Nathan,
As the process guy for Eclipse, that annoying person in Portland who
tries to make sure that the projects are open and public, this
statement bothers me:
Just because we did not choose to show these iterations to the community as
whole does not mean that they were not completed.
Eclipse projects *must* do design and implementation and conversations
in public. On the dev lists and not behind closed doors. When projects
have face-to-face meetings, they *must* publish minutes and explain
their actions to those who could not attend.
I'm guessing that you did not mean to imply that Phoenix has been doing
design in secret and only showing particular results in public, but
that sure what the email read like... It's hard being open - it's
takes more effort than you are used to in a closed development
organization. Being open is about revealing *all* your efforts to the
larger community, not just selected moments.
As Phoenix Committers we
must retain some control over the design and content that is to be layed
out.
True, but there is a big difference between the committers being the
final decision makers and the committers not working in public.
Committers on Eclipse projects must work in public, period. Committers
must also be decision makers. And, at times, that means that Committers
must have thick skins because revealing all invites criticsm and you
will never be able to satisfy everyone. But a fear of offending someone
in the community is not an excuse for not working in public.
- Bjorn
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