[Freedombox-discuss] Agenda

[Lars Wirzenius]

On la, 2010-08-28 at 03:43 +0200, paxcoder wrote:
> On 08/26/2010 09:05 PM, Lars Wirzenius wrote:
> > Whatever we do, let's please not discuss things using the wiki. It is
> > hard to follow a discussion on the wiki, and much easier on the mailing
> > list. The IRC channel, being unarchived, is probably also not a good
> > place.
> >    
> Sure, discussions can be carried out here. Actually, the task list 
> itself doesn't need to be on the wiki, it can be on Alioth. I was 
> thinking maybe a simple textual file, but it would seem I've got me some 
> familiarizing to do first: We can post "jobs" on Alioth, and if these 
> can have dependencies on other jobs (I assume they can), we don't need a 
> specific list, but I'd still suggest simple categories so we can start 
> creating teams, and then they will be able to each create their own 
> tasks. My suggestions are (pick your own):
> 
> 1. Core (hardware, system tools, underlying distro, packages...)
> 2. Web (web administration, front-ends for all services/apps...)
> 3. Internet services (e-mail, web server, calendar, sql, ssh...)
> 4. Networking (distributed storage, peer discovery, p2p services...)
> 5. Security (firewall, GPG...)*
> 
> Tell me if I'm missing something.

A rant follows.

I must admit that I am finding it weird that there is a lot of
discussion on how to arrange teams and assign tasks, when nobody is
actually doing anything.

Even if we end up organizing ourselves into teams, I think it is way
premature to do that now. And if and when we do it, I would really like
to avoid the term "core team", since that has strong negative
connotations of being the team that gets to decide everything.

It is a tenet within the hacker culture that the structure of the
organization that develops software is reflected in the structure of the
software itself. A large organization with strict divisions between
teams and well-defined channels of communication results in a rigid
system with a frozen list of modules that interact in specific ways. A
loose, semi-anarchistic organization results in a system that is not as
beautiful, but tends to reflect and react to the real world in more
flexible ways.

Either way can result in good software. However, since one of the points
of the freedom box is to break out of centralized cloud services, I
think it would be bad to have a rigid organization. Indeed, I would
prefer there to be no defined organization until its benefits are clear,
and then have as little organization as possible.

Free software is a do-ocracy: those who do, decide.

I have not done anything myself, yet. As soon as I've completed my move
back to the northen hemisphere, I will start working on the Alpha 0 kvm
image I outlined in an earlier e-mail. Until then, I will shut up.