Re: IDL namespacing ...

[Michael Meeks <michael helixcode com>]

Hi Maciej,

On 18 Nov 2000, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> >     What did I do wrong ? / why do we need 3 people to do such an
> > uncontroversial job / why do you not trust me to continue to do it ?
>
> I think you have been doing a good job bringing this issue to people's
> attention and managing the list

        I'm glad you think so. Sorry to put you on the spot as to why you
didn't trust me to do the job, unresonable really; fair enough not to
answer it.

> (other than asking people to change IDL for released stable modules).

        I see namespace violations as a relatively serious bug in Gnome
1.4; furthermore I havn't heard from your co-release-coordinator on this
issue. I more than slightly suprised though, that you dismissed the
possibility of fixing this bug without suggesting any further
investigation of the possible impact.

> I would likely recommend you to be one or all of the people in charge
> of administering the namespace to start with.
> Please continue doing so in the meantime.                               

        I defer to your authority (1 Peter 2:18)

> I am sure the namespace issue will grow to encompass more than just
> IDL at some point, and may at some point overlap with other standards
> the Foundation will work on in the future, so I'd rather have the
> right process for these kinds of things in place straight off.

        Interesting; I was under the impression ( from only a cursory read
of the Foundation board ) that the pertainant goal here was:

( from: http://foundation.gnome.org/charter.html )
        
Standards Definition
--------------------
        
As GNOME matures, it will become necessary to have an official set of   
standards which define GNOME compliance, for ISVs and for distributors.
The foundation will be responsible for ratifying these standards, and
authorizing the application of the GNOME trademark to them.

        Whilst it seems entirely reasonable that the foundation
should 'ratifying' standards produced by the Gnome community; it seems
difficult to me to otherwise circumscribe the powers of the foundation, in
such a way as to avoid micro management of the traditional process of
developing these standards.

        Let me stress again, that I don't care about who does this (
totaly unimportant, uncontroversial, advisory ) job. What I do care about
is that you seem to suggest that the board should overstep its mandate,
and interfere with a micro issue of such utter triviality, and most
importantly I feel hurt that the board has no confidance in me doing this
job properly and impartialy.

> I think this is a task somewhat similar to managing the GNOME
> Foundation membership rolls, and the Membership Committee has done a
> fine job there, without imposing unnecessary beurocracy.

        With the Membership Committee, I personaly had no doubts about the
probity of any of Dan, Bart, Martin, Russell, or yourself to manage the 
process alone, with the utmost honesty and integrity. I understood the
need for several people was perhaps to split the work of verifying 350
voters, and to ensure an ( unneccesarily ) high standard of openness and 
public scrutiny in the process.

        It seems ludicrous to me that the process of advising module
creators to choose sensible names should merit a decision making comittee.

        Anyway, until the board can decide how best to proceed, I will 
continue to attempt to perform this laughably simple task to the best of
my abilities :-)

        Regards,

                Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks gnu org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot