[LEDE-DEV] OpenWRT tree vs LEDE tree

[Daniel Curran-Dickinson]

On 16-05-19 06:09 PM, Oswald Buddenhagen wrote:
> On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 04:40:34PM +0200, Jo-Philipp Wich wrote:
>> Bjørn wrote:
>>> Yes, this is extremely unfair.  Just like the I'm sure some
>>> developers saw the original LEDE announcement.  Good intentions are
>>> not enough. It's the result that matters.
>>
>> I certainly agree but we should avoid applying double standards here,
>>
> well, that's kinda the key here, isn't it? i don't know whether the lede
> infrastructure and participation was technically open from the start,
> but the fact that nobody except "the cabal" knew about it makes the
> whole "open" thing a bit of a cynical joke.

Given what happened with emails and the fact that they have published
the emails leading up to the announcements (the mailbox is posted in a
message to lede-adm), I don't blame them for keeping it secret until it
was 'fait accompli'.  Certainly I think I think there would have been
repercussions that resulted in being shut out of accomplishing anything
if they had been public before they could be stopped.

> 
> the one thing that will make a big difference is plainly and openly
> admitting the screwup ... and rebooting your "reboot".
> that doesn't mean starting from scratch, but instead openly and forcibly
> pushing your alternatives within openwrt - as imre pointed out, you have
> quite some real power. however controversial such an approach might be,
> it cannot possibly do more damage to the community than this hostile
> fork does.

The problem here is that the LEDE team clearly doesn't *believe* that
will actuall work.  If they believed and open and transparent process
could be brought to openwrt they wouldn't have split.  Certainly for all
Imre's 'it could have been done in openwrt', I don't see him as being a
particularly willing participant in such an internal reboot.  Imre's and
Luka' protestetations to me seem to be more about keeping control,
rather than about fixing what's broken with openwrt.

Does that mean I think LEDE is perferct?  Definitely not, but I've
already seen huge improvements compared to what was happening in
openwrt, and a great deal more openness than was the case in openwrt.

Do I think there are potentially problems, like my, and others,
impressions, that there is a fair amount of back channel (private) email
that *isn't* part of the public discussion that I thing is contrary to
the stated goal of transparency, if if the only reason is they think
it's just trivial or trying to hash things out?  Then yes, I think there
is *too much* back channel mail, and that if they're *serious* about
transparency they will fix that, even if it's hard to adopt that working
style.

You know I personally am not afraid to go on the record with my thoughts
and opinions, and I think that kind of approach is what it takes to do
transparency right, if it can be uncomfortable and keeps a history of
thing one might wish were not on the record.

> 
> regarding the open decision-making process: *the* channel for any kind
> of serious discussion should be the open mailing list.
> - as others pointed out, irc plain does not work for such stuff. the
>   whole concept of meetings (or generally real-time communication about
>   non-trivial matters) doesn't work for many people, so just scratch it.
> - alone the fact that "important stuff" happens "out of band" and needs
>   to be actively collected by those "passively interested" is a problem.
>   probably the problem that triggered bjoern's mail in the first place.

Exactly.  It seems like there is still a lot of back channel talk that
is not public.

> 
> anyway, that's my perspective as an outsider (who has 15 years of
> experience in some *big* openly governed communities) ...
> 

Open goverance is *hard* and uncomfortable, and involves being public
even when would rather not be, wouldn't you say?

Regards,

Daniel