Re: RFP policy

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Stephen Browne wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I just wanted to add that I agree that some kind of process like this
> could be valuable, however since there has been next to no response to
> Havoc's proposal since he sent it out, I'm thinking Hackers really don't
> want this.
>
> There weren't even any comments from other board members (AFAIK) who
> were supposed to be all for adopting some kind of RFP.
>
> Is this all just going to /dev/null or is anyone going to comment on the
> proposal?
>
> Knowing the internal ARC procedure from SUN, it can be quite time consuming
> and it feels like a chore that takes you away from stuff you really want to
> be doing and this may be why people are hesitant to pick up on this.
>
> I also understand and appreciate the benifits it brings and even though I
> hate filling in forms and taking time to classify and write up APIs it saves
> time for everyone in the long run.
>
> I kinda like Havoc's proposal because its simpler than SUN's and should take
> less time to go through :)
>
> Its not going to work if people arent behind it though so can we start saying
> 'yay' or 'nay' to this sometime soon?

I am in favour of this sort of process, as long as it is used wisely.

Blindly using it for every change will just make people think of them as a
hinderance rather than a helpful process.  I am not sure what guidelines
should be used to decide when the process is appropriate though.

Python uses a similar process (except they call them Python Enhancement
Proposals, or PEPs) and it seems to have been good way to handle
evolution of the language.  One of the benefits is that everyone can see
what the proposed change will do.  The PEP draft evolves through mailing
list discussion until it finally gets checked into CVS (or gets rejected).

When it comes time to make a new release, the PEPs can serve as
documentation of the major changes in the release.

For gnome, the RFPs could be used as a basis for whitepapers we might want
to put on the website for a release.

James.