Re: On the lack of motivation...

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

I fully agree with most of what is noted here with a few minor
exceptions and as such I think 'core' should adopt this viewpoint
in its daily operations -- more below.

--- Youcef Rabah Rahal <y dot rahal at gmail dot com> wrote:
> 
> 1- Core's time should be less spent on technical details. It's
> unfortunate to see meeting minutes and agenda still full of installing
> this, upgrading that, automating this, and adding yet another
> not-so-useful functionality to the website (or completely changing
> it)... I don't want to minimize the importance of all the tech stuff,
> but time is missing and the server/website etc are not in such a bad
> shape that needs constant health monitoring.

I think this needs to happen but I agree that core should not by so
engulfed in it.  I'd think giving a task to someone competent and
dependable ought to do.  Simply put "go update and upgrade and harden"
and/or "go install such-n-such since it is needed to do ..." should
suffice, but I don't see anyway around the actual need to do these
types of things by someone and what we've seen people outside of core
had a serious dependability issue to do things and follow through (well
we're having that problem within core now ;-)

> 2- Development projects have a life of their own. It is not necessary
> for core to regularly monitor them and/or contact the projects'
> maintainers every now and then. If a project dies then so be it. It's
> the maintainer's responsibility. Just tag it as dead or so (or
> something like this project is in need of new maintainer etc). But
> that's it.

Yes and no - asking, probing should be OK and even encouraged not just
by 'core' but by all parties interested - friendly pressure and reminders
never hurt.

> 3- Translation projects should have a regular monitoring, But it's
> difficult to do if you have very few people with small motivation. The
> most important here is to re-ignite the contributors' motivation and
> bring more contributors. More below.
> 
> 4- QAC is a corner stone. But this is the same as above. No motivation
> leads to no translation which leads to no QAC.

Agree 100%

> 5- Arabbix should not be considered as a development project. This is a
> core task, delegated to a developer, but still is a core's one. Having
> an Arabic friendly distro is publicity for us to show Linux, in
> Arabic, with some Arabeyes programs. The aim is not to ultimately
> build an Arabic friendly distro (there are already a lot of them - all
> the famous ones are now Arabic friendly) but just a communication
> medium to distribute on shows etc. Very small development effort
> should be put ont it: I'm no expert in this, but as I read here and
> there, it seems to be rather easy to customize existing LinuxCDs...
> Effort should rather be made on the artistic side for ex :-)

Agreed.

> 6- Interaction with the most famous distros/desktops/libs/projects
> should be constant, in order to insist on the resolution of the
> existing bugs or on the addition of Arabic support. If there are
> motivated developers within Arabeyes, they may try to take care of
> these issues. Otherwise, a bounty system is required (though I'm not a
> fan of it), but that needs money. More below.

Excellent point & agreed.

> 7- I think 90% of core's available time should be put on PR. To raise
> awareness, bring financial support and whatever else. Arabeyes
> visibility, to be honest, is not as important as it deserves. If that
> visibility was more important, that would bring: motivation, new
> blood, financial support etc. This year we have a chance to be invited
> to a lot of conferences etc. This is an opportunity for us. We should
> also continue to contact University people, newspapers, lugs (not in
> order to federate them ;-)), until we have some success. Also,
> contribution to the most visible software projects out there (not only
> translating them - again by fixing bugs for ex and introducing new
> functionalities), should bring more visibility.

Yes yes, please go on ;-)

> 8- Give the website a less dead-look... Really, when was the last
> project log? 1.5 month ago! And the last news? 2 months ago! Projects
> logs are apart (read above), but the news... I tried in past (when I
> was in core) to insist on the fact that the news should less
> bureaucratic: ie, it's not necessary to wait for the next big bang to
> write a news. Why not put a small news from time to time, which would
> give an idea about the activity, even when there is a new software
> installation, a downtime, and any small thing like that. Also, I wrote
> small perl script which, when cronned, would put on the web page the
> list of the latest posts on the mailing lists (author, subject, date,
> list) and when adding the cvs mailing list, it would give the latest
> CVS commits right on the front page. I remember showing it to Nadim
> and Mohammed E. and got some skeptical remarks ;-) The idea is to give
> the visitor the impression of _life_ and make him/her visit again the
> day after to see what's new. For now, when someone is not subscribed
> to the mailing lists, a visit on the website will make them think that
> nothing is being done, close the window and never come again. I don't
> know if the idea is good. But I believe it's worth considering. Maybe
> not in the exact shape, but anything that would bring life into the
> website is fine by me.

Well, this takes us back to point #1 (less techie/maintenance work) in
short the idea was for the majority of the community to pitch-in so it
ought to be a community task to keep the pages interesting and content
rich (your definition might vary :-)  But I agree that we need to note
something on the front page maybe a simply weekly counter of the number
of commits with the date of the last commit or something minor like
that.

> So that's it. I wanted to insist on the fact that PR, publicity are
> essential to reactivate motivation and that's where most of Core's
> time should go. It's like a fire: you have to ignite it, but it can
> burn fine by itself if you feed it well from time to time ;)

Youcef, what you bring-up are very good/valid points -- we'll need your
help as well as others' to make all of this happen.  Do please stay
engaged and I can promise that within 'core' we'll try to move in the
direction you laid out given consensus.  A change is necessary and ideas
such as yours are exactly what we need -- thanks & keep 'em coming.

Salam.

 - Nadim



		
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