened.  I don't know if it slipped through the cracks, or was not wanted, whatever - it didn't happen.

In my previous email of November 2004 I said that it was obvious we needed to get organised ...

"Obviously it is needed, but at that time Jeff was calling for people to work on projects and become involved and supportive etc, etc, etc ... but there was no organisation or visibility of who is working on what or where things are kept - in short it was a disorganised mess!

With Lycoris taking over SME and their realisation that we have been 'wandering in the desert' a fair bit, now is the time to have another look at why this is (although it's bleeding ovbious to me!)

The issues as I see them (your mileage may vary!)

1) There really needs to be an easy way to find out who is working on what project so duplicate effort is avoided and everyone can see what is going on the state of the WIP (Work In progress).

2) There really needs to be a central repository of all the work so that as things are released that can be retrieved from the one place (plus mirrors)

3) There does need to be a structure and oversight. I know a lot of folk think all the admin is a waste of time, or detracts from the development effort but the reality is that both are vital otherwise a general mess ensues. We have that mess now!"

Lycoris has come and gone and we're still in a bloody great mess although there is a lot of good will and good work still happening behind the scenes.

If anyone can convince Jeff that a Public Poll is a good idea, we can at least see if there is enough interest to start the ball rolling.

I would suggest a System Poll (visible from the front page) along the lines of:

Do you think the SME communityshold organise itself?
- No, it's file like it is!
- Yes, the proposed Debian like structure is good
- yes, but does not need to be quite so formalised.

If that Poll occurred we could at least see what the community in general thinks.  It may only be a small group that is making all the smoke and noise and a poll is the only realistic way of finding out.

If only Jeff would run the poll we could get the ball rolling ...


Cheers
Peter Cowley
down under in
Wellington, New Zealand

[Buddha_Joe]

As I posted a couple of times in the past, a well defined and clear administrative structure is needed. I created something along the line of what Debian is doing. A proposed structure is in the wiki under http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/Proposed%20SME%20Server%20Organizational%20Structure

I would suggest a System Poll (visible from the front page)

I think this is a good idea and a great jumping off point. But I   am itersted in hearing what others in the community think.. If any one has suggestions for other models that we can look at.

[jcoleman]

If only Jeff would run the poll we could get the ball rolling ...

You don't need to convince Jeff of anything.  Anyone can run a poll.  

As I have said before there are messages in this forum that have been viewed thousands of times.  If your subject matter resonates within the community, it will stay at the top of the page and get lots of attention.

If it doesn't, then that indicates a lack of interest.

-jeff

[Buddha_Joe]

I understand what you are saying Jeff, but I think pcowley was refering to running the poll on the front of the site. As far as I know  not everyone can do that.

I am also not sure how accurate relying on forum traffic is to indicate interest. There are people out there that just hit forums for what they want and split. They could care less about the community and only show up to take what they need.. That's fine but it can lead to a misrepresentation of interest on certain topics.

Also since SME is being pushed as an easy to use distro it is going to attract people who are new to all of this and are not sure if or how they can participate. I freely admit that this is how I came to SME and contribs.org and felt the very same way. The only reason I have brought up any of these topics is because I figured the worse that could happen is that I would be told to shutup, but on the flip side we may find a way to make things more fluid and make everyones lives easier.

But that being said that still leaves the questions I asked above about what the process currently looks like. The only thing I am clear on is that You and RSI are providing the space for the community. That is great and I and others appreciate it... but what about the rest of it? A web site alone does not a make a community.. all communities have some sort of structure, what is the structure here?

I hope that this doesn't come across as being inflammatory because it is not meant to be.. I 'm just looking for some clarification on the current structure of the community and trying to solicite ideas on what we can do to make it better.

[pcowley]

Jeff

I was hoping for something much more visible on the front page, then an email to the email-list and let people know it is there.

Would you be prepared to run a System Poll along the lines of ...

Do you think the SME community should organise itself?
- No, it's fine like it is!
- Yes, the proposed Debian like structure is good
- Yes, but does not need to be quite so formalised.

I think this would be the most useful way to go to get thing rolling.

Cheers
Pete

[jcoleman]

I was hoping for something much more visible on the front page, then an email to the email-list and let people know it is there.

Would you be prepared to run a System Poll along the lines of ...

Hi Pete,

I'm afraid the answer is no.  The reason is simple.  If we run one for you, then we *have* to run a poll for anyone else who wants one.  There are 5000 registered users here and that would be completely unmanageable.

Nothing is stopping you from creating the poll and emailing the discussion list to point it out.  What would be wrong with starting there and seeing if your ideas gain traction?

-jeff

[Buddha_Joe]

If we run one for you, then we *have* to run a poll for anyone else who wants one. There are 5000 registered users here and that would be completely unmanageable.

That's a valid point

But what about the answers to the questions I posted above as to the CURRENT structure?

[jcoleman]

The only thing I am clear on is that You and RSI are providing the space for the community. That is great and I and others appreciate it... but what about the rest of it? A web site alone does not a make a community.. all communities have some sort of structure, what is the structure here?

I think you are correct.  A website alone doesn't make a community.  But it is the only part of that community that I provide.  Others must do the rest.

Again, I refer you to our policy statement:  http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/contribs.org

If this project were hosted on Sourceforge, everybody would understand that SF provides certain features.  Period.  If they don't have it you don't get it.  And that is fine because they provide a terrific free service.

contribs.org provides everything that SF does (except CVS) and much that SF doesn't offer.  But just like SF, we don't run the organizational structure of the project.  Think of contribs.org as "SF for SME".  

We provide a terrific free service, but not organizational structure.

I hope that this doesn't come across as being inflammatory because it is not meant to be.

Not at all.  Reasonable questions asked in a reasonable manner.

-jeff

[pcowley]

pcowley wrote:

I was hoping for something much more visible on the front page, then an email to the email-list and let people know it is there.

Would you be prepared to run a System Poll along the lines of ...

Hi Pete,

I'm afraid the answer is no. The reason is simple. If we run one for you, then we *have* to run a poll for anyone else who wants one. There are 5000 registered users here and that would be completely unmanageable.

Nothing is stopping you from creating the poll and emailing the discussion list to point it out. What would be wrong with starting there and seeing if your ideas gain traction?

-jeff

OK, fair enough, I see your point! It would set a precedent!  

Cheers
Pete

[Buddha_Joe]

we don't run the organizational structure of the project.

I understand.. Then Let me ask the question of you directly then instead of nebulously to the community at large... Do you know who does? Even if it is not set in stone there are some people guiding it as defacto leaders. Do you have any suggestions on how to engage them in the conversation?

Even if they don't really see themselves in that roll and don't want to be looked upon for leadership and direction they should at least take part in the discussion and process of defining a structure and selecting these community leaders. This way people won't see the responsibility of leading and directing the community as theirs and they can focus on what they really want to be doing. Just ignoring the situation or constantly saying "it's not me" doesn't fix it.

For better or worse the responsibility has defaulted to these people (who ever they are) who were not looking for it.. The easiest way out would seem to be to just bite the bullet and work out the structure.. They can then remove them selves from this unwanted responsiblity.

[Buddha_Joe]

LOL    right after my last post I saw that Pete put up that poll