Lessons Learned

[Luis Villa]

On 3/19/07, Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Mike McGrath wrote:
>
> > What can we learn from this so we don't repeat it?
> >
> > http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/07/03/19/1522208.shtml
>
> Make hard decisions when they need to be made.

That isn't sufficiently specific. When do decisions 'need' to be made?

Debian's answer to this question is that hard decisions get made only
when there is consensus/a vote/lots and lots of talking. External
factors (damage to market share, release schedules, etc.) are
basically not considered in figuring out when decisions 'need' to be
made. To the Debian culture, democracy and process are more important
than the product. This is what kills them *as a product*.[1]

The repeated slippage of release dates, and recent discussions about
'must have' features for the next release, make me suspect that Fedora
has no answers to the question, or at least none that are any better
than Debian's. Fedora may not value democracy over the product, but it
doesn't seem to have replaced democracy with anything that is
decisively better for the product.

I'd suggest that to get in the habit of making hard choices earlier
rather than later, you might start by picking some hard questions[2],
trying to answer them quickly/effectively, and seeing what happens. If
they are talked to death, you've already got a problem; if no one
steps up to make/enforce the decisions; you've got a problem; etc.

(FWIW, you could also replace 'when do you need to make decisions'
with 'who makes hard decisions' through this entire email and get
similar results.)

(Also, what Blizzard said, esp. about the kittens ;)

Luis

[1]  Ian blames this on democracy, but I think it comes from Debian
cultural norms which would manifest themselves no matter what
leadership method Debian had.

[2] I suggested some hard, critical questions (which appear to have
been punted) in December: "how does Fedora define a showstopper? What
are the most-preferred/least-preferred methods for coping with a
showstopper? For a given problem, who gets to choose between those
methods? Who is in charge of proactively finding showstoppers as early
as possible? Who is in charge of creating communities of people who
find showstoppers as early as possible? What methods can be put in
place to prevent showstoppers from getting into the trunk in the first
place?"