[Numpy-discussion] NumPy Governance

[Bruce Southey]

On 12/05/2011 06:22 AM, Perry Greenfield wrote:
> I'm not sure I'm crazy about leaving final decision making for a
> board. A board may be a good way of carefully considering the issues,
> and it could make it's own recommendation (with a sufficient
> majority). But in the end I think one person needs to decide (and that
> decision may go against the board consensus, presumably only rarely).
>
> Why shouldn't that person be you?
>
> Perry
>
I have similar thoughts because I just do not see how a board would work 
especially given that anyone can be a 'core developer' because the 
distributed aspect removes that 'entry barrier'.

I also think that there needs to be something formal like Linux Kernel 
Summit (see the excellent coverage by LWN.net; 
http://lwn.net/Articles/KernelSummit2011/). I know that people get 
together to talk at meetings or via invitation 
(http://blog.fperez.org/2011/05/austin-trip-ipython-at-tacc-and.html). 
This would provide a good opportunity to hash out concerns, introduce 
new features and identify community needs that cannot be adequately 
addressed via electronic communication.  The datarray is a 'good' 
example of how this could work except that it has not been pushed 
upstream yet! (It would be a excellent example if it had been pushed 
upstream :-) hint, hint.)

I also must disagree with statement of Travis that "discussions happen 
as they do now on the mailing list". This is simply not true because the 
mailing lists, tickets and pull requests are not connected so these have 
their own discussion threads. Sure there are some nice examples, Mark 
did tell us about this NA branch but the actual merge was still a 
surprise. So I think better communication of these such as emailing the 
list with a set 'public comment period' before requests are merged 
(longer periods for major changes).

Bruce

> On Dec 4, 2011, at 11:32 PM, Travis Oliphant wrote:
>
>> Great points.   My initial suggestion of 5-11 was more about current
>> board size rather than trying to fix it.
>>
>> I agree that having someone represent from major downstream projects
>> would be a great thing.
>>
>> -Travis
>>
>>
>> On Dec 4, 2011, at 7:16 AM, Alan G Isaac wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/4/2011 1:43 AM, Charles R Harris wrote:
>>>> I don't think there are 5 active developers, let alone 11.
>>>> With hard work you might scrape together two or three.
>>>> Having 5 or 11 people making decisions for the two or
>>>> three actually doing the work isn't going to go over well.
>>> Very true! But you might consider including on any board
>>> a developer or two from important projects that are very
>>> NumPy dependent.  (E.g., Matplotlib.)
>>>
>>> One other thing: how about starting with a "board" of 3
>>> and a rule that says any active developer can request to
>>> join, that additions are determined by majority vote of
>>> the existing board, and  that having the board both small
>>> and odd numbered is a priority?  (Fixing the board size
>>> in advance for a project we all hope will grow substantially
>>> seems odd.)
>>>
>>> fwiw,
>>> Alan Isaac
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> ---
>> Travis Oliphant
>> Enthought, Inc.
>> oliphant at enthought.com
>> 1-512-536-1057
>> http://www.enthought.com
>>
>>
>>
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