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Gnome Hackers Sorting Out Differences RE:2.0
jacobito writes "Perhaps this hasn't been posted because it could ignite a flame war, but here goes: The gnome-hackers list has been the center of some high drama lately. Martin Baulig, the Gnome 2.0 release coordinator, resigned this weekend due to disagreements over the use of bonobo-conf versus gconf and his license to implement architectural changes more or less unilaterally. Through the ensuing melee, fingers have been pointed both at individuals and at corporations, harsh language has been used, and at one point Miguel de Icaza made the memorable proclamation "You can now flame me, I am full of love." Really, though, neither the bickering nor the technical details are what make this affair newsworthy--what is exciting about this is watching a decentered, non-hierarchical, mostly-cooperative group of talents work through the process of getting along with each other and settling disputes, all without resorting to imposing a single dictatorial will upon the group (so far). To that end, Havoc Pennington has posted a draft of a Gnome Enhancement Procedure to provide a structured change process which will hopefully prevent future flamefests. Good reading."
Thanks for the post, is was an insightfull read to look into the logs.
But I gotta say, in all of the posts, I *NEVER* saw anyone say 'I could be wrong'. All I saw was 'I gave you a better way, and you rejected it'. No where in any of the posts did their seem to be any respect for the individual at the other end of the line. A little bit of charm, perhaps, but no real 'I respect you, man'..
One has to wonder if this is becouse working in a virtual environment leads to less personal relationships with your peers..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Just a quick note to all you slashdotters. The GNOME project is not dead. The GNOME project is not falling apart. In fact, things are going quite well. In every software project of this magnitude, free or not free, flamewars break out amongst developers occasionally, and are generally solved. The difference here is that GNOME is kind enough to be free in not only its software, but most of its mailing lists. They are not able to immedialtly cover things up like their closed source competitors.
Here is a better summary of what happened this past weekend. The release coordinator, Martin Baulig, has been working *very* hard and at an astonishing rate. His school work was suffering, and some people were criticizing a technical decision that he had made. Martin got very frustrated, and made a post that he probably shouldn't have in a tone that he probably shouldn't have. But, honestly, all of us have said things that we really didn't mean to when we have been frustrated. As a result of his post, a massive flamewar developed concerning the technical decision itself, maintainership of GNOME, how decisions are made, etc. In the end, it appears that only constructive discussion is going on now to put in place a process for proposing changes to GNOME before they are made. Havoc Pennington has written a nice process similar to the Python Enhancement process. While it is in discussion now, and will likely change a lot, it has very much promise!
As a long time GNOME user and a developer, I am actually *more* excited about GNOME right now after seeing a damaging argument turn into something productive. Every project is going to have bumps, but the measure of the project's maturity is how they deal with it. GNOME certainly hasn't handled it perfectly, but the GNOME development community is learning from its mistakes, and working to prevent them and grow in the future. So, stop complaining about "GNOME is dead", "the linux desktop is dead", and spouting off useless insults. It is clear to me that not only is GNOME alive, but it is growing in maturity.
Jonathan LaCour
The main issue is whether or not Gnome 2.0 will be bonobo-ized. Martin resigned because he fervently wanted 2.0 to be bonobized. Instead, the goals for 2.0 have been lessened to porting to gtk 2.0 and some other odds and ends.
Bonobo is a cool component architecture. It's more complicated, but supposed to be much more flexible than KParts. Do some google research or dig around on gnome.org to find out more about it. I'm kind of sad that the core components won't be bonobo-ized for 2.0, there's lots of neat stuff a Gnome programmer could do. However, most of the other folks appear to feel that bonobo-ization would be biting more off than they could chew for the projected 2.0 release.
STill, I wish them luck.
-l
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In the commercial world, you have people who are, to some extent, both inside and outside projects, with little power other than negotiation, and who are often looking not just at technical, but also external issues - Product Management. I'm not saying that we should turn the OSS movement over to middle managers (aargh, run away!), but the role of a Product Manager is an interesting,and often very useful one. Typically, they keep everything together, calm egos, make sure that documentation, testing, engineering, PR and all the other bits get seen to, and have the overall responsibility for making it all happen - getting a release out of the door. Their role is both more and less than project managers, and they typically (in the commercial world) sit on the interface between "customers" and "engineers", taking an overview of what features are most important IRL, etc..
What sprung to my mind when I started thinking about this is that Linus is a very fine Product Manager, in some ways, in that he takes a broader view than just a technical one. He's also a Project Manager, in that he has great technical input (may his guru-ness continue for ever), but he does more than that, too.
So, the question that springs to mind is - what place (if any) is there for Product Manager-type role within OSS projects? Don't forget - and I'll say it again - I'm not advocating handing over OSS to Middle Management. But there are people with good skills out there who maybe don't want to code on the projects that they really care about (maybe it's too deep for them, maybe they haven't got the time, whatever), but have real skills and experience to bring to bear. Can we use them? Should we?
I know that I'm going to be flamed for this post, but I really believe that as we move into the mainstream, we need to look beyond just code, and take a broader view. This is _one_ way - and maybe not even a very good way, but one _suggestion_ of a way as to how we might do that. We believe (I hope) that we can take the best bits of processes and systems, and make a bigger whole than the commercial world tends to - here's one piece we might "borrow". Or maybe not.
Oh, and BTW, yes, I'm a Product Manager. See - I'm "out" now.
Finally, a replacement for "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
And just in case you think they might change their minds later and try to close it back up and make it nonfree there is this