Re: On cooperative work [Was: Re: newbus' ivar's limitation..]

On 08/02/2012 10:13, David Chisnall wrote:
> On 2 Aug 2012, at 17:46, Doug Barton wrote:
> 
>> Well that's a start. :) And where was this availability announced?
>> If I missed it, that's on me. But providing remote access that you
>> don't tell people about isn't really any better than not providing
>> it at all.
> 
> It's not widely advertised, because we're likely to be able to
> support a limited number of remote participants (10 seems like the
> upper limit for the technology that we're looking at, and I wouldn't
> be surprised if it degrades before then). 

Welcome to the 21st Century. :) There are widely available audio and
video conferencing solutions that easily scale into the thousands of
users, at minimal cost.

> As with all other things
> in the project, we welcome people who are willing to make an effort
> to engage.  We provide it when people ask, not spontaneously, because
> organising cameras and decent microphones requires effort on the bart
> of the organisers. 

Yes, "It takes effort." I get that. I've been part of the effort to
provide remote participation for other groups, on a much larger scale
than anything FreeBSD can dream of.

My point, and I cannot emphasize this highly enough, is that your entire
mindset about this is all wrong. It needs to shift from "We'll do this
on a small scale, for those who ask" to "We'll make providing robust
remote participation a top priority, built into the planning from day
1." It's as simple as that.

> The FreeBSD Foundation has also offered to fund new contributors who
> want to attend but are unable to afford to do so on their own.  In
> spite of the fact that I spent some effort encouraging people to
> apply for this, only one person actually did.

It isn't just the financial cost of attending the summit. Often (as in
my case) it's the lack of ability to take time away from personal, work,
and/or family commitments. For others it may be the difficulty of doing
the traveling at all. The fact that only 1 person took you up on this
offer (and IIRC there have been similar results in the past) pretty
clearly indicates that you're trying to solve the wrong problem.

Given that the foundation has money to spend here, why not put 2 and 2
together and have the foundation invest in providing remote
participation? That would benefit far more people, and almost certainly
at less cost.

Doug

-- 

    I am only one, but I am one.  I cannot do everything, but I can do
    something.  And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what
    I can do.
			-- Edward Everett Hale, (1822 - 1909)