On 2013-03-11 11:30, Sune Vuorela wrote:
Focussing on not failing is helping ensuring to stay mediocre. And
not
doing awesome.
So, how can we make debian do awesome stuff?
I think we have many people around in Debian who think they have
awesome ideas and don't mind if they fail, but as a mature organisation
we can end up discouraging experimentation.
As DPL, I would certainly try to be open to new ideas, even if I didn't
personally think they sounded like they would work, and I would
encourage others to respond to new ideas in the same way, as part of the
attitude of openness I mentioned in my platform. Where we have people
wanting to experiment and try out new things, we should support it.
This doesn't mean I would stop teams from protecting themselves by
providing technical means for experimentation without breaking existing
things[1], though in many areas of Debian there's no need for that.
For experiments in our processes, it's a bit trickier, as others don't
have the choice just to ignore the experiment and wait to hear the
results. So we should be open, and avoid criticising people for
suggesting new ideas, but we need more general agreement that an
experimental process is worth trying before it goes ahead. But if we
are too conservative, we will certainly find that we lose volunteers to
other projects and are overtaken by them.[2]
Sure, often the naysayers will turn out to be right, but, even when
ideas fail, the people involved will normally generate better new ideas
from experimenting, much more than just from a discussion that tells
them why they are wrong in advance. And occasionally an idea will turn
out to be awesome.
--
Moray
[1] Roll-out of a PPA-equivalent service, as planned by the FTP team,
will help here.
[2] People tend to become more conservative about their work after a
long time in a role, so my suggestions on encouraging rotation between
teams and cross-fertilisation of ideas might help here.
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