On Mon, Dec 01, 2014 at 03:49:40PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> So... I get that some are reluctant to be visible in public, and in
> some sense, there's really no need to - until you've actually
> published some Devuan code. But... at some point, people won't take
> you, or the effort, seriously, if you don't start paying attention
> to project management and governance issues. IMHO, that's kind a
> critical distinction between hacking, and a professional effort. At
> some point, people will start evaluating things other than the code.

This all makes sense. And I think at this stage in the development
it also needs to be pointed out that the public perception of the
project in terms of its being a serious and professional organisation
doesn't just apply to end users (who need to be sure it's something
they can commit to using and is developed by people who are dedicated
and competent in their roles) it's also important for prospective
developers (such as myself), who do need to be sure that it's
something which is worth dedicating a significant fraction of our
time to. From my point of view, there is a risk attached to
committing many man weeks of effort to something which might not
succeed, or be developed in a manner or direction I disagree with.

When I joined Debian, exactly what I signed up for and agreed to
participate in was spelled out in black and white: the Constitution,
the DFSG, the DMUP. While the distribution has diverse interests,
these serve to ensure that at least in these areas, we are all of
one mind and agree that this is our common purpose. This does
provide us with guidelines which frame our participation in the
project. I do think Devuan needs to think about and adopt
something similar, just so that we all know we are on the same
page and have the same goals. Given what we are doing and have a
common interest in Debian, it wouldn't be unreasonable to use
the Debian documents as a basis.


Regards,
Roger

-- 
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