Re: [libreoffice-website] Re: The road ahead and missed opportunities

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 6:32 AM, charles.h.schulz
<charles.h.schulz@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've read several comments about the SC shunning away from its responsibilities.
> I think it would be fair to remember that the SC is a group of people (who are not perfect) who 
> had the guts to break away from Oracle. They had the guts to leave a project they had been 
> contributing to for years (sometimes more than ten) and to face difficulties, uncertainty, doubt, 
> the hatred feelings of people they had been working with (some Oracle employees). The SC members 
> got a vision and are working hard to achieve it.

IMO the problem has not been the SC shunning away from
responsibilities, on the contrary. The Website team has self
organised. The problem is the SC getting involved and over-ruling
consensus and negotiated decisions made in individual lists without
going back and reading the history. This is exaserbated with many of
the discussions that SHOULD be on the website list being on the
Discuss or SC-Discuss list. We need a united team for each
mini-project, not the SC going one way and the community going
another. Have the discussion ONCE in the right place: The Webste
mailing list!

> To say that we shun away from our responsibilities is I think unfair. But we certainly made 
> mistakes. One of them is that we felt a website team could organize itself and that the mailing 
> lists in general could run smoothly. It was often the case that it worked (and it's working) but 
> when it comes to the website, it's obviously not true. We should have understood that something 
> was wrong when the Drupal fans continued to discuss, unabashed and unfazed by the results of the 
> CMS platform contest that had *clearly* nominated Silverstripe and tagged Drupal as *an option in 
> the future*. We should have shouted and taken clear actions when we saw this website was being 
> sunken into unproductive messages about a solution we hadn't picked but that some people felt 
> they were still entitled to pursue.

Florian's message on the CMS result was clear "Silverstripe as a
started with plans to migrate to Drupal". Florian as the website SC
rep was actively involved in many discussions about this development.
Once the people working on the Drupal site realised that the
Silverstripe site was under resourced despite the statement that
Christian made to the SC, we acted:

I started a mailing list thread to regroup and start to coordinate the
Silverstripe development after David had finished the initial design:
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Regroup-and-further-development-of-the-website-s-td2191011.html

The response to this from David and other SC members was insulting and
belittling for the existing website team as it insinuated that we were
not competent in managing our own part of the project:
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Regroup-and-further-development-of-the-website-s-tp2191011p2191098.html

The most recent decision by the SC, appointing leaders, without even a
mention about it to the website mailing list reinforces this disregard
for the great members who already exist in this team.
In choosing the four 'Leaders' there was not a vote or even mention of
this within the website mailing list, hence there has been NO
community consultation, collaboration or self governance. As far as I
can see, the SC is not being used as it should be, a conflict
resolution tool, but rather as a manager dictating to their employees
who is in charge and what work they must do, even without themselves
being elected.


> I am going therefore to apologize to several people and for several things (see below). One thing 
> I'm not going to apologize for, however, is to have a written and recorded decision that the SC 
> chose one solution that some people haven't read about or listened to. Our message was clear ever 
> since the beginning: Silverstripe, and perhaps, later, Drupal. We cannot be blamed for the 
> mistakes of other people.

No. It wasn't, Quite the opposite.
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.website/592
But, again, those working on the Drupal development were about to
start work on Silverstripe, but we were shunned by David and now the
SC.

> To all; I would like us to come back into a productive mood. We're here to contribute to our 
> present website, not to something else someone feels should be better. There's plenty of ideas 
> out there, plenty of people who would rather have us do something completely different: but at 
> the end of the day, we work on one project, LibreOffice and comments, "do this" & "you should do 
> that" are not really welcome here.

I agree. I think the best way to get back to a productive mood is for
the SC to take a step back and stop making decisions that are contrary
to the self-organised website team. We have proven we can do it with
the Drupal development, it was very well organised, now we know that
there was NOBODY apart from Christian that was ready to work on
Silverstripe, with the exception of David at the last minute, we were
in the progress of restructuring the self organised team and the SC
comes and overrules yet another decision without being involved or
even reading the mailing list.

> Expect a more hands-on approach of this mailing list. We're grateful for contributions, but we're 
> not here to stand the desires of people who cannot understand that Free Software does not equal 
> chaos and always following their decisions. The Steering Committee (and soon the Board of 
> Directors) is here to take decisions as well as other entities (see our bylaws). We're not 
> dictatorial, because we owe you transparency and that our bylaws clearly show no one can have 
> absolute or even too much powers. But what we want to set is an atmosphere in mailing lists that 
> are focused on contributions and not on fruitless discussions.

I don't really want a more "hands-on" approach. I would much prefer an
open "Hands off" approach where decisions made inside mailing lists
are respected and implemented.
We moved to LibreOffice expecting 'community governance', not another
team of non-elected members who it seems occasionally actively block
ideas and developments they do not agree with.

> In the end, all of our actions, individually, collectively, can only be measured on one criteria: 
> contribution. This is the way we move forward, this is why we are "Libre".

Personally, I don't feel very "Libre" at the moment.

I believe that the ONLY way forward is to withdraw the latest decision
to appoint leaders and again allow us to self organise as we did
before, despite what David or other members of the SC would prefer.
The SC can't make every decision and must trust and believe in their
teams if this community is even going to get off the ground. Releasing
the software is only the first step to success, community is the key.

This is NOT a disagreement about CMSs! it is about building community.

Michael Wheatland.

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