Rich : what about the schedule of the current release?
Baptiste : the goal is more about communicating the changes, rather than deciding things. E.g. releases notes, security announcements, major development changes
John : it's important to have people maintaining part of the projects for a long term (several years). E.g. documentation, huge progress in previous years
Rich : it's probably not that hard to find people willing to help writing release notes, etc
Baptiste : what's important is, who feels responsible? who starts the initiatve and makes sure that things happen? People can volunteer to manage release notes & such for a given release, and somebody else for the next release, etc (rotation)
Rich : agreed, and it allows to learn from each other. What about a release manager?
John : we had release managers in the past, but it was hard: people don't necessarily have the time, and then get flamed for not doing the job
John : we can imagine a “manager” just for the release notes
Rich : how much work does a release represent?
John : before, one person working 6 to 10 weeks full-time. Now we have buildbots and automation, so it should be less. Main problem, nobody is happy with the release schedule (“I want this feature in” vs. “I don't care about this feature and I want a release sooner”).
Hauke : think about it in terms of offloading the people handling the release: post list of critical issues on the mailing list, triage bugs, write release notes
Baptiste : the group takes the decision, and then can delegate some of the practical choices to somebody
John : since the reboot, the structure is completely flat, we don't want first class vs. second class citizens (= people with more power than others)
Rich : the group can decide on things (“include feature X in the next release”), and then designate somebody to be “in charge” for actually doing it
Rich : writing release notes is a “bounded task”
Baptiste : “bounded tasks” are good, because a volunteer can feel conformable doing it. But who gets to decide
Rich : after writing the release notes, go back to the group to get feedback
Baptiste : what happens if you get don't any feedback? Is it because everything's perfect, or because nobody cares?
John : just start doing some stuff (e.g. write release notes), and tell relevant people (i.e. jow) that you are doing it, and all will be fine
Hauke : what's important is not waiting for others to do things and start doing them
Hauke : also important, documenting what tasks/help are needed
Rich : how do we make Jow's life easier by offloading some work?
John : expectations about help are probably low, which is why the “usual suspects” end up doing everything themselves
John : how to help: just tell Jow that you want to help with, with a timeline