Re: Learning curves and such (was Re: pgFoundry)

On 5/18/05, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> The Postgres project has been exceedingly successful while using email
> lists as the primary means of communication/organization. I for one
> am disinclined to tinker with such a fundamental aspect of the way that
> the community operates. If we try to substitute a bug tracker for the
> mailing lists, I think we'll be making a very basic change in the
> community's communication structure, and not one for the better.
>

I agree that it's a major change, and the significance of changing the
communication structure should not be underestimated. But a) I
believe it would be a change for the better, and b) BZ uses a very
flexible and verbose email notification system, so the departure from
the existing email list structure would not be so drastic.

I read through the discussion link that Andrew provided (thanks
Andrew), and during that discussion you appeared to be in favour of
bugzilla, for the same sorts of reasons I am promoting it now. What
changed?

> >> Call me a normaliser, but even if the maintenance cost is higher, I
> >> think it's worth it to have a centralised, authoratitive, organised
> >> repository for dev task data.
>
> > I agree.
>
> Since the development community is neither centralised nor organized,
> why would you expect such a repository to have anything to do with
> what actually happens?
>

I think the decentralised nature of the community is one of the things
that is responsible for this "steep learning curve", and could stand
to be improved. And deploying a more centralised system for
development management would be a crucial first step in said
improvement.

In the interests of putting my money where my mouth is, I would be
willing to enlist in the housekeeping effort for this hypothetical new
system.