Entries from March 2010 ↓

It seems that at least a couple of people read my last editorial. I didn’t expect to write a part 2, at least not here or now. But it’s worth a bit of clarification…

[See the very end for the “bit” part…]

The Sakai Product Manager, Clay Fenlason, has posted some notes on this ongoing discussion. He rightly points out that it is evolving and happening in large part on the “management list”, and that you should join up or watch the archives if interested.

The purpose of this post is to clarify what looks to be a basic disconnect on my opinion, since I was cited and don’t mean what it looks like Clay heard. He says:

But again our first practical example risks a misunderstanding - that the full process is only really about Sakai 3. There are even some knowledgeable community leaders that are coming to this conclusion and holding it forth as an insight.

It seems that Clay has drawn an interpretation from my communications where I would attribute the process primarily, or even exclusively, to 3.x, thereby grandfathering 2.x into some who-knows-what process. If he read it this way, it is fair to say that others might, too.

I feel quite the opposite, in fact.

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Something has been gnawing at me. Here is my initial assessment:

There are some gradual but quite significant changes coming to how the Sakai community works and releases software, and these changes are quite unclear.

I don’t think this is controversial or surprising. I do think that there are lots of ideas, fears, and desires for how this might work out. We are definitely having organizational growing pains.

Here is what I see as already present:

• Two new groups: the Product Council and Maintenance Team
• Release Management emerging as possibly distinct from QA
• A relatively new and evolving Product Manager role
• Two streams of software (2.x and 3.x)
• Tension about how each of these roles shapes either stream

Where I’m going with this is that three of us on the PC share a homework item of looking at what would be helpful support of our Incubation and Product Development phases. However, I have been confounded about the very essence of this assignment given the above list. See the email below for specifics — it also frames this post as a written reflection.

So, let me reflect.

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