Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 22:16:13 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: rkw@shark.dataplex.net, p.richards@elsevier.co.uk, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Am I wrong or is this just stupid?r Message-ID: <2853.841209373@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 27 Aug 1996 16:10:43 PDT." <199608272310.QAA25610@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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> I have to say that what Robert wants is a top-down design process, where > you agree on the problem, you agree on the general principles of the > soloution, and you agree to ignore the implementation details below that > scale. This works for some things, and I don't dispute the *general* merit of such design methodology, but we still have to deal with certain real world constraints. In this particular case, I don't see any merit in instigating a discussion where some 10 or 15 messages will be devoted to putting forward different proposals from various people with their own pet design strategies, 30 messages will be devoted to knocking down those proposals in various ways, another 100 messages will be wasted in irrelevant threads generated by people who don't actually understand the subject but feel compelled to comment anyway and a final 200-300 messages from people letting the 2nd group of folks know that they don't know their arses from their elbows. Conservatively speaking, that's at least 400 messages which won't get us one iota further towards solving the problem. I'd prefer to simply see the prototype and thus constrain the ensuing discussion to more practical details. Most people just aren't adequately taking into account the fact that we HAVE been discussing the make system on and off for over 3 years, and discussion alone has accomplished very little. > It is very helpful to me, as an engineer, to get a firm "here is the black > box" from marketing. It is also good if I can get an agreement for them > to not second-guess my work in terms of their new "requirements", generated > since they made the agreement. There are many tried-and-true techniques from industry that just don't translate well to the FreeBSD project and can't without creating the kind of "accountability hierarchy" that only paying people salaries can provide. To use a military analogy, if I've got access to weapons and a team of trained soldiers, I can make a number of assumptions regarding their ability, coordination and effectiveness at taking a given objective. Now replace those trained soldiers with a team of volunteer irregulars with widely varying abilities and I'd sure better toss those assumptions right out the window and modify my assault plan accordingly if I'm to still have any hope of taking that objective. I've had 3 years with this project, seeing which techniques can be brought straight across from industry and which don't have a snowball's chance in hell of working out for us, and I can say that some of what Richard wants is simply not practical, nor is it likely to become so in the near future (if ever). If he's truly sincere about wanting to effect reak change here then he's going to have to alter his approach to fit the model which has evolved here. > Richard really can't ask for this without offending people, since he is > asking for a fiat, effectively: he wants it acknowdleged that if he takes > it on, it's his bailiwick, to do with as he pleases. Anyone is free at any time to do what he damn well pleases with the system, just as the development team and the users are free to adopt it or not (and, contrary to popular belief, the users have just as much power as the developers do here - if they reject something and refuse to use it, it invariably withers and dies just as surely as it would if a developer killed it). I can no more give Richard a "fiat" as I could block him from changing this part of the system and distributing his own diffs, even using our own announcement lists to reach his intended audience. The sword cuts both ways! > Probably, he would be better off contacting the core team directly for > that kind of assignation. Or finally realizing that "assignation" is not how it works at all, nor has it ever worked that way. People "take charge" of sections of the system simply by working on them, just as I have for the installation, Garrett has for networking, John & David have for the VM system, etc. That's it, that's how it works. Do the work and the rest follows. Sometimes an area of the system is already "spoken for" and people have to share the responsibilities and/or coordinate closely with others if they want to join in, but it's still the quality and quantity of tangible work, submitted over a reasonable period of time, which leads to the other developers trusting someone implicitly to handle large parts of FreeBSD development. Jordan
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