[Bf-committers] Modules simplification (and members cleanup)

Julian Eisel eiseljulian at gmail.com
Fri Nov 8 14:19:05 CET 2019


Hi,

although I definitely do support evaluating and improving the module
structure, I'm not sure if the outcome really makes things better :)
Sorry for the wall of text. But this is a defining topic which should
be handled thoughfully.

The term "member" is misleading and doesn't fit the intended role
IMHO. It is a loose word, I'd say everybody who does regular
contributions can be considered a member. And technically everybody
listed in the module team description is a member.
There must be some better term for this - Module-leads?
Lead-maintainers? Vice-owners? ...

I also find it concerning that we now put a single person on top of
each module. William is now the sole UI module owner - does that mean
he can overrule any decision, effectively making him the benevolent
dictator for the UI? That would be horrible! ;) Not because it's
William, I'd say the same for any other person (including myself).
Non-trivial day-to-day decisions should be made based on consensus,
not because of one person's opinion. We should seek consensus if there
is none; if that fails we can still have a vote within the team.
Should that still not help, there are the Blender admins and
eventually Ton to consult.
What makes you think there's a need for such an exclusive role on a
per module level?

Then there is the weird role of module "developers". The description
says these are active contributors of a module. At which point is a
contributor active enough to be put on this list? The threshold seems
to be chosen rather arbitrary on a case by case basis.
And what is the purpose of this category really? It feels like just a
list for credits and contact persons. There is some value in having
such a list, but besides the listed people don't have any decision
making power. That doesn't reflect our practical needs however.
Take the internationalization project as an example. The person to
contact and make decisions here has always been Bastien. Judging from
the modules page, he's merely an active contributor with no notable
decision making rights though.
The same applies to my role by the way. On paper I'm also "just a
contributor", but that doesn't really reflect what actual role I play
in day-to-day UI team business. I don't ask for more power but for a
more needs-oriented/practical module structure.

Most importantly however, happy birthday Dalai :)

Cheers,
- Julian -

On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 5:11 AM Dalai Felinto <dfelinto at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Another change on the way. Based on feedback from Campbell as well as the
> development team at the Blender Institute I would like to simplify a bit
> the structure our module structure:
>
> 1) Module coordinator → module owner.
> 2) Module owner → module member (and not include the module owner on it).
> 3) Assign module page to module coordinator.
> 4) Cleanup the project page (no need to mention any developer).
> 5) Remove the module members not listed as members in the wiki.
> 6) Find more non-developer module members.
>
> This way we have a reference point for each module (owner), while all the
> members can be visible for the projects in developer.blender.org (as well
> as the wiki). This also reduces the amount of redundancy, helping to keep
> the wiki and developer.blender.org in sync.
>
> If the module owners and members need help finding artists stakeholders
> (point 6) poke me in particular (or write a public message in
> bf-committers) and we can try to find people that demonstrated interested
> in the past. Most modules clearly lack non-developer members.
>
> In fact I had to remove quite a few (in particular in the User Interface
> Module) to match the wiki. If I made a mistake please contact me or your
> corresponding module owner to have your contact up again in the wiki and
> developer.blender.org.
>
> Thanks for your comprehension,
> Dalai
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