View on project leadership and failures....

simo idra at samba.org
Thu Aug 31 16:00:59 GMT 2006


On Thu, 2006-08-31 at 08:49 -0700, Jeremy Allison wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 10:26:15AM -0500, Gerald (Jerry) Carter wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> > 
> > Not my own this time.... :-)
> > 
> > This is a pretty good email from Charles Hannum (NetBSD).
> > You might have already caught it on /.
> > 
> >    http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2006/08/30/0016.html
> > 
> > We could probably point out several things of which we (Samba)
> > as a project have been guilty of.  I could probably pin several
> > to myself as a developer as well.
> > 
> > I'd suggest reading it and considering whether you think
> > any of it is valid and is something we should openly discuss.
> > I won't seed the discussion with my own thoughts just yet.
> > If not, it's a good read anyways.
> 
> Wow ! What a stunning email. We're certainly guilty of much
> of this. How can we learn from it ?

This paper has a very strong emotional impact but I think our situation
is not so similar to the NetBSD folks, at least we do not have a
Foundation that tries to keep the status quo, which is the biggest
problem Hannum evidences out in his mail.

I think what we miss is not much a strong Leadership but a way to
express a clear direction and a way to set clear priorities so that
everybody understand what they really are and where it is best to put
efforts.

I think we don't share enough between us and that sometimes causes
friction or just a waste of resources because we get somehow out of sync
(one hand does not know what the other is doing and why).

Collaboration need understanding, and I think that we do not attract
other developers also because we are not transparent, from the outside
you can't tell who is doing what and even if anybody is really doing
anything at all. Sure you can follow the development after it is done by
tracking the cvs list, but you don't know why it has been done, where we
are heading and if something is worth working on, or if we have a need
that nobody can actually fulfill in the team.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce
Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer
email: idra at samba.org
http://samba.org



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