Who's in charge?

[melhundo]

I bet most of the time you're the only one who laughs at what you type.

[01micko]

I laugh at ttuuxxx' typing... ... and what he types...

...daily!

[WhoDo]

I have a need for a managerial person to coordinate package submissions. These are not the PET packages that I am using to build Woof. ... [snip] ... Basically, what you would do is test the PET package in Upup and if it looks good, upload it to directory pet_packages-5, and add the new database entry to file http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... 5-official

...note, the Puppy Package Manager has an Update button that will download the latest 'Packages-*' files.

Are you interested in this coordination job?

Good move. I accept with thanks.

Since the subject of this thread is "Who is in charge?", I thought it pertinent to point out the current state of things. The above are excerpts only from an email exchange between Barry and myself. Since emails are considered private I wouldn't normally post the contents in a public forum, but Barry has already made the announcement of the detail in his blog, so I don't believe I am betraying any confidences by posting these small snippets, and they make the nature and extent of Barry's offer and my acceptance crystal clear.

I will be releasing the bugfix update Puppy-4.2.1 this weekend. There are still some loose ends to tie, so it won't go up tonight as previously advertised. Since it is my wife's birthday on Sunday I will also need to be very careful about how much time I spend with my mistress Puppy.

After 4.2.1 is posted I will relinquish my position as Project Coordinator for the 4.x series as previously announced. In consequence of the above offer from Barry, I will then move on to the role of Package Coordinator for the 5.x initial release. Barry will be Project Coordinator for 5.0 and probably 5.0.1 if necessary. I had always intended that door to remain open when I took on Puppy 4.2, and I'm as pleased as anyone that Barry has decided to walk back through it.

If the Puppy Council is finally settled and it subsequently decides to release a Standard Puppy, built using Woof and the T2 repackaged Puppy standard core that Barry has created, then I will also be available to the Council for any role with that project (4.x or 6.x) that they may see fit to offer me. I believe it is now essential that the Puppy Council be formed and fully supported. The reason is that Barry has also announced another piece of news that I had earlier been privy to - that he would retire fully from ANY Puppy development in early 2010. That makes the Puppy Council a major priority in my view.

Despite Lobster's enthusiastic announcements, I will NOT be taking on the role of Chairman of the Puppy Council unless and until the Puppy Council, including me - a prerequisite for holding an office bearer's position in any organisation to which I've belonged - votes to make me their Chairman. The Chairman should be elected from the Council and not arbitrarily appointed. I also see that role as being vastly different to that of a Project Coordinator for any Puppy release.

I agree with raffy that the first order of business should be to identify exactly who will comprise the Puppy Council. I believe that council should be heavily biased toward our experienced developers - MU, Pizzasgood, Zigbert, ttuuxxx, Dougal, rerwin, plinej, technosaurus, Hairywill, Patriot, tempestuous, tronkel and a number of others are potential candidates here. Puppy is a VOLUNTARY open source software project, not a business, mission, or anything else designed primarily to meet the needs of any one user group over another. The volunteers must have a high degree of control over the disposition of their efforts or they will simply leave.

For that reason - keeping developers involved - the business of the council should be conducted as informally as possible; email list, private chat room, private forum, Psip, whatever. Privacy is important if people are to be free to speak their mind. It isn't about acting in secret; it's about giving councillors the freedom to speak and act without fear of negative repercussions for the wider community.

I also believe that representatives of various sections of interest should be included on the Council. One suggestion might be to assign a single delegate for each of the key areas on the forum - Beginners, Regular Users, Derivative creators (puplet builders IOW), Documentation, Localisation, Repositories, Web Resources, Look-and-Feel, etc. That should give a fairly representative cross section of the community. Each section could hold its own nominations and make their selection using a forum poll.

The chief responsibility of the Puppy Council would be to decide Puppy's direction for standard releases and to protect the Puppy aims and ethos. That means ensuring that Puppy stays true to its original charter and intent while at the same time growing and changing in keeping with advancements in technology and developing user needs. The role of Chairman would be as a final arbiter - Benevolent Dictator in some respects - having a casting vote but generally acceding to the reasonable wishes of the majority of councillors so long as those wishes remain consistent with the defined objectives of the Puppy project. The council should appoint a Project Coordinator for each release as it sees fit. The Project Coordinator may be a council member OR any other community member who has the trust of the council to carry the project to a successful conclusion.

I hope all will recognise this SUGGESTION as a possible framework for moving forward in the process of embedding community control of the Puppy project as our plan of succession following Barry's full retirement in early 2010.

[ecomoney]

I am happy that puppies leadership is becoming more inclusive and that the role of Puppy's council will be to protect the "original aims" of the project. Its true puppy needs wide range very gifted and experienced developers, and I am glad such a wide range of contributors is being recognised.

If the success of the council is to be measured by Puppies ability of Puppy Linux to meet its aims. Would you humour me one last time WhoDo and explain exactly what these aims are, and how you see the suggested council structure/format will meet them.

The idea of forum section heads being on the council is a good one IMHO.

[droope]

Hey, you know, i've said good things to you in the past... but i am getting a weird urge to blow your head off with a shotgun.

Please, PLEASE stop talking against Whodo's way of doing things. Or I will

[sullysat]

I don't post often with opinions or comments simply because I'm so new to Linux and still learning from most of the dedicated folks who work for and with the Puppy experience.

However, having recently been in a similar situation to WhoDo, I can certainly empathize with him, and the others who have worked so hard to get 4.2 up and running and make improvements to the process.

I applaud you all for your dedication and your patience to the Puppy project and its ideals. My thanks to WhoDo, ttuuxxx, pizzasgood, MU, and lobster for the help you've given me when I needed it. And Barry, whatever your final decisions, thank you for the vision and hard work that has made Puppy possible.

My philosophy is not to bitch and moan unless I've done what I can to help. Having said that, and in an effort to keep things on topic, let me just say that if I can help in any way with future development efforts, I certainly will. I've offered ftp storage space in the past, but I do technical writing and document editing for a living. I don't know a fraction of what I want to know about the ins and outs of Linux and Puppy yet, but I can sure help with documentation if necessary. I also have a variety of old hardware that I can set up and test things on if necessary.

Finally, I teach computer networking and maintenance at a local college here. I recently began exposing my students to the possibilities of Linux operating systems. There are three new Puppy users out there because of the people in this forum. I don't know who you are, but I know you're out there and I appreciate your willingness to help.

Sincerely and with anticipation
Sully

[tronkel]

WhoDo wrote:

I will also need to be very careful about how much time I spend with my mistress Puppy.

LOL WhoDo, so you've been indulging in a spot of extra-curricular hanky-panky with that Puppy as well! So have I. I wonder how many others are involved with this same Pup here. My marriage has survived (but only just, I think). That puppy is a divorce maker though. Maybe the next major release should be called Puppy Parted using the Ubuntu convention where the letters at the beginning of each of the words in the title are the same.

Puppy 5 then looks as if it will be the most significant version of Puppy ever - certainly as far as the community is concerned.

This is to be built using a Woof base?

If this is so, then Linux as well as non-Linux users outside of the Puppy community are going to need a bit of prior education as to the merits of the Woof system as compared with the approach used in the past. This could be a significant factor in the uptake of the new system - could help it to get to the number one spot on Distrowatch.

It's not too early to start working on this right now. Any candidates for this task?

[ttuuxxx]

Well Tronkel I'm compiling up the firefox 3.0.10 package right now, I've chosen that one over the 3.5 beta well because its a beta, lol
So i'll have my work cutout for me tonight and maybe some tomorrow, its getting late, So Thats my gift to Upup, if its just as quick as on Dpup, I might stick with Upup, but if it isn't, bye bye Upup and Hello Dpup.
ttuuxxx

[Lobster]

but I do technical writing and document editing for a living. I don't know a fraction of what I want to know about the ins and outs of Linux and Puppy yet, but I can sure help with documentation if necessary. I also have a variety of old hardware that I can set up and test things on if necessary.

you can always edit (and learn simultaneously) on the wiki
http://www.puppylinux.org/wiki

Just test and report - you will learn as you go on and will be asked for verification details etc as you file a report of any sort

Good luck

[tronkel]

ttuuxxx wrote:

Well Tronkel I'm compiling up the firefox 3.0.10 package right now

Ok just see how it goes and we'll decide on the basis of what you find.
I'm just waiting for Woof Alpha 7 tarball to get uploaded so that I can build dPup.

When that comes through, a comparison between a Dpup built on Woof 7 and uPup built on Woof 7 can then be made.

Just tried Jaunty uPup built on Woof 6 by Barry. Can't print a test page from the HP Officejet G85, although the printer shows in CUPS.

[tronkel]

I'm just sitting here reflecting on my latest tirades concerning Ecomoney and his "evangelism".

On thinking about it, this missionary approach is actually very common-place with members of this community. Ecomoney is by no means the only one here to indulge in this type of thing. I've done it myself. Every last one of has has probably at one point tried to evangelise Puppy to some poor captive audience or other. It must really irritate people at times.

Richard Stallman and even Linus himself have at some point overstepped the mark with well-meaning but ill-advised over-enthusiasm. Also, people here tend to take every possible opportunity to deride Microsoft and Bill Gates as well. None of the foregoing activities really help anyone at the end of the day. The are all a form of negativity (if there is such a word).

Should us Puppians not be setting a better example here for others to follow?

Puppy Linux will not be furthered by this evangelistic or strident missionary approach. Linux and Puppy Linux does not require evangelising in any form at all. The software itself is all the evangelising it needs.

Much better to keep evangelism to a bare minimum and give the developers a chance to build the Pup that will do the business for everyone - Ecomoney included.

[sikpuppy]

Also, people here tend to take every possible opportunity to deride Microsoft and Bill Gates as well.

Yeah, the world's richest college drop-out. Talk about an over-achiever

[Béèm]

Just my 2 cents.
If too many developers in the council have too much to say, I am afraid puppy/woof turns into a technical hype and that end-users will turn away from it.

[Trobin]

Should us Puppians not be setting a better example here for others to follow?

Why? Since it's so much more fun to air out dirty laundry in public. If newbies read it and wander off to friendlier climes, are they worthy enough to be puppians?

[bugman]

Should us Puppians not be setting a better example here for others to follow?

Why? Since it's so much more fun to air out dirty laundry in public. If newbies read it and wander off to friendlier climes, are they worthy enough to be puppians?

judging from what i've seen in some other distro forums, puppy is not unique in having developer spats

it may be rare however, in that no one has been banned from the forum for fighting, or thrown off the team

we fight, but we do not kick anyone out of the pack

[that IS our better example]

[ecomoney]

Puppy Linux will not be furthered by this evangelistic or strident missionary approach

Hmmmm.....maybe your not wrong..maybe I could do it better....Ive learnt I definitely can, and Im sorry one more time for all the uncomfortable reading Ive caused. Ive learnt.

And the fact remains...

Ive got about a hundred computers in my smallish average town running puppy right now (there I go bragging again)....but no one else, to my knowledge, has ever claimed such a number of "confirmed kills" on here.....all without ever having produced a single .pet/sfs or compiled one program from source. Im setting up another cybercafe now that will give feedback on people from all over the world (its at the UK's biggest seaport)

I had to make some pretty big compromises to Whodos altogether less troublesome 2.15CE to achieve that. (I dont think hes actually had time to see yet, though he has commented). Even Ttuxxx has lead the way with a recent real life example of how evengelism can be successful,

And some of you dont want me to stick around and see what I have to say? I mean, I thought you guys actually WANTED other people to use your stuff, I just thought you didnt know how to get them to want to use it too...

[Aitch]

here's my take on it Rob....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImPLzpRB ... re=related



Aitch

[WhoDo]

we fight, but we do not kick anyone out of the pack

[that IS our better example]

Conflict is a sign of passion. We are each passionate about many different things but we share our passion for Puppy. Let us NEVER lose the passion for Puppy.

As for our other passions, it is important for each and every one of us to remember that those are NOT necessarily shared by others here. We also need to respect that others are not always going to be infected by our other passions in quite the same way as we are. Let them be.

Our developers seldom fight amongst themselves, which is a great tribute to them because at times their vision is not shared and they must find other ways to express it. MU does it with Muppy. NathanF did it with Grafpup. Pizzasgood did it with Pizzapup and helped a non-developer share his vision with PCPuppyOS. ecomoney has adapted 2.15CE as Ecopup. ttuuxxx did it with Fire Hydrant, Living Water and Puppies-4.2. The list goes on.

If others don't share your vision and passion, then find a way to make it real yourself rather than trying to "evangelise" others, as tronkel says. That's the best way to get them to catch the dream.

@bugman - for the sake of accuracy, there have been two or three people excluded from the pack by John Murga. That took a LOT of fighting (and back biting) to provoke though. Thankfully such circumstances are extremely rare. 14,000+ registered forum users and only 2-3 exclusions ... ever! Your point is well proven.

@tronkel - there is nothing wrong with your command of the less than logical English language. There is indeed a word "negativity". I'd also add that your "positivity" has been very refreshing around here!

[cthisbear]

" Hey, you know, i've said good things to you in the past.."

This is why the edit button is handy.
Please find same and delete your threat.

Thought I was talking at my mirror for a moment.

Chris.

[01micko]

Thought I was talking at my mirror for a moment.

Chris.

Which part? The quoted part... or the whole post?