Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job

At 17:25 10/10/00 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>
>So the question is, what do we do now?
>

There seem to be several concerns (in no particular order):

1. Conscious design/development choices based partly/solely on the needs of
one or more companies as opposed to the interest of the open source project.

eg. if changes to the core of pgsql to support erServer are actually
detrimental to the maintainability and reliability of the open source project.

This can not be completely avoided, but the existing core team review
system will presumably help. Expanding the core to include non-company
people is a good idea.

2. Subconscious design/development choices based on the interests of one or
more companies.

Can't really avoid this, but one hopes such subconscious decisions will be
far less significant than the conscious ones. Again, expanding the core to
include non-company people is a good idea.

3. Loss of core members to wholly private development.

Can't avoid this. Always was and will be a risk.

In answer to "What do we do now", it seems a first step would be to ensure
transparency in decision making (something that I think Peter E mentioned).
The fact we have two companies, who in theory will compete, is a good thing
(let's hope there are no strategic alliances announced in the near future).

What about setting up some kind of committee consisting of an expanded core
as well as some rotated members (possibly) selected randomly from the
non-core developers or users?

In reality, any suggestions of 'what to do' has to come from the core. It
has to be something you are happy to follow and which is not painful, but
which also satisfies the concerns already raised.

The first attempt at self-regulation failed, probably because the sights
were set unreasonably high. What is needed now is an agreed and reasonable
set of guidelines or principles.

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