<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jul 1, 2007, at 4:20 PM, walkah wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">IMNSHO, the issue we're facing right now is not that Dries is failing or</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica"><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>we need to add more Dries - but rather we need some stronger support</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">around him.</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><DIV>...snip...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">more time can be created by having more responsible parties.</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Helvetica; min-height: 17.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">Now, here I agree with you... but 'responsible' != 'final say'. </FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>...snip...</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">So we need a</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">way where we can distribute the load a bit - so that Dries has a sort of</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">'executive overview' - and can help guide in the early stages of patches</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>what you're outlining would be a good step, _if_ there are clear protocols for this setup, and those protocols are well-known to the community. we as developers should know what to expect from the process of trying to get something committed to core, otherwise things can get very discouraging.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>to take the deletion api as a case study, although i had not received direct input from dries, i was still getting input from steven and chx on my work -- two well-respected members of the community, one of whom is a core committer and 'right hand man' (not to mention quite a few usability reviews from other respected coders). i thought this was enough guidance, but i was mistaken. when steven committed the patch, again i assumed that the change was 'official', and put in another 30 hours of work on documentation, bugfixes, and conversion patches. but again i was mistaken.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>i may be wrong -- but i don't think my assumptions were way off-base, and yet the whole thing became a big ol' mess. i'm not saying that we need to have some highly restrictive structure in place -- but at least enough of one that a developer has confidence that they're taking the right steps to move in the right direction as they continue to work on their code. i don't think that's too much to ask. :)</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">Dries has expressed to me more than once a frustration that not enough</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">people are focused on core. I've heard from some of the people that I</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">suspect Dries would like to focus on core that there are issues that</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica">make it hard, difficult or unpleasant for them to do so.</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>and this is a very clear sign that we need to make adjustments -- people on both sides are frustrated!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>one more point about having 'final say', which is mostly theoretical. final say on commits is certainly another level of responsibility than just being able to commit. that level of responsibility has it's own challenges and lessons that are not available at lower levels. while it might introduce other issues, more people having final say would result in more experience for more top-level people. i won't argue if the benefits outweigh the costs -- just seems like something worth considering.</DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>