On 2013-03-30 11:00, dd wrote:
> On 03/30/2013 09:56 AM, Larsed wrote:
>> Why not slow down the release frequency a bit to the benefit of more
>> mature, less buggy releases?
>
> i would vote for that…but, the only folks who can vote must apply to
> be a member of the community, provide details of why they should be
> accepted, and then finally be approved in some totally closed and
> secret process (conducted, i hear, in slow motion) by the “openSUSE
> Membership officials team”…
I would also vote for that… But as I happen to be a “member”, I can
tell you that we have no influence at all. We don’t vote on such things.
(I have in fact proposed such a slowdown more than once)
The last vote we were called to do was elect the board, last
November/December. And the previous vote was the same thing in 2011. We
don’t vote on anything, even less anything of importance.
The only thing we voted upon once, that I can remember, was the second
round that decided how the openSUSE releases were to be numbered. You
know: 12.1, 12.2, etc.
Right now, the board has proposed a new category of bugzillas with
automatically assigned major level: accessibility bugs (a11y). For
example, if the login screen doesn’t “speak”, a sight impaired person
can simply not even login. For him, that bug is a stop gag.
But the board has no power on that!
The board has simply asked, in public, that the developers, and
specifically SUSE, discuss and maybe implement that feature in bugzilla
and its processing.
It is actually SUSE who has the power of decision on the release cycle,
because it is they who pay and maintain the infrastructure, and pay the
majority of the developers that work full time or a major part of their
time, on openSUSE things.
Another type of example: systemd. Who decides that this goes into
openSUSE? I don’t know. Developers… as an abstract body. Even some
SUSE employees strongly object to it. Apparently no one wants to work or
subsidize work on the classic systemv that works fine, that is
understandable by everybody (sysadmins worldwide), etc, etc. We are
openSUSE are the guinea pigs suffering, er… using it. When it is
finally made then perhaps it will go into SLES. I guess.
The community has no power of decision at all on whether we want systemd
or systemv. We have not been asked to vote upon it. We are simply
opposed by facts: systemd is here because developers want it.
Their supporters say: who is going to support systemv? The obvious
answer is “the same people that are developing systemd”. But they do not
want to… so they don’t. They prefer a new toy.
There is no organized body that decides how openSUSE is going to be. No
board of direction. No decision voting. It is a bazaar… as long as it
is subsidizes or somebody does the work gratis.
So you see, some ramblings from an openSUSE member, that doesn’t know
what he is a member for. 
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)
