[Numpy-discussion] Numpy governance update

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Alan G Isaac <alan.isaac at gmail.com> wrote:
> My analysis is fundamentally different than Matthew
> and Benjamin's for a few reasons.
>
> 1. The problem has been miscast.
>    The "economic interests" of the developers *always*
>    has had an apparent conflict with the economic
>    interests of the users: users want developers to work more
>    on the code, and developers need to make a living, which
>    often involves spending their time on other things.
>    On this score, nothing has really changed.
> 2. It seems pretty clear that Matthew wants some governance
>    power to be held by individuals who are not actively
>    developing NumPy.  As Chuck Harris pointed out long ago,
>    that dog ain't going to hunt.
> 3. Constitutions can be broken (and are, all the time).
>    Designing a stable institution requires making it in
>    the interests of the members to participate.
>
> Any formal governance structure that can be desirable
> for the NumPy community as a whole has to be desirable
> for the core developers.  The right way to produce a
> governance structure is to make concrete proposals and
> show how these proposals are in the interest of the
> *developers* (as well as of the users).
>
> For example, Benjamin obliquely suggested that with an
> appropriate governance board, the NA discussion could
> have simply been shut down by having the developers
> vote (as part of their governance).  This might be in
> the interest of the developers and of the community
> (I'm not sure), but I doubt it is what Matthew has in mind.
> In any case, until proposals are put on the table along
> with a clear effort to illustrate why it is in the interest
> of the *developers* to adopt the proposals, I really do not
> see this discussion moving forward.

That's helpful, it would be good to discuss concrete proposals.
Would you care to flesh out your proposal in more detail or is it as
you quoted it before?

Where do you stand on the desirability of consensus?

Do you have any suggestions on how to ensure that the non-Continuum
community has sufficient weight in decision making?

Best,

Matthew