Re: Future of RAIDFrame and Vinum (was: Future of RAIDFrame)

In message <20040111051649.GK7617_at_wantadilla.lemis.com>, "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" 
writes:

>> As much as I would hate to see RF and Vinum disappar from our
>> source tree, maybe what we need to do is to kick them both into
>> "training-camp" in p4 while you and Greg look the other way.
>
>Hmm.  I can't see why they have to disappear from the source tree, and
>I don't see why Scott or I should have to look the other way.

The reason I say this is that neither of you have the time needed,
and whoever picks up may have ideas, even necesarry ideas, which
would grind your spine seriously.  By letting go, I think you would
give vinum a better chance.

>> In the p4 tree, we can easier add new talent to our developer force
>> and I am pretty sure that some sort of merry band of developers
>> would form around both RF and vinum there.
>
>OK, I'm not a fan of p4, but I suspect that's not the issue.  This
>sounds like a way of suggesting "Let's do VinumNG and RFNG and get a
>whole lot of people involved".  I couldn't agree more.

Well, I soft of think the entire "NG" thing is sooooo dotcomish, so
I particularly tried to avoid it :-)

But otherwise: yes, exactly.

I just want you and Scott to realize that if you don't have the
time to run with whatever crowd forms, your participation might be
a hindrance more than a help.

For it to work, you need to truly let go of control.

>I've been trying to encourage people to look at Vinum for some time.
>It's a relatively complicated piece of code, and something about it
>seems to scare people away.

The proximity of a Well.Known_at_FreeBSD.org person can be quite a
damper on enthusiasm by way of intimidation:  "Gee, I'm nowhere
near as good as him, I'd better not even try", and getting a
lukewarm "Yeah, well, maybe" from such a person is a very cold
shower for a young rising star.

We are an intimidating bunch of old farts, and that's all well and
fine, but we need to remember to pull in young farts and let them
grow older, at least if we want the project to stay long term.

Every so often I have to remind myself that when I was at their
age, I was allowed to mess around with some complicated and important
stuff so I shouldn't be in the way of them getting the same experience.

>> but I urge you to try to see it like saw my Junior Kernel Hacker
>> list: Throwing a good meaty bone to pick which I myself couldn't eat
>> anyway.
>
>Yes, that's the way I've seen it for some time.  Any ideas how to
>excite people?  Do you want to say something?  Something like "If phk
>and grog agree, it must be right"?  :-)

A lot of people out there will start looking out for black helicopters
if they see the two of us agree, so I would like to state for the
record that while you words _seem_ to say the same as my words, you
have got it all _TOTALLY_ wrong!   :-)

Poul-Henning

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk_at_FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.