[LEDE-DEV] Actual community change and additional developers compared to OpenWrt

[Jo-Philipp Wich]

Hi Daniel,

> Several months after the split it looks like things have pretty much 
> ended up where they were before the split.  It's starting to look 
> like the talk of encouraging new blood, and being more open and 
> transparent was more talk than real intention.

I am sorry to hear that this is your perception, yet it does not match
mine. In my view, the project is transparent about the things being
done, discussions are encouraged and new people getting on board.

Not sure what you miss exactly or what your perceived problems are. Is
it because your PRs are not quickly merged? Many of your PRs had actual
errors in them, later you swamped Github with dozens of untested PRs to
facilitate discussions, then you went mia, now you're back here accusing
the participating people of baseless talking.

What exactly is it what you miss, what would you make better and how
would you implement your visions?

> As much as I've gotten busy with personal issues that landed me in 
> the hospital (sadly not before I did damage; although I stand by the
>  statement that there was far too much hostility in the openwrt 
> private discussions), I'm not sure why a split was necessary to get 
> to where things are now.  LEDE is still pretty much a closed group 
> with basically the same group of core developers as ever.

Not sure what makes you think that this is a closed group, so far anyone
with a good contribution record got access when he asked for it, both in
LEDE and even back in OpenWrt.

Note that being open and encouraging new blood does not mean mindlessly
clicking the big green merge button on any proposed Github PR since some
quality standards still must be met when merging changes.

> I would do more if I could, but I've got problems of my own to deal 
> with; I joined Facebook to reconnect with old friends because part
> of the reason I was so vocal was that I had gotten isolated as well
> as unwell, but the bounce back has been slow, and I'm not where I
> need to be to work towards a better solution myself.  Part of the
> problem, I think, is the lack of clear and consistent (and visible)
> governance and communication makes the project unappealing for
> companies to be interested in paying developers to work on either.

What kind of clear and transparent governance discussion do you miss?
Ad-hoc decisions are made in IRC or on the lists. Previous attempts to
facilitate wider governance discussions just fizzled out with little to
no interest in actually tackling the problem.

Do you want the project to make a five year plan on what to do when in
which time frame? Do you want us to blog about the things we do? Please
name concrete examples what could be done better and then lets discuss
about it.

> It's not enough to have code and commits, there needs to be a 
> communications strategy as well, or the projects will die.

If you feel the need for a broad communication strategy then maybe give
it a try yourself and invest time into it; summarize current
discussions, raise issues on the list, interview others and blog about
IRC chatter, relay information back and forth etc.

~ Jo