Lessons Learned

[Christian Iseli]

On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:00:50 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Well, I wrote a private mail to some Fedora and FESCo people members
> some days ago on this particular issue and received some replies. So I
> know that I'm not alone with opinion. But it's up to those people to
> speak up here -- I'm not going to forward private mails to a public list.

FWIW, here is mine...
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:47:59 +0100, Christian Iseli wrote:
> Yea, I get that feeling too at times.  When I take some time to think
> about it, it boils down to a lack of communications... and not much
> else.  I haven't yet seen any signs of harmful intentions.  Some
> reasons I've seen:
> - intent on getting things done in time
> - security and integrity worries
> - maybe some unawareness of how to proceed properly
> 
> Many of the things done can get undone if necessary.  What is less easy
> to undo is a feeling of carelessness for the community, especially when
> coming from RH people it seems.
> 
> My take is that we should probably kindly remind them to at least send
> a shout on maintainers and/or devel right *before* starting to do bold
> changes in the organizations of things (wiki, build system, vcs, etc),
> or bring it up to FESCo if things seem controversial...
> 
> No need for the orbital laser right now...

To summarize my opinion: I think reorganizing the wiki was a necessary
thing, and I'm glad and thankful Rahul did it.  I'm aware he sent
messages to the list a while ago about the need to do a reorg.  My only
kind request is as noted above: "send a shout on maintainers and/or
devel right *before* starting to do bold changes in the organizations",
where bold means it's going to affect more than a couple maintainers
and/or users.  Something with a clear deadline so that people know they
have to react quickly if they have objections, e.g. "in a few hours
I'll start moving pages around in such and such way, please yell now or
keep your peace" and later "changes done", rather than "I just moved
pages around in such and such way, just so you know"

No need for lengthy discussions in general.  Just an advance warning
with a short deadline please.

Thanks,
					Christian