On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 14:05 +0100, Keith Hodges wrote:
> May I suggest a mailing list specifically for universe content 
> discussion to support the opening of the "editorial policy" so as to 
> adopt a "social model", rather than an "anarchic model". The server 
> could post to the mailinglist when it receives updates and users could 
> post with feedback.
> 
> The posts could be flagged with the universe to which it applies in 
> order to support appropriate filtering.
> 
> I have discovered that Universes do not appear to support Monticello 
> dependencies. This means that packages such as 'Magma Server' and 
> variants are not likely to work out of the box.
> 
> TimeZoneDatabase is not (as yet) compatible with 3.9 nor 3.10 since It 
> overrides DateAndTime fromSeconds: to return a DateAndTime instance. 
> Users of the subclass TimeStamp fromSeconds: are expecting a TimeStamp 
> instance.
> 
> 
+1

This is a solution which is easy to setup. Even if my proposal
(integrating feedback in the editor/browser) could be done it needs
a lot of work. A list would make it possible to develop any model
which will be sufficient. 

And I wouldn't oppose "social" and "anarchy" that much. That is a
tension I often read between the lines (not yours!). The "social"
and "anarchy" are also only shades of grey. Having rules and 
permissions doesn't create a "social" thing and less restrictions
do not create anarchy per default :)

What we need is to develop a policy "how" a universe is updated. I
wouldn't dare to update a package in the universe which is maintained
by another person. But if I would know that "it is working" means that
the maintainer tested A,B and C than I can do that on my own. This 
plus the knowledge that my action is undoable would probably lead me
to updating the universe on my own. And this lessens the work of the
maintainer. And I think this i wanted, too. If this would work you
would get an "anarchy without harm" :)

Another 2 cents (still got 4 left :) )

Norbert