[coreboot] Changes to the coreboot Project Structure

ron minnich rminnich at gmail.com
Sun Mar 23 19:24:46 CET 2014


On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 11:34 PM, Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder'
Serbinenko <phcoder at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 23.03.2014 04:10, Peter Stuge wrote:
>> That isn't too different from creating a fork?
> Fork is better. With fork we don't have to deal with the same people who
> pushed the community out in the first place.

Vladimir, these are strong words, so I'd like to repeat my question.
The concern seems to be about the notion of gatekeepers. But every
project I've been on has gatekeepers. We've had them on coreboot since
the beginning, even as we iterated through four different code
management systems. One level currently is that some people don't get
+2, and the new proposal is to limit the set of committers.

So I believe the problem is not the idea of gatekeepers, but the
manner in which they are proposed to work. Can you tell me what about
this upsets you? I want to understand.

The times I've seen problems with gatekeepers have all concerned
responsiveness, not the number of gatekeepers, 9front forked Plan 9
because the gatekeepers of Plan 9 commits were felt to be not
sufficiently responsive. The result has not been positive, however, as
the forks of Plan 9 now number at least 5, and the community has
really fragmented.

So, is the issue the limitation of the numbers, your view that the
committers won't be responsive, or just the idea of gatekeepers?

I have friends who commit to grub2, and there seem to be gatekeepers
there; how do you manage that process?

I think it makes more sense to drop the heat level of this
conversation and work toward a mutually agreeable situation. Let's
take it easy. The changes have not happened, the discussion is
ongoing, and I don't see a point to taking action too quickly.

Of course, the nature of the project is that you can fork any time.
That's your call. But it would be a shame.

ron



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