On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Alex Huang <alex.hu...@citrix.com> wrote: > Not sure if DISCUSS is the right tag to use but here goes. > > I want to share with everyone a story of how lack of communication turned > into misunderstanding on the javelin branch. > > A few months ago, some of us wanted to look into refactoring cloudstack. > There were some proposals sent out and javelin branch was created but general > sentiments back then was the community was pretty focused on 4.0. So > majority of the people working on that branch moved into getting 4.0 released > instead. Occasionally, we broke out some directory structures and merged > code from 4.0 and mainline to bring in the latest code and maven changes but > we didn't really have much time to do any work in there. When 4.0 went into > voting, we started back on javelin. A couple of weeks back, Chip sent out an > email asking about post-4.0 work but at the time we were still picking up > where we left off and prototyping a few things and didn't answer as to what's > happening on javelin. This got community members wondering, and rightfully > so, why javelin work is not being communicated. There was a thread started > in the PPMC and it finally got resolved when the above timeline was provided > to show that javelin actually hasn't been as active as once thought. > > I want to relay this story to let the community know what happened on javelin > and also to serve as a reminder on the following points. > > - It's easy to forget to respond to an email. So don't be afraid to send a > couple more emails or include people directly in the to list to nudge them to > respond. > - It's easy to misunderstand when there's a lack of communication. So > communicate often. Thinking back, I can think of so many times where we > could have just updated the community with a simple email. Particularly when > Chip asked about post-4.0 work, someone could have just email and said wait > we're not ready. There's quite a few people on javelin and yet no one did so. > - It's difficult to get a design completely right before presenting. Don't > be afraid to just put it on the wiki and let the community see it take shape. > > Cheers, > > --Alex > > >
Really well said Alex! One point that I'd like to reiterate (and perhaps expand on a little bit) is the last statement about the difficulty getting a design "right" before presenting. My take is that we shouldn't worry at all about getting something *right* before sharing. The power of a community like this is the ability to share ideas and concepts early and often. Don't be afraid to email the list with something as simple as "I'm currently thinking about X. Does anybody else think that might be interesting?". This may end up spurring conversation that helps you evolve the idea and the design from the beginning! Oh - and don't forget that we can all make the assumption that we operate under a lazy consensus rule. If you communicate intention, and then get no response, that doesn't mean that it isn't a welcome addition to the project. As long as everyone is kept up to date on your work, sharing can simply be a way to keep the community informed and aware. -chip
