[LEDE-DEV] OpenWRT tree vs LEDE tree

[Oswald Buddenhagen]

On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 10:58:19AM +0200, Jo-Philipp Wich wrote:
> Oswald wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> we already learned that the way we started the project was far less than
> ideal and apparently left people in the dust and I think others involved
> agree that it could've handled in better, less hastily way.
> 
good.

> My personal hope (maybe I'm too naive) was that we invite further
> people and ask them to shape the project to their liking.
>
that's a reasonable hope only if you manage to present a consistent and
credible story.

> So far the criticism seems to circle around the fact that we somehow
> have no credibility to claim openness because we secretly prepared the
> project.
> 
*of course* you have a credibility problem because of that. people tend
to be a tad peeved by hypocricy (cf. U.S. (and allies) foreign policy re
democracy, terrorism, and whatnot).

> I follow that logic and agree with that, it is a screw up,

> probably due to the fact that nobody knew how to handle things in a
> better way.
> 
that's where things start to look a bit weird. you're a dozen grown-up
people, some with families, some with a decade of experience in the
project. yet, nobody knew better? everybody failed at some basic
perspective taking? it seems that you just didn't try very hard. that's
consistent with the observation that you apparently managed to
rationalize yourself into believing that what you did is somehow not a
hostile fork.

> For rebooting the reboot though the project will need input from the
> wider audience. We cannot "reboot a reboot" if any feedback we get is
> accusations of being opaque or being a joke.
> 
i think you're getting a lot more input that that. and for the record,
i called neither you nor your project a joke, if that's what you meant.

> What we need is agenda items getting proposed, people stepping forward
> offering to volunteer not only in technical but also in policy matters.
> 
you obviously have that already. though you unnecessarily limited the
circle of possible supporters.

> > 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.
> 
> So you mean we should exercise our power and force a rebuild of the
> OpenWrt project to match our current vision of a project?
> 
yes. if you think that openwrt has arrived at a dead end, but want it to
move on, that's the reasonable thing to do, isn't it?

> What should we actually demand?
>
that's something you need to know.

> What do we do if those demands are not accepted or being acted on?
>
then you can still continue with the fork.

> On whose behalf should we make those demands?
> 
yourself, as a significant fraction of the currently active
contributors. those who do the work decide, and that also needs to
extend to the "meta" issues.

> If that is what the community wants then I'd like to see a broad
> consensus first
>
of course you need consensus. that's why you need to state the problems
and propose solutions ... publicly.

> and then someone not being part of the old "core developer" team
> should take the lead in negotiating with the OpenWrt project.
>
for the record, you just implied that you're not part of the openwrt
project any more. that might very well reflect reality (and it certainly
does from the perspective of some people), but it's inconsistent with
the messaging i've seen so far.

> Imho Johns, Felix and my relation to OpenWrt is tainted by
> now and I guess nobody would believe us acting objectively and
> neutral.
> 
that argumentation makes no sense. there is no-one else but you who'd
care (enough). and of course you're not neutral, by definition. that's
not something that can be reasonably held against you. as for
objectivity, you "only" need to avoid coming off as protecting your egos
or your investments into the fork as such.

> > however controversial such an approach might be, it cannot possibly
> > do more damage to the community than this hostile fork does.
> 
> I am not sure about that. Having public power fights without clear
> mandates or any kind of consensus can also just destroy the entire
> project, all involved peoples credibility and leave the community with
> a defunct project in the end as well.
> 
you're trying to both have the cake and eat it.
you can't claim openness, yet declare some very pertinent matters
off-limits for open discussion.
in the worst case, you'll prove to the wider community that you were
right to fork. hint: work hard to not make that your objective.

> > 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.
> 
> It has been proposed to consider using http://liquidfeedback.org/ to
> implement the voting part.
>
this appears to be a reasonable option.

> As for getting rid of meetings and discussing any decision processes
> on the list, we can try that - its just not as realtime as we're used
> to.
> 
i know that some people prefer to avoid protracted threads, and just
want to get over with things. but this is inherently exclusionary. so
yeah, give the list(s) a try.

if you want to keep a separate list for administrative matters (like
this thread) that's fine, but it's a very bad idea to make it read-only
for non-committers. open by default. you can still give a nudge to or
even moderate people who turn out "unhelpful".