KDE RC Authority

[Piotr Szymanski]

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Neil Stevens (4/07/2002 22:37):
> It's been said that many KDE developers would fork KDE if an executive
> layer like the KDE Foundation were placed on top of KDE, making decisions
> about release.  So why should an unelected RC get to make decisions we
> woudln't trust an elected board to make?
I think that there should be a change in the way decisission are made in KDE, 
because the existing way leads to 100+ threads that often do not result in a 
decision.
My proposition of decision taking procedure:
1.) Someone brings up a subject on a mailing list.
2.) There is a discussion on the mailing list:
we have a mailing list for each package and kdelibs discussions would go to 
core-devel.
3.)  People on the list discuss on the subject then  the package maintainer 
(which would be chosen among the developers on that package and there would 
be an election every year or so) would say that he considers the discussion 
finished and he opens the voting, after the voting, the maintainer brings 
this idea to kde-central (a new mailing list), where all the packagers, the 
release coordinator, the GUI & doc translation coordinators, representatives 
from kde-women, kde-leage and kde-qa, would talk about it and eventually 
agree that it should be executed, it should be corrected, returned to the 
package mailing list for developers to discussthe modifications and then 
returned again to kde-central, where it would be decided whether it should be 
executed or not, it should not be executed. 
4.) If people on kde-central could not decide it in a voting (a tie), then the 
kde-central *Chairman Of the Board* would have the last word.

Ok, but there are several problems:
1.) Elections, developers from a package would elect package maintainers, 
translator would elect translator representatives, and people from 
kde-women/kde-league abd kde-qa would elect their representatives.
So it would look like this:
1 representative from every released project
2 representatives of translators
1 representative from kde-women
1 from kde-league
1 from kde-qa
1 release coordinator
2.)  The voting system. We have plans for a project like this with. I have 
already talked with John Knight (hey back me up here buddy) about it.

Yes, but why should someone tell anyone what to do? Well I believe that in 
such a big project there is a need for someone to be responsible for it, 
group responsibility is no responsibility. This person would get blamed if 
anything went wrong and would get none of the glory if everything went right 
(it is always like that). In such a big project there is also a need for a 
clear strategy and effective decission making. The existing system somewhat 
fails here.  
Well I think that it would be reasonable to resign from some freedom, in order 
to help building a system that would try to stop the chaos which takes place 
when decission making threads are on the go...

PS. I am just a translator do not beat me up, I know that not beign a 
developer makes me a little less priviledged, but I think that the 
proposition is worth considering...
- -- 
!: Piotr Szymanski | LinuxPL Developer  | KDE i18n-pl coordinator
@: djurban at linuxpl.org | Homepage: should be ready by August
&: LinuxPL.org: layout (done);php engine(due to September)
#: GG: 2300264 | ICQ: 12622400 
%: "Give evil nothing to oppose, and it will destroy itself." -Tsunami Shijo 
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