Re: Presenting groups

Dave,

>> I don't think -core, committers or even sysadmins organised everything.
> Exactly my point. *Most* things are organised by the community as a whole.

Ok.

>> They surely do great job at coding matters, but without local groups,
>> there wouldn't be so many pgDays, PG Conferences and others events.
>
> I'm not saying we won't have groups working on things, what I'm saying
> is that an Open Source project such as our does not lend itself to
> organised and well specified groups as you seem to be suggesting. Take
> the goodies group for example. There are, say, 6 people, one of whom
> is a leader. Does that mean someone not in the group isn't able to
> help out? How would a new volunteer join in? PostgreSQL thrives on
> keeping everything open, and intentionally tries to avoid running the
> project by committee wherever possible.

Oh, okay...

So I misunderstood some big parts of your e-mail then. I really prefer that.

If someone that is "not in the group" wants to help, he's directly in
the group then. Thats my idea. I don't want to dive directly into
technical things, but I'm suggesting just different mailing-lists at
postgresql.eu or wiki parts or.. whatever in fact.

Everyone is indeed free to participate, I just suggested small groups as
an opposition to this mailing-list, pgsql-eu-general.

I also think there won't be more that 2-6 persons working on each group
at a same time, since I'm part of a national PUG for some years, I know
how those things works.

>> This community has to understand, IMHO, that we all need each other. PG
>> Eu is just an effort to help local groups and synchronize efforts as we
>> don't reinvent the wheel each time in each country.
>
> I think we're all aware of that - some of us have been working on the
> project for 10 years or more.

Ok. Let's cut this paragraph then.

>> So if you're suggesting that we all should work on everything at the
>> same time, I think pgsql-eu-general may be a big mess in a few.
>
> No, I'm suggesting that we organise into groups that work on specific
> tasks but are open for anyone to participate.

I completely agree with you then.

>> I think cutting in small groups, with skilled persons for the domain is
>> way better than having everyone trolling on everything on every single
>> idea.
>
> Maybe, in a company. But this is an open source project where openness
> is everything.

Agreed. Those groups will work tranparently, with public mailing-lists
or wikis.

Maybe the Sponsorship and Institutions, or Accounting may keep things a
bit more private, between the board of directors or some other trusted
people? I don't know why exactly yet but I see some points already.

>>> Sometimes these some bike-shedding admittedly, but I think the freedom
>>> in the way we work more than makes up for that.
>> Don't make me say things I did not say. Everyone is free to help. I just
>> said we may need some "Internal Rules", as every group of human beings have.
>
> Please don't accuse me of putting words in your mouth.

I apologize for this. I thought you were doing so. I'm sorry.

> I was stating
> that there is sometime bike shedding in the PostgreSQL community which
> *I* believe, although sometimes frustrating, is better than working in
> closed groups

Groups will be open, clearly. But I'm affraid there won't be many people
helping. Well, we'll see. I hope Im all wrong.

So far, how many people participated in this thread? :-/

>> The only rules I spoke about is about creating dedicated groups in some
>> fields and how a group is organized. Im affraid that if we don't decide
>> to have a "leader" in each group, we won't do things as fast as we could.
>
> I agree with having people act as leaders in each area. They need to
> be decision makers, and be able to lead discussions which go off
> track.

Ok. So, as an artificial conclusion, I think we agree on yet everything. :-)

Thanks a lot,

--
Jean-Paul Argudo
www.PostgreSQLFr.org
www.Dalibo.com