Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:10:47 -0800 From: Chris Pressey <cpressey@catseye.mine.nu> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The beastie boot menu. Message-ID: <20041130171047.5eed9a65.cpressey@catseye.mine.nu> In-Reply-To: <20041201005139.GA71572@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <20041129024602.GA23324@turingmachine.mentalsiege.net> <1101748454.41ab58e61eb88@imp2-q.free.fr> <FA1860B97FADCA625C68119A@[192.168.1.16]> <1101788709.41abf62519b57@imp2-q.free.fr> <20041130002603.692153b7.cpressey@catseye.mine.nu> <p06002035bdd1f81925dd@[10.0.1.3]> <20041130145130.0aa893f1.cpressey@catseye.mine.nu> <20041130230214.GA39964@xor.obsecurity.org> <20041130162403.567a4e39.cpressey@catseye.mine.nu> <20041201005139.GA71572@xor.obsecurity.org>
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On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:51:40 -0800 Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 04:24:03PM -0800, Chris Pressey wrote: > > On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:02:14 -0800 > > Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> wrote: > > > > > On Tue, Nov 30, 2004 at 02:51:30PM -0800, Chris Pressey wrote: > > > > > > > > [...] > > > > > I'm sorry, I just don't see the source of confusion. I > > > > > don't > > > > > see the floundering. > > > > > > > > Do you follow cvs-src@? > > > > > > Come now, surely you can do a better recruiting job for DragonFly > > > than falling back on FUD. > > > > > > Kris > > > > I'm not recruiting for DragonFly; I raised these exact same issues > > about lack of a stated philosophy on their list a couple of months > > ago. > > > > I'm also not spreading FUD. I'm not sure of the best way to > > objectively measure the amount of floundering a project is > > undergoing, but I think counting the number of backouts and backout > > requests would be a good first approximation. In order to measure > > that, one would quite naturally have to read the CVS logs. > > > > And while I have not conducted a formal study, I've seen backouts > > and backout requests appear far more frequently on the FreeBSD CVS > > list than on any of the other BSD CVS lists I've followed. > > > > You may have noticed, in fact, that this entire thread was started > > off by one such backout. > > > > Now you might say, well FreeBSD only has more backouts because > > FreeBSD has so many more developers and so much more activity. > > That's almost certainly true. But that's even *more* of a reason to > > have a cohesive philosophy communicated clearly to the entire > > project, otherwise the amount of toe-stepping will become > > unmanageable. > > Even if there were anything to this hypothesis, your metric only > measures conflict between developers and lack of ability of certain > people to obtain public consensus on their changes, not lack of > direction for the project (in many such cases there's agreement on the > intended goal of the change, but not the implementation). > > Certainly, a project with a small number of major developers will have > less backout requests by virtue of no-one standing up to disagree with > them, but that doesn't mean it's going anywhere very quickly. OK. I'm certainly open to a better method for evaluating the direction of open-source projects. Did you have one in mind? The only better way I can think of at the moment (if we put sheer objectivity aside) is to compare the things people are doing, against the published mission statement. Except, as noted, the current mission statement for FreeBSD is so vague (basically "provide software with no strings attached") that comparing activity with it can't tell you much, if anything, useful. Which is precisely why I'm suggesting that FreeBSD would do well to publish one with more substance. > Kris > > P.S. Given the histories involved, it's amusing to see a dragonfly > advocate pointing out that minimizing inter-developer conflict within > the project would be a good way for FreeBSD to achieve a better > project direction. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Should I be suggesting that *more* internal conflict would be a good way for a project to establish and meet its goals? That doesn't make any sense. I'm also not sure how I got labelled in your mind as a DragonFly advocate. -Chris
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