Koozali.org: home of the SME Server
Legacy Forums => General Discussion (Legacy) => Topic started by: pcowley on February 27, 2005, 01:19:35 AM
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It appears to me that there is general dissatisfaction with the lack of organisation and forward progress of the SME community, primarily around such things as:
- Who decides what is in a release and when it should go out?
- Who gets to decide the 'Roadmap' for SME?
- Do the teams have a leader or main driver?
- What problem and/or conflict resolution processes are in place?
- Who has technical oversight of the development work?
- Who organises the priority of work to gain the most benefits from the development effort?
- Where do you go to find out who is working on what projects and the progress or project status?
The list is probably endless.
It is my personal view that unless we start to organise ourselves, no good forward progress will ever be made and SME development will continue to crawl if not stop all together. (I know for a fact that several people who would have been keen to get involved, have left due to the lack of response, structure and knowing what is going on).
THEREFORE I am running this poll to see if there is enough agreement within the SME community to get some sort of formal organisation going.
I have created a wiki page outlining a structure copied directly from the Debian folk (with their approval) at:- http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php/Proposed%20SME%20Server%20Organizational%20Structure
Please have a look at this and then vote - then we can start to decide our direction and make progress.
Cheers
Pete Cowley
down under in Wellington, New Zealand
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I also posted a link to this poll in the Experinced users forum.
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I like the structure for the most part, but I can think of a few issues with it.
The debian community is much larger then the SME community, so for them their structure works, but I see it as to involved for the SME Server project, so here is what I propose:
Leader + Technical Committe (with attached Secretary if needed)
The committee may be made up from the following persons and groups:
Leader - Overall vision (as agreed to by the committe with input from the community)
Lead (Security Team)
Release Manager
Package Assignment
Lead (Bug Team)
Lead (Doc Team)
Web Maintainer
Each subgroup leader will be responsible for their teams (and will organise them as they see fit) and will report to the committee.
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the debian community is much larger then the SME community, so for them their structure works, but I see it as to involved for the SME Server project, so here is what I propose:
Then you should cast your vote for the second option on the list. :-)
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Please keep in mind everyone that the proposed debian structure is just that....... proposed..
The real question is about getting organized..
If you don't agree with the debian way but do agree on the need for some sort of structure then vote using the second choice.
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Debian is, IMHO, the preeminent example of how a successful distro-community is organized.
From reading all the examples on the devinfo and discussion lists I think formality is exactly what SME as a Linux Distro needs.
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I agree that SME does need some form of formal leadership. How that leadership of organised is up for discussion.
It's the biggest problem that I see with community driven projects is that no-one ever seems to decide anything unless a formal committee is formed and agreed to by the community (even them sometimes nothing happens) :-(
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also try not get hung up on details... that's the next step after every has voiced their opinions :-o :lol:
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come on folks ... this poll has been viewd over 90 times and only 10 people have an opinion? I find that hard to believe.
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Good Evening,
Welcome to the world of SME. Polls are useless even though I did vote. RSI will make the decisions for contribs.org and/or SME as long as they own the domain. Example, the Lycoris fiasco. There is no formal trust, governing body, committee, CEO, CFO, etc. that runs this show. Until there is something like that formed where the ownership of contribs.org / SME is in the hands of the community organization, polls and other discussion regarding the positive or negative issues surrounding this whole thread, IMHO, is useless.
Others and myself have mentioned many different angles of attack regarding the organization of contribs.org / SME. I volunteered to check weblinks and the likes last summer. I started going through them and found a couple of incorrect links. I emailed the appropriate people regarding the information I found. I don't remember if I got a response or not and/or whether the links were corrected.
Now, having said all that, I still like SME and will continue to use it and give support where and when I can in whatever unorganized fashion I feel like at the time. :)
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There is no formal trust, governing body, committee, CEO, CFO, etc. that runs this show. Until there is something like that formed where the ownership of contribs.org / SME is in the hands of the community organization, polls and other discussion, IMHO, is useless.
valid points but the process has to begin some where.. no one is going to take the time to set up an organization like this unless there is documented interest.
I don't know anything about setting up non-profits but I will say here and now that I would be willing to go through process of learning how to do it and filling out papper work if there was enough interest from the community.. That is niether here nor there at this point.
Not saying anything and accepting the status quo, even if you are unhappy with the current state of affairs, is not going to bring about change.. apathy is not the answer. Thanks for casting your vote.[/quote]
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Wally - I think that is the purpose of the poll.
To get an idea of what others think concerning the current growing pains of the community that surrounds SME Linux.
It is good you voted in the poll and remember the poll is only a tool.
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I mean no offense to anyone, this is just my opinion. It carries only the weight you give it.
I believe there are only a few types of people typically involved in online communities. There is overlap, of course, in these groups and it is a gross generalization.
- people who simply use the site for their benefit and don't participate in the community (btw, I think this is just fine)
- people who genuinely want to help or are committed to the project but are not able to help with either code or support in the forums. Sometimes these people donate money, most often not.
- people who genuinely want to help or are committed to the project and wish to offer organizational skills to help organize/lead a project.
- people who get their hands dirty, without asking permission, and build what they want because to them this is a passion and an art. The guys building the core distro, the devs writing the contribs, docteam, bug fixers and contribs.org are examples of this group.
OK. Tell me which of these groups is mandatory for the project?
The few guys who build the core os got a small group together and without consulting anyone outside their own group they built a new release. BRAVO! They got it done. They are following their vision of how things should be done. Now the code is in the gpl so if you don't like what they wrote you can change it anyway you want. I think this may be one of those rare occasions when Charlie and I agree on something.
The contribs devs follow their own vision and build whatever they want to. BRAVO! They are getting it done. Once again the code is in the gpl so you can change it if you want to.
The people who respond to the bugs or the forum posts that interest them do it according to their own interests. BRAVO! They are getting it done. And no one can force them to work on a specific bug or respond to a specific post.
I provide and run the site the way my vision points me. I will continue to do that. All of the code that runs this type of site is in the gpl so you can build a better site if you want.
This isn't to say that there can't be discussion and collaboration among us all, it just means that no one can force anyone to do anything. I can't even enforce a ban on my own site. :roll: (think about that for a minute)
Question. In a project of this size how viable is it to try to mandate rules on volunteers that ultimately have no desire to be told what to do?
I vote #4 - It can always be better but not by any of the above options
-jeff
Civility:
n 1: formal or perfunctory politeness [ant: incivility] 2: the act of showing regard for others [syn: politeness]
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I have to agree with you Jeff...
It is part of the reason why many Open Source projects fail, but in saying that, it is also a strong point of many projects... :-?
Talk about an Oxy-Moron... :-D
Anyway, I'm really sitting on the fence with this one...I have ideas of where I would like SME Server to head in the future (I'm sure quite a few in the community would disagree with me and that is fine by me - it is their right).
I personally would like to take more of a leadership role in the SME Server project (since I can't code to save myself - I have more of a IT project management background) but again, most members wouldn't know me or my background which is understandable.
I personally think all the different parts of the community complement each other. The Core Devs build the Core OS, other Devs build the contribs (of which some get included in the Core OS at some point), the DocTeam document everything (a life saver in and of itself - I have referred to the Docs a number of times to check how to do something - mainly because I forget), bug fixers (we all know that the Core and Contrib Devs are not perfect - humans never are) and of course I can't forget the people who look after the Contribs.Org website (without you Contribs wouldn't exist in it's current form).
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call it crazy but some people need structure..lol.. to some it may seem stuffy but others thrive in that type of enviornment.. your absolutely right about beeing able to spin off into another development branch, but I think most people would rather not fork the project.
I'm sure there could be some sort of compromise..
Jeff please be honest.. Do you or the developers you speak of feel that we are stepping on your toes by having this discussion?
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[Post erased by pfloor]
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I respect everyone who has given a contribution to the community, but I don't understand why people that lurk on the mailing lists and forums suddenly appear out of nowhere and demand changes to the way things are done.
That being said, I am for whatever will encourage more developers to contribute to SME Server, so if that requires a change then that's great, but if you want to change something, start by doing what you can with the methods already available on contribs.org - There are forums, mailing lists, wiki pages - so many tools to get things done - if that is really your intention. You don't need Jeff's permission to use any of those tools.
Jeff is 100% right that the developers are the most necessary part of the community. Jeff/RSI and everyone that has helped maintain contribs.org, and the many people that contribute add-ons and help out people with questions in the forums are a close second in my books.
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but I don't understand why people that lurk on the mailing lists and forums suddenly appear out of nowhere and demand changes to the way things are done.
I personaly am new here.. New to using linux as well.. I try to answer questions in the forums and chat. I make it a point to look at posts that have not been replied to yet and make some sort of suggestion if I can so the person who made the post dosent feel like they are being ignored. Granted I have been out of the loop for a little while (been laid up for with a back injury) But I try to participate in a useful fashion as best I can. I know there are others doing the same..
I don't know about demanding anything.. Right now I see people trying to have a discussion.. Prehaps those that you are refering to as lurkers are only trying to throw out suggestions on how to improve and grow the community.. maybe they are not developers, artists or good at writing documentation. Maybe their Linux skills are not that great. so they try to contribute by tossing out ideas, is that a bad thing?
If these lurkers are tossing out ideas based on opinions resulting from lack of or faulty information, some one could always correct them by giving them or pointing them in the direction of accurate info.
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Buddha_Joe,
I was not referring to you, just in general about some recent posts on the discussion mailing list that seems to be spilling over here. Actually I probably should have chosen my words better - I'll leave my first paragraph of my previous post there, but in hindsight, it maybe would have been better left out.
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LOL... no offense taken greg.. I just threw that out there to identify my self since I have been away in case anyone was wondering who i was.. worry if that sounded like I was offended
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[Post erased by pfloor]
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Paul,
I don't think that was the intent.. It sounded more like he was just voiceing a concern to me.. Jeff mentioned in another topic earlier that there were something like 5000 registered users.. kind of hard to keep track of who's who.
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Jeff please be honest.. Do you or the developers you speak of feel that we are stepping on your toes by having this discussion?
I can speak only for myself. You are certainly not stepping on my toes by havng this discussion.
My question is whther or not the discussion is useful, not whether or not it is permissable.
I appreciate that many people require structure, I am just not sure that they can get it in THIS community.
-jeff
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Good Morning,
One more thing and I promise to leave this mulberry bush forest of organizational ideas alone.
My whole point about polls and any organizational idea that is discussed involves people. When it is stated that there are x number of people registered here and official polls hardly garner any response, it speaks volumes. I don't know if there is a process in which the userlist is culled on a regular basis or not due to inactivity. Until there is a "quorum" of the users registered here, nothing will be done on a large scale.
My hats off to the people that organized and have responded to the release at hand as well as future releases. I personally haven't had the chance to download the beta copy yet.
Is there a hierarchy with names posted anywhere at this point? Posting the organizational structure at this point may provide some insight. When I say organizational structure, I'm talking the complete structure of this domain including SME.
On another note, if someone was to go build a site that deals with SME and the likes, would any consideration be made by contribs.org to donate the forums to them just like they were donated from Mitel to contribs.org and then from contribs.org to Lycoris?
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if someone was to go build a site that deals with SME and the likes, would any consideration be made by contribs.org to donate the forums to them just like they were donated from Mitel to contribs.org and then from contribs.org to Lycoris?
That's a good question.. Would contribs.org be willing to provide a copy of that data?
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i have in another thread bantered with this idea of structure. Everyone is entitled to there opinion and it is there own right to do what they like.
I would be happy to continue with the current structure (if that is the right word) if I knew who was doing what and who do I talk to for a particular issue/discussion. E.g. who decides what pacakages are in the core release.
At the moment I can not find this information or where SME server is heading.
Without knowing where we are going, how do we know how to get there? :-?
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if I knew who was doing what and who do I talk to for a particular issue/discussion. E.g. who decides what pacakages are in the core release.
This question has been asked several times.. I happen to run into one of the developers in the chat area and he gave me permission to share our disscusion with the community.
Here is some of what we talked about:
[slords] 7:09 pm: Looks like you've asked some good questions in the forums.
[Buddha_Joe] 7:09 pm: Thanks.. I'm trying not to be inflamatory
[slords] 7:10 pm: Any specific question you have for me?
[Buddha_Joe] 7:10 pm: I just want to understand better and try to make it easier for people to support
you developers
[Buddha_Joe] 7:11 pm: yeah... what does the current process look like lol
[slords] 7:12 pm: Really the lowdown of the 6.5 release is, I was sick and tired of nothing happening in
the community so I build my own ISO. I was the one that did all the gathering of the rpm's and I'm the
one that had the say as to what went into the ISO and what didn't. I asked a few people that I trusted
(Charlie, Greg) for input and took what they said into consideration but the ISO is really my internal
project.
[slords] 7:13 pm: Once I had it built I approached Jeff and told him I had an ISO and did contribs.org
want to support it. He agreed and we are now where we are.
So it appears that there really is no structure at all.. which is why no one has answered any of those questions.
A lone developer got tired of inaction and took it upon himself to build a new ISO for himself..He then asked the opinions of people he trusted on his work and then offerd to make it available to everyone else (lucky for us)..
It wasn't some deep dark exlusionary process.. just someone who took iniative to do something for himself and afterward thought it would be a good idea to share it wth everyone.
I asked him what he felt about the dev process getting organized
[slords] 7:33 pm: If the community gets organized then that would be a good thing.
[slords] 7:33 pm: But it doesn't take the community getting organized to get things done.
[slords] 7:34 pm: I've been waiting for the community to get organized for well over 2 years now.
[slords] 7:34 pm: I got sick of it and went and did my own thing.
So I asked him about the effort that is jut starting at Sourceforge around SME
[slords] 7:40 pm: My understading is that we are going to host the source for the e-smith-...rpm files
and then others can download and compile the rpms and add them to whatever distro they want.
[slords] 7:41 pm: It will be the home of the base pacakges. But it won't be the home of the iso.
[slords] 7:41 pm: So do you run any updates on your server?
[Buddha_Joe] 7:42 pm: see that is a clearly defined direction
[Buddha_Joe] 7:42 pm: m[y] box lol.. it's a mess
[slords] 7:42 pm: And it make it clearly defined what we provide and what we support.
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There will always be people who don't want to be part of any organisational structure in any way whatsoever, and that is OK too, membership of a group is not mandatory and all contributions would still be gratefully received.
Sorry, this is going to be another lengthy post <grin>.
In my opinion, all projects need:
- a commonly shared, clearly defined objective/goal/vision.
- a structure (at the very least a leader) to resolve issues, monitor progress, keep things on track etc
- a way of getting the work underway.
and that, ladies and gentlemen is the start of an organisation of shared common interest called a - COMMUNITY
What I see as the main qualities and reasons for having a formal rather than loose organisation are these:
1) A leader to:
- be a manager of the project and collaborate on defining its vision - in our case the SME Road-Map and release dates etc. The main task of the SME Server Community Leader involves coordination and communication.
- Gives encouragement and guidance where needed.
- The leader must have the backing (by voting) of the community. Not voting is not counted as a vote against, it is just not counted at all.
2) Administrator performs these sorts of tasks (from the proposed constitution):
- Creating the visibility of the organisation structure, contact details, team member lists and most importantly maintaining the WIP (work in progress) lists and who is working on it.
- Conducting votes and polls for the community. -- notably the Community Leader elections, but also any other votes that are run (General Resolutions, for example). Running a vote also entails determining the number and identity of the people eligible to vote, for the purpose of calculating quorum.
- Standing in for other Officers The Secretary can stand in for the Leader, together with the Chairperson of the Technical Committee. In this situation, they may jointly make decisions if they consider it imperative to do so -- but only when absolutely necessary and only when consistent with the consensus of the Developers.
- If there is no Secretary or the current Secretary is unavailable and has not delegated authority for a decision then the decision may be made or delegated by the Chairperson of the Technical Committee, as Acting Secretary.
- Interpreting the Constitution - The secretary is also responsible for adjudicating any disputes about interpretation of the constitution.
3) Technical Committee for problem resulution:
- Write up a summary of the disagreement, preferably agreeing it with your opponent, and send it to the bug tracking system. If there is no bug for the dispute yet, file one.
- The committee will discuss your question on the committee mailing list. We will not CC all of our discussion to the bug report, though we may CC the participants. Anyone else who wishes to do so may subscribe to the SME_committee mailing list and see our deliberations.
- The committee will aim to make a decision as soon as possible. In practice this process is likely to take many weeks, or perhaps longer. If the question is particularly urgent please say so.
- Sometimes, one side or other is convinced, during the committee's deliberations, by the merit of the other side's arguments. This is a good thing! If it happens, the committee need not make a formal decision, and the bug report can be closed, or reassigned, as appropriate.
4) Team leaders:-
- Answer questions and give guidance on their area of responsibility
- Encourage team members to work on the high priority tasks first in preference(identified in the Road Map most likely) but does not exclude people working on their particular issue.
- Keep in contact with the developers and check for and encourage progress on their work.
It may seem unnecessary for all this formality and administrivia, but democracy is such that if people are not elected and don't have any authority, no one has to power to make any decisions for the common good of the whole community - this is not a community at all, it is just a group of individuals with a common interest! This is the worst and the slowest way to make progress.
cheers
Pete
down under in Wellington, New Zealand
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It would be a big problem to change to Debian most all people would need to learn a new system
The Redhat based system is still alive with Fedora
SME is a great piece of work and does want most of us need
Debian is a different dog and would require a complete re-tooling of SME
my 2 cents !
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It would be a big problem to change to Debian most all people would need to learn a new system
The Redhat based system is still alive with Fedora
SME is a great piece of work and does want most of us need
Debian is a different dog and would require a complete re-tooling of SME
my 2 cents !
I think you have misread the emails.
There is no talk of changing to Debioan, what is being discussed is the idea of an organisational structure, possibly based on the way the Debian community organises itself.
Cheers
Pete
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Buddha, if it is the case as you stated with slord, why can't we ourselves do what he has done.
I too don't possess the technical abilities, but could we assist slords, for version 7.0. I am certainly ready to put in the leg work and from the other thread on volunteers I don't think we will be short of people wishing to help out.
pcowley, whilst your are correct in what you are saying about commitees and the like, I don't believe that we need to go to that extent. Yes somethings can get boged down in processes and needless to and froing.
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girkers,
I was thinking the same thing.. I think matsk compiled a list of people who volunteered under a thread that RequestedDeletion ran looking for team leaders and members.. I was planning on sending him an email in the morning to double check.. I also wanted to talk to the fellas over at sourceforge first before possibly descending on them with a bunch of people..lol.
While I agree that an exact replica of the debian structure might be over kill it can be used as a reference to put together that is a bit less complex but that can handle conflict resolution and decision making..
keep in mind though that the fellas at sourcefroge are really working on the base functionality not the frills. That is also why I wanted to talk to them.. I want to see what their feelings on this are and hear their ideas.. Heck they may want nothing to do with this.. won't really know till we talk to them all over there.
Also keep in mind that there are existing efforts here.. I know there is a documentation team, and I think I remember seeing something about a security team as well. we would have to talk with them as well and see where they stand and get their input.
I am not trying to speak for anyone here, but most likely one of 3 things will happen. Either the organization ends up as part of the sourceforge project if they are interested in it. It becomes a separate project that may be working in conjunction with SF, or it becomes it's own stand alone project..
Then we also need to look at where this is all going to be based from.. is it going to be able to continue here or should it happen on a new site.
But it is really to early to make any assumptions. at this point we are just gauging interest.. at some point all the interested parties are going to need to come together and start working out the details (elections for interim leads, discuss organizational methods etc..)
I have to disagree with you on the idea of committies though girkers. having committies of elected persons for actual decision making can lessen the effect of personal disagreements getting in the way.. also if for what ever reason people think that they are not being represented effectively when the elected persons time is up they can always vote for someone else.
Pete,
How long did you set the poll to run for?
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I agree Buddha in that you can not bite the hand that feeds you, nor burn any bridges (excuse the cleches). We don't want to step on anyones toes nor upset anyone.
It would be nice if we could keep everything here at contribs.org, but obviously this is something that will need to be discussed.
As to the commitee thing, I may have not explained myself very well (this happens alot :-P ), but commitees are good. I just think commitee is the wrong word to use in this instance, but if you want to call a group of like minded individuals working towards a robust, well developed distro. Then cut my legs off and call me shorty, we have a comittee.
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The posting moved by the author to:
http://sme.4gurus.org/modules/newbb/viewforum.php?forum=3
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LOL well then... lol
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Good Evening,
I have the utmost respect for slords and others that have put blood, sweat, & tears into this project. It is sad that they are going to sourceforge for a new kind of distribution process. From my observation point, it appears that the powers to be at contribs.org are not going to do anything. Now I go back to a question that will not be answered. If someone were to build another site, would the forums be donated (I'm assuming this is what happened) like they were from Mitel to contribs.org then from contribs.org to Lycoris? I'm assuming if the question is never answered, I must be using the wrong word there, donated.
ORGANIZATION IS NEEDED IF FOR NOTHING MORE THAN TO SHOW SOME KIND OF MANAGEMENT OF FINANCES AND FINANCIAL RECORDS. As part of the grand "community" that may or may not have a voice, I sent money at first but became concerned about where it would go as contribs.org went along.
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I wouldn't worry so much about the content from contribs.org honestly.. It would suck but a new knowledge base could be built. There is no need to try and force the website maintainers into anything they do not want to do.
There are plenty of people who want something a bit more structured and as I understand it there are a couple of initiatives already in the works.. as Jeff has said people can decide with their feet.
But there is no reason why contribs.org can not benifit just as much from these new efforts as they can from contribs.org. There is no reason for this process to become nasty or exclussionary..
Let's keep in mind that Jeff has been gracious enough to let this discussion continue here when it is well with in his rights to nuke it.. granted it may not be a popular decsion but it is his right.
Here is something that may somewhat answer your question.. each of the posts here is owned by their respective authors. That being said there is no reason why permission to use the material can not be sought from the author.. Granted it may be tedious and a bit of a pain, but it can also be a useful exercise in reducing the chaf and extracting out the useful bits of information to be used in generating new howto's and making sure those howto's credit their original source.
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Good Evening,
Dangit, I'm addicted to this mulberry bush forest. ARrghh...
Let's do this.
1. Jeff organize something, anything for contribs.org It doesn't have to apply to SME just put some <adjective> organization up for contribs.org to manage the posts, threads, monies, etc.
2. Start culling through the huge userlist and attempt to contact every one. Delete those who don't respond within x number of days. This would provide for a <adjective> quorum for an organization to apply to SME.
Jeff, take the leadership role here as you did when contribs.org moved over to Lycoris. You affect this whole thing whether you say so or not. You own the <adjective> domain.
"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."
-- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not. ~Author Unknown
Leadership is action, not position. ~Donald H. McGannon
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. ~Robert Jarvik
Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders. ~Tom Peters
Now, I understand if you ban me, delete my post, nuke the thread, and/or anything else. You made the decision to get the forums and SME that a lot of people put blood, sweat, and tears into. You made the decision to give those to Lycoris and then take them back. You made the decision to rebuild after the crash with the equipment. You made a lot of decisions, make them again if nothing else, for contribs.org and let SME fall into place.
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heres my 2 cents:
As both a business and a technical kind of guy, I think that a well established structure is nesscessary so that everyone knows where they fit in and what the direction of the project is.
Organizing everything in a logical, public, and agreeable way, I think will be better for everyone, as well as making it easier for other contributors to help out and the rest of the community to help in the whole process.
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<snip>.....</snip>
Pete,
How long did you set the poll to run for?
I ran the poll for 30 days, to give people plenty of time to discuss and think about it. I think it should be made clear to those who talk about finances, that there are none. We are talking purely a structure for development effort and visibility. No need to incorporate or any of that really and already I see that a large proportion of voters don't want the HEAVY constitution based environment (although in my own experience, it is really, really useful to have this stuff in writing for when things go bad).
However, what I believe most people want is:
- What are the groups of effort
- who is working on what
- What is the progress to date on the work being done
- Who to contact for advice
- What is the direction SME is going in
However, to decide something like a road-map for releases requires a concensus decision, and this is really best achieved by a group of the actual developers - The folk doing the real work should get a lot of the say, but that does beg the question of how to resolve conflicts which will occur from time to time.
SO a slimmed down structure is quite possible (and I am NOT against it in the least) and if that is what the majority want, lets do it. Same for the more complicated (but IMHO more robust)version!
Something has to be done, and as Shad Lords and the others who said they were so fed up waiting for the community to organise they they did the 6.5 release, well that just proves the point that some sort, any sort of organisation is preferable to nothing at all.
As a long time lurker, the most I can do at this point is stimulate discussion, run a poll and if the results of the poll represent enough of the community, we go use the poll result to do somthing to improve our situation.
Hipefully that will be a win-win situation for everyone.
Cheers
Pete
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- people who genuinely want to help or are committed to the project but are not able to help with either code or support in the forums. Sometimes these people donate money, most often not.
I come under this type of person.
Currently the only reason I use ClarkConnect over SME is stabilty of the distro. And I dont mean in an operating system sence, I mean in a reliability that next week, month, year I will still be able to find support and updates for the distro.
Thanks for your time.
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It's funny that this topic has over 1000 views, which I find quite funny as we have only had 52 votes. To me it shows that whilst people are interested in what is going on, most don't want to get involved.
But for the few of us that have continued on in this discussion that "do" want to do something about the state of the distro, the time is now.
"Seize the day" - someone famous
I believe and support the question raised by wallyrp, is that for us to start any of this we need to know if Jeff is going to support the movement through contribs.org. Whichever way he decides to go I will support him in that decision as he is the owner of this domain (so I am lead to believe).
Once this has been sorted we then need to move forward, like the initiative taken by matsk. I believe though before jumping ship that we need to give contribs.org the opportunity to decide on its position in this context, as it has already given so much to the SME community.
If in the unfortunate event that contribs.org does not wish to continue along the path that we here are trying to forge, whilst being unfortunate we have to respect his decision and move on.
So contribs.org, what's it going to be?
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Hello!
Let me say right at the beginning that I'm very interested in the continued existance and development of the SME server product.
I have been using SME server since about e-Smith version 4.splot! In and around where I live and work I have 7 SME servers in production environments, and 5 of these have never been rebooted since installation - the longest is close on 4 years without intervention. I have another 8 - 10 SME servers in support/test/evaluation modes and they too are behaving flawlessly.
I have to say that only VAX/VMS or Alpha/VMS machines have demonstrated this kind of reliability to date and so I'm very much a fan of the SME box. Also, there's no detailed GUI and so inquisitive users/owners simple don't have the ability to 'go poking around in the works' - a definite plus for me!
I suppose I'm much like many users. I like there to be 'official releases' from time to time as these always provide anchor points in the continued development of the product. I like the 'contribs.org' as well. I don't think in all my 35+ years in the IT industry that I ever got such fast responses to problems that I've encountered. I like too that I can 'do my own thing' from time to time AND I can post these efforts into an open area where other people can make what they will of them.
I expect too that I'm one of these people who always expect there to be some sort of 'organisation' behind a project like SME server and it can come as a bit of a shock to realize that the organisation is, in reality, very thin and held together by nothing much more than a will to keep something that is good going!
So what would I like to see? Well, it would help if I knew more about some of the 'grandees' involved. I see - and have communicated with - names like Charley Brady, Greg Swallow, RequestedDeletion, smeghead, slord (to name the first 5 that came into my head), but I don't know where these guys fit into the 'organisation'. For users like me, knowing what folk do and where they fit in is all part of the confidence building exercise that is needed for me to build the confidence in the product that I then pass on to potential end users.
I suppose too that I would like there to be some sort of a controlling body that decided what went into an official release. Such a body need not necessarily consist of 'king coders' but should probably comprise of one or two experienced administrators with technical knowledge who had available to them some sort of a testing team to ensure that the official releases were stable and as fault free as possible.
Finally, the existing contribs.org simply needs to be maintained. It seems to me that the raw material for 'official releases' is almost always to be found in the various sections of 'contribs' and so the controlling body OUGHT (??) to have a relatively easy time when deciding when to move to a new release.
As for development, I rather suspect that this would take place 'automagically' under such a simple yet well defined structure. It's been my experience over may years that the best developments are usually in very small areas and are often done by dedicated programmers/analysts who simply find themselves in a bind and resolve their problem by doing a bit of development work. I think in all my working life I've met only 4 or 5 people prepared to take on the development of a whole system voluntarily!! - and they didn't seem to have home lives!
I voted for option 1. I like the idea of adopting a system that already works. Because it would be adopting a working system, it would also be adapting a working system and so option 2 is really tightly bound to option 1 (in my mind). Also, option 1 already had more votes and so I chose to strengthen the case for adopting something positive rather than doing nothing.
So, these are my rambling, disconnected thoughts - but it proves I'm interested, at least!
Regards,
Dave
:pint: :pint: :-D
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dave_d you flatter me, to be mentioned in the same breath as the e-smith demigods charlie & shad, I will have to print and frame this post :-)
Gotta say I like the idea of structure as a guide and not a constraint. Due the size of this project and the # of bodies available to fill any position a stucture would need to be fairly flat and reasonably informal.
Providing the best possible assistance and support to those most skilled and knowledgeable in the project should be paramount. If we can lighten the load on these augsut individuals then we can help both our beloved distro & its developers (the latter to get more of a life at least); what will happen if these guys just get burned out with all the effort and an ever increasing load?
I vote option 2
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dave_d summed it up for me. I'm in the same boat, advising businesses to install SME instead of other Enterprise Linux distros due to it's stability and cost.
SME is a business tool and the direction should come from a mixture of devs and customer-facing guys. That way when all the hard work on the next feature/release is done it will be appealing to the business community and will continue to expand its installed base.
Don't assume everyone's caught up with this thread yet - I've been buried in building 3 high profile 6.01 servers and haven't cecked the forum for new posts since feb 27th.
I'm heading over to vote now :)
Damian
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It is great to see that some new people are taking an interest in this topic. Like this thread was viewed over 150+ times since my last post, but we have only had 9 more votes and 3 posts.
It is great that it is generating so much interest, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Yes people generally agree on what needs to be done, but how are we going to get started.
My question as to if we can use contribs.org or not is still outstanding and I [personally] feel that this is pivitol point before going forward. Please folks correct me if I am wrong.
It is great debating the points of this structure or that, but from what I have read most (read nearly all) agree that we need a leader and then a comittee of people and an executive. When should we start nominations?
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there is another part of this discusion happening on the discussion-mailing list..
Here is a link to the most recent thread.. please keep in mind no descions have been made yet, this is all just a discussion. Try not to read to much into it.
http://lists.contribs.org/mailman/public/discussion/msg00316.html
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Errr .... Harking back to Buddha's signature that 'the only stupid question is the one never asked', can someone enlighten me as to exactly what 'contribs.org' is and why it's so important that it continue?
I had always thought that it was just a domain that someone owned and it got hosted by whoever happened to be the 'owner' of SME server today or by whichever kind soul was feeling generous towards orphan server systems. However, reading into some of the posts it appears that 'contribs.org' may have a deeper meaning. If it's just a domain then surely it doesn't matter what it's called as long as those that need it can find it (I know folk don't like change, but that's not the point). If, on the other hand, contribs.org has a deeper meaning I would like to know what it is! Does hosting 'contribs.org', for instance, give the hoster (?) any sway over the system? Is the hoster the owner of the system.
Please excuse my ignorance in these matters, but when one has to dip in and out of a situation because of pressures of other work, these things cause confusion!!!
Regards,
Dave
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lol.. I'll try to answer your question by summarizing.
someone please correct me if I am wrong here.
The crux of the situation appears to center around your questions..
As I understand it Mitel actually owns the code and released a version of it to the community at large via the GPL.. Contribs.org is an effort to continue to support and develop community based release. RSI (Jeff Coleman) took on the role of steward for the community and provided this domain name and server space.
There are some that feel since that time there has been no coherent structure to the community or development process and that attempts to organize have been stymied and as well as questions regarding ownership of the communities data (wether this is real or imagined is another story) . the current goings are are an effort to change that by implementing a structure that has clearly defined processes and goals for the future development of SME. This also includes effectively communicating these goals to the rest of the community at large.
Hope that help some.. again if any one sees any factual errors plaese correct them.
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Good Evening,
Let's not forget the forums. One of my reasons for keeping contribs.org in the hands of the community instead of some <adjective> company is because of the forums. I still have yet to get an explanation as to who owns the forums. The forums is a huge knowledge base that I refer to time and time again to do things with SME. Some of the older how-to's that apply to 4.x and other versions still point me down the right road to fix things. I've been using SME since it was version 3.x.
So, if someone were to start another website other than contribs.org, could they get the forums? Here's another idea, since the forums are such a fluid asset when it's beneficial to certain folks, why can't we put them on a <adjective> CD and sell them as some kind of knowledge base that provides monies to the "community."
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Jeff Kind of explained this a bit on the mailing list at one point, And when you think about it, it makes sense.
Contribs.org holds rights to the actual compilation of forum posts but not the posts themselevs... The posts themselevs belong to their individual authors who are free to do as they will with their individual contributions to the forum.
as an example, take a publisher who puts out a book containing several works by Shakespear.. while they do not own the copyrights to shakesspear's works, they do however have rights to that particular book that they published. The same applies here.
As such who ever is acting as steaward for the community is under no obligation to make the current compilation available in a portable format. But as stewards to a community work there is an implied promise that the work will always be made publicly available.
Part of the concerns of some is that while this promise was implied it was never explicitly stated (or maybe just not stated clearly enough), and for what ever reason ( I don't have all the details, but I don't think they are neccessary for this particular explanation) a lack of trust developed in RSI's stewardship of this content.
As far as making the content available on CD is concerned, you have to go back to the fact that each post is copyrighted by it's author. There is the implied consent of these authors to use there works and make them available only in their current medium of the online forum. To make them available on a CD would be publishing these works in a diffrent medium and just to protect contribs.org and or it's stewards from liability would require recieving permission from each of these authors individualy to produce such a CD.
At least that's how I understand it.
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I guess there is no immediate need anymore to go into full technical or theoratical details.
Ruffdogs informed the community about their 'transition plan' and the publishing of the 'community contract'.
To me would be important that this 'community contract' would include:
- Positive community and Open Source attitude
- Pro-active 'management' of the site's health
- Contribs.org domain name, DNS record and site need be consideren as 'The Community site".
- Clear site policy
- 1 or 2 pro-active community members as 'Site management commitee members'
So maybe it is wise to hand over some tips to Ruffdogs, so they can take that into account and see if it matches their capabilities of what they are prepared to offer.
guest
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Those are some of the issues currently being discussed and worked out now with the work being done on the social contract.
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Good Morning,
I understand your response, I understand the plan of the transfer to Ruffdogs, and I understand the copyright stuff, to a point, surrounding the posts. I know I'll never get a complete answer but I just can't understand how things can be moved from company to company but they can't be given to someone that is trying to start another website about SME. It appears that the forums are an exclusive asset of contribs.org and they only can do any transfers to any other website.
Oh well, beside that, I'm excited about the Ruffdogs taking over. It appears from what I've seen that Ruffdogs is an above board operation. I'm not implying anything but my point is that they would definitely include the community before just up and handing off the site to another company.
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Good Morning,
... I just can't understand how things can be moved from company to company but they can't be given to someone that is trying to start another website about SME. It appears that the forums are an exclusive asset of contribs.org and they only can do any transfers to any other website.
You are correct here in s very real legal sense. The Contribs.org domain name, website, and compilation of forum posts is an asset. even if it was owned by a non-profit organization this would still be true. The only thing that makes it community property perse is the promise to keep the information publicly available for free, the social contract in this case.
I'm not implying anything but my point is that they would definitely include the community before just up and handing off the site to another company.
I know the Lycoris stuff was a surprise, but I want to make sure you are aware that in this instance, RSI was publicly approached by Ruffdogs on the disscusion mailing-list. However, I do understand what are you trying to say and I don't think that you will see a repeat of that.
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Cor!!! Things are moving fast at the moment, eh?
Anyway, I , for one, approve of the Ruffdogs move. To me it's better to have someone at the helm than it is to have either no-one at the helm or (even worse) a committee at the helm (poor camel!)
Good luck, Garret and Rugffdogs. I'm sure that with a little guidance on the tiller the community will continue to contribute towards SME server and that the product will continue to survive.
I look forward to developments.
BTW, I know that companies have to make money - we all do! I know too that when I install SME servers for my clients I charge them for the time and effort involved. It may be controversial, but I, for one, would be happy to pay for some or all of an SME server as installed on my clients' sites as a contribution to making sure that the product survives in an homogenous form. Maybe some sort of a split charging system would appeal to the more vociferous defenders of the GPL system - get the base system for free, pay something towards the more complex add-ins? Maybe some sort of honour system? - you install a server in exchange for money, then you're honour bound to make a contribution. Maybe a topic for another post? Maybe best to keep quiet about the whole unsavoury business of discussing money?
Regards,
Dave