From: Dave Chapman <dave_at_dchapman.com>
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2010 14:39:04 +0100

Jonathan Gordon wrote:
> On 9 October 2010 22:32, Dave Chapman <dave_at_dchapman.com> wrote:
>> But my personal view is that features should only be added to Rockbox when
>> there is a general concensus that it is a good idea. When 95% of devs don't
>> express an opinion on a new feature, then I would read that as saying "we
>> don't want it".
>
> I don't really want to start this discussion again, but it always
> keeps coming back anyway. This seems to be the cause of maybe 90% of
> all arguments on the list. We really need to have a proper discussion
> on how to get consensus/agreement from the (active) dev group.
> COMMITERS has 134 lines, #rockbox has 139 users currently (most
> idling), how are we supposed to ever commit anything without getting a
> nod from every single person (even active ones, but then how do you
> define when someone is active?)
>
> The only logical way forward is continue to work how we do, unless
> "enough" people are against a change there is a reasonable assumption
> that the people not commenting don't care either way.
>
> There are two more options we could take (both IMO would kill the project).
> 1) go the Linux route and have one/very few benevolent dictators
> pulling changes as they want (means lots of forks and presumably a
> boring upstream branch)

"boring" suits me fine.

But no, I don't think there's anyone around Rockbox who would be willing
to do that.

> 2) call a vote for every single feature, which is just ridiculous
> considering the outcome of the RSB vote (30 commiters voted only..)
> Doing this would almost certainly turn alot of people away because
> sometimes a new feature can go from an idea to a commit in an evening
> (r28206 for example) If that needed a vote then it almost certainly
> would have been forgotten about by the time the "discussion" was
> finished.

If a feature is forgotten about after a few days, then it's probably a
good thing it wasn't committed.

Personally, I think needing to pass some kind of "interest level
threshold" before a feature is committed would be a good thing, and I
would be fine with some kind of voting system. I would say that far
from killing the project, it will help it.

Maybe this should be a job for the RSB - to finally try and end these
arguments.

Dave.
Received on 2010-10-09