Andreas,

you picked Monticello and VMMaker as an example, but not everyone is 
like Avi, Bert, Michael or Tim. Just make a thought experiment, you 
propose this, then Göran comes up to make the next attempt (how many did 
he already make?) to hand out responsibility to some newly appointed 
package-maintainer and now imagine, who will be the first (and roughly 
only one) wanting to take this responsibility? Right, the guy with the 
swollen eyes.

Secondly, this community is centralized just because this guy likes to 
trumpet on the list so that everyone gets confused about what is right 
and good and what is not. The main reason for this trumpet solo is to 
pretend importance, to be better able to "push" things. Unfortunately 
this guy is not able to judge what to push, he even doesn't realize how 
his damned "pushing" paralyzes everything. On the other hand we have 
here a weak community. Many feel the same, but literally no one stands 
up and puts a damper on the trumpeter. Most prefer to not even let out a 
tiny mouse whisper. And that wants to be the Squeak community!

With only proposing decentralized package maintenance we will not solve 
this problem. I think the opposite is necessary *now* and that is some 
sort of central guiding and decision making. It just has to be done by 
the right one, someone who has proved his outstanding abilities and 
dedication over and over. But that someone shies away from this role.

Well, that someone is *you*.

Regards,
Martin


Andreas Raab wrote:
> Hi Ken -
> 
> Sounds almost like what I was saying but you still insist on 
> bottle-necking it through a "harvester". Why is that? Do you feel you 
> need a harvester for anything Avi or any of the guys working on 
> Monticello do? On VMMaker? If not, why do you feel you need a harvester 
> for, say, the FFI, the Graphics subsystem, Morphic, Sound, or 
> Networking? Who, if not the people working on this part of the system, 
> could possibly decide what an appropriate resolution of the issue would 
> be? When you have responsible maintainers there is simply no role for a 
> harvester per se - there might be some supporting roles (like 
> classifying bugs or integration testing) but all of these issues should 
> be handled by the people developing the package, not some guy who is in 
> control of everything[*]. For some reason even you guys who talk about 
> decentralized development and stewarding then like to fall back on total 
> centralized control.
> 
> [*] Making releases then means that you have someone who is charge of 
> integration testing and writes bug reports for the packages in the 
> release which get addressed by the people developing that package.
> 
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas