Re: I want in!

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 11/7/05, Elijah Newren <newren gmail com> wrote:
> On 11/7/05, Federico Mena Quintero <federico ximian com> wrote:
> > Dearest release team,
> >
> > Short story:  I'd love to be a member of the release team :)
> >
> > With the recent push for performance, stability, and all that, I think
> > we could have some automated processes in place to ensure that our
> > releases get only better.  I think I could provide some useful work for
> > this.
> >
> > So, what should I do to be part of The Cabal?
>
> Typically, the way the team has worked is that when one person leaves
> the team, they suggest a replacement.

I'd suggest that if Federico wants to come on board as an
automation/tools guy, he probably isn't really replacing anyone, and
he should be an addition rather than a replacement.  The key to
replacements, I think, is not to maintain the same number, but rather
to maintain the same responsbilities- for example, I would not want to
see murray leave without finding a new bindings guy (which it seems we
have). Having someone extra who brings new interest and new
responsibilities to the table doesn't mean we should throw someone
else overboard :)

>  Of course, it doesn't need to
> always be that way, and I see nothing saying that we couldn't expand
> the team.  So, there are a couple ways we could go about this plus
> some extra points we need to consider:
>
> - Luis and Frederic both expressed in team meetings last cycle that
> their time was shrinking and that they'd probably leave the team soon.
>  They may have just avoided taking the time to find a replacement, so
> you may want to ping them to see if they still feel the same way or
> have changed their minds.

I'm at this point completely a lurker. I have no real ability/time to
become anything other than a lurker- my sense is that release team is
in excellent hands, so my time is better spent working with other
teams that are more hurting for structure/leadership, like marketing.
If we want to say Federico is replacing someone, he can certainly
replace me, especially since what I've mostly done lately is QA
(replaced ably by elijah) and tinderboxing (which hopefully federico
can become a superset of.)

> - We need to work harder at involving the community if we're The
> Cabal.  We'd like to get the community a lot more involved.  In
> particular, I don't see how you'd need to be a member of the release
> team to do the performance work you suggest.  Don't get me wrong, I
> think you'd be a great member of the team and I'm not saying no to
> your request by any means (that's the opposite of what I want to do
> with a well qualified and energetic individual), I'm just saying that
> looking beyond your request it worries me that the sentiment you
> expressed likely means others don't feel empowered to help out and
> thus avoid doing it unless they're on The Cabal.  That's not good; how
> can we fix it?

Very good point.

Luis