more on the re-org

I'm facilitating the PySoy re-org discussion as Zach has noted his non-neutrality..

In addition to comments from Zach and myself I've heard from 3 developers, two in Zach's current dev team and one who has not been able to contribute recently due to work not being on svn.

Planet PySoy readers click here for more.


In no order, their questions/comments and responses:

how does this address the issue of one person (maintainer) running everything? (answer from Zach, summarized)

The maintainer has only limited exclusive control and can be removed if he/she acts irresponsibly. As a member of the board, the maintainer is like a president. The maintainer's vote < (2 * board members | 2 * lead developers | 3 * contributing developers). Zach's idea is to make the maintainer's voice louder than others but not over-poweringly so.

who decides who will fill the ranks (or how will current developers be ranked)? (answered myself)

This will not change what role anyone is in, only formalize it. We'll send out an all-call to everyone who's signifigantly contributed to PySoy over the past 6 months to vote on the re-org proposal. If it passes those who voted (yay, nay, or obstain) will be included, those who did not will not be. Those currently interested in contributing, but have not really gotten involved yet, will be paired with a mentor once the re-org is complete.

why so many ranks (or why not make everyone equal)? (answer from Zach, verbatim)

I'm afraid that would be counter-productive to a stable, long-lasting pySoy. Ranks are a numerical representation of each developer's contribution level. It's a balence between allowing every developer to be involved in decisions, not having every minor decision have to go up for vote, and having the project remain stable with a single maintainer. It does not mean I view myself as better than others. :)

why can't an outside group just join to absorb us? (answered myself)

The mentorship period lets us screen people who are not really interested PySoy beyond it's name recognition

can't board members cheat votes by mentoring friends just before an election? (answered myself)

In theory, yes, but this is still better than the current situation where all developers have equal vote but Zach exclusivly controls who can be a developer

how can a new structure be implemented if/when this one stops working? (from myself, verbatim answer from Zach)

A `Vote for Change' can be made to replace the Rank structure.

Anyone have more questions or concerns? Throw them at me (Arc on Freenode or arc at pysoy) or publically to the pysoy-dev (@ pysoy) list. Don't be shy, you don't have to be a current developer to comment!