[yt-dev] let's talk about Governance

[Cameron Hummels]

Hi Britton,

I think your suggestion is great.  Like Nathan, I agree that a ytep should
potentially be a good place to codify the procedures associated with pull
requests, releases, making contributions, etc.  Having them written down is
key, so there aren't any misunderstandings about what one developer thinks
is the standard versus another developer.

As far as a governing body, I guess I don't know what you suggest.  You
mean like 3-5 people who "direct" the overall direction of the code and
features to tackle in the not-so-distant future and deal with some of the
other issues you raise like conflict resolution, stability, and credit?  I
could potentially be in favor of this depending on the details.

I do think that it would be great to have a mechanism in place to recognize
major contributors to the yt effort, although I'm not sure what that is.
 Previously we had some sort of informal list of core developers, but
that's basically just self-selected and doesn't really make it outside of
this email list (if it even makes it here).  The time and effort that many
of us put into yt is substantial and there isn't much official recognition
of this, so I'm definitely in favor of creating something to ameliorate
this problem, but I don't really know what.

So in summary, I'm in favor of moving this discussion forward, but I don't
have any mind-bending suggestions at this point.

Cameron




On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 2:11 PM, Britton Smith <brittonsmith at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Greeting yt developers,
>
> First, I want to congratulate everyone here on the successful release
> of yt-3.0.  This was a massive effort on the part of so many and a
> true testament to the strength of this team.
>
> At the time of writing this, there are 78 members of the yt-dev
> mailing list.  As someone who does most of their work in very small
> collaborations, this amazes me and make me very proud.  In case you're
> wondering, the yt-users list has 268 members.
>
> As a project, yt has a significant amount of infrastructure: code
> review with pull requests, issue tracking, automated testing, emails
> lists, an IRC channel, enhancement proposals, workshops.  All of this
> is evidence of our legitimacy as a Real Thing.  However, one big
> missing piece is a system of governance.  I don't know exactly what
> this means, but I have some ideas, which I will share below.  What I
> want to do right now is to start a discussion that will, hopefully,
> include as many people as possible on this list.
>
> For me, governance means (roughly) the following:
>
> - a set of procedures in writing for how various things are to be
>   done, such as acceptance of pull requests, releases, designating
>   developers as core contributors, etc.
>
> - a governing body to make decisions and help guide the project.
>
> This accomplishes a number of things, which as a project I think we
> need, such as:
>
> - overall stability of the project.
>
> - providing a system for conflict resolution.
>
> - maintaining the spirit of yt as a team effort.
>
> - providing a way for active contributors to get credit for their
>   contribution in the form of official recognition.
>
>
> So, these are my initial thoughts, but I really think this deserves a
> thorough discussion with as many people participating as possible.
> Please, think about what governance means to you, whether we need it,
> what it should be, and what we might get out of it, and share your
> thoughts over the next few days.  I look forward to this discussion.
>
> Britton
>
>
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>
>


-- 
Cameron Hummels
Postdoctoral Researcher
Steward Observatory
University of Arizona
http://chummels.org
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