Hi!
Ramon Leon wrote... ah what the heck - just read his post - I agree with 100% of what he wrote. Perfectly phrased. :)
Now... at the end Ramon writes:
The people actually doing the work should be the only people with any final say about what does or doesn't get done and what direction things should go. The only way to challenge the removal of old, bad, or dead code should be to volunteer to step up and maintain it.
This opens up an idea... I know that Steph got totally frustrated on squeak-dev when he eventually "gave up" and started Pharo. I even wrote to him privately the other day that the "trick" is to have a selective ear. But that is not easy.
The key problem is that it can be very hard to separate "doers" from "talkers" on squeak-dev. Lots of people post, lots of people have opinions - BUT... only a subset of the people with strong opinions actually contribute with code.
Ok, so sure, this may be elitist thinking and it may be a *really bad* idea - but since we are throwing ideas on the wall to see what sticks here goes:
Perhaps there should be a list for only people with "commit bit"? When decisions are to be made then that list is used so that developers can ask the others for opinions etc and only active committers have ability to post. The list should be public though.
Crazy? Perhaps. But an idea. Because my perception is that the subset of active committers very often tend to AGREE on the course of action.
regards, Göran