What it does is that it gives people a process to work with. You will 
get a yes/no answer within a bounded time frame. The commitments that 
come with an approval are clear. You know what the expectations are. Etc.

Remember my main goal here is to re-enable the ability for people to 
contribute both small and large. If you think the current situation is 
fine as it is, this proposal may not be for you. It is for people who 
don't think the current situation is desirable.

There are almost certainly other ways by which to achieve the goal. I 
have simply formulated one that I think could work. If you have 
alternative ideas, I'm all for hearing them. My main goals for the 
process were to:
* have a decision point, a yes/no answer,
* have a schedule that can be tracked externally,
* have clarity about who has commit rights to what,
* have a way of getting out of it when things turn bad.

As long as these points are addressed I'm pretty much good with whatever.

Cheers,
   - Andreas

Ken Causey wrote:
> OK, actually the more I wrote the more I began to sense that might be
> the case.  But that still brings me back to the question:  Why would the
> project proposers want to do this?
> 
> I think this is an easy sell to the consumers, the Squeakers who are the
> potential users and beneficiaries of a project.  More information
> earlier is always a good thing.  But how is this sold to the producers,
> the ones doing the work?  What is the upside for them?
> 
> Ken
> 
> On Sat, 2009-02-21 at 13:34 -0800, Andreas Raab wrote:
>> Hi Ken -
>>
>> Sorry for being unclear. I absolutely agree with your point about people 
>> doing their projects until they feel it's ready. As a matter of fact I 
>> think that pretty much all BPPs should be about stuff that's ready to go 
>> (see my example which already pointed to the code). I do not want empty 
>> upfront commitments; I want to be able to have the board make decisions 
>> about concrete work that is there and available to look at.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>    - Andreas
>>
>