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From: Damien Katz <damien@apache.org>
To: dev@couchdb.apache.org
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Subject: Re: Transactional _bulk_docs
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:34:51 -0500
References: <BC4993A1-5DE9-43B6-AA57-4D2362EA72CE@gmail.com>
 <7A158DD5-18E6-41EC-89C2-305824536A7A@gmail.com>
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 <988C8AAF-E151-40FB-9E1A-000876FE3489@gmail.com>
 <182D5B6E-D179-470A-8638-B54E3DEF2747@pobox.com>
 <11E11144-004D-45B8-A503-88FD471953D7@apache.org>
 <9C8B5F07-856F-495D-AD91-FCA5AB5E31FF@pobox.com>
 <4E507D2E-88F9-4591-B721-F4343ACA9A9E@apache.org>
 <393666B7-8444-4D23-A2BA-AD59652A96AE@sauria.com>
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 <0D17D25F-7E88-4F19-96A9-62FC81E2DFC5@pobox.com>


On Feb 5, 2009, at 6:14 AM, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:

> [sending second time, as I see my first is stuck in moderation, and  
> I want to reply in a timely manner]
>
> Sure, ideally.
>
> But you can't have "everyone" together at the same time on IRC,  
> where at the ASF, we define "everyone" to be, well, "everyone", not  
> you and the 4 others on the PMC.
>
> I see 579 people on the user list.  I see 294 people on the dev  
> list.  Just focusing on the dev list, that's 290 people, or 98.6% of  
> people supposedly interested in CouchDB development, that had zero  
> opportunity to see, review and participate in the discussion.   
> Further, there's now zero chance that any future project participant  
> can look back to understand design decision and philosophy.  No  
> institutional memory.  Your goal, besides building a great software  
> project, should be to get the community to the point where you can  
> step back and do other things w/o material effect on the community,  
> and that requires information like this to be somewhere accessible.
>
> And unlike Ted, I don't agree that a pointer to an IRC log is  
> sufficient to represent a "done decision", and he may not have meant  
> that anyway.  Sure, I can see a chat starting on IRC about a topic,  
> but I'd hope that one person would force the move from IRC to the  
> mail list - and at that point, maybe posting a pointer to the  
> *initial* discussion log would be useful.  And after that,  
> discussion is on the mail list.
>
> I think IRC logs are a very poor substitute to mail traffic (and  
> yes, I grok the downside of async communications).  A primary one  
> reason that they are very "in the moment" - if you are in the  
> conversation, it's easy to stay in, but after, when things cool and  
> the context of the moment isn't there, it's neigh impossible.  You  
> also can't hit reply and quote a piece for others to see and  
> discuss, further broadening the discussion.
>

We get a lot of value out of IRC.

We are going to discuss this on the ML. I was waiting until I got the  
patch work to talk about all the implications and how we'd set the  
flags and modes of operation and all the implications. The code is  
going to get more powerful, the plan is for the feature to go away,  
not the capability. If we decided the feature was too important, we'll  
put it back. But as it stands, the changes to the code that I'm making  
now all need to be made regardless if we change the feature or not.

> What got me engaged on this wasn't the decision itself (only because  
> it was a secret decision), but -like Ted - the mode of operation.   
> It seemed that a very dedicated, engaged and interested community  
> member had to privately petition the PMC for redress on a technical  
> decision that none of us had any awareness of, nor a chance to  
> review.  And IMO, from a guy that probably should be a committer and  
> PMC member to boot!

He mailed us privately. Now he's mailed us publicly.

Any discussion about Antony being involved with the project should  
probably be private.

-Damien

>
>
> (By the way - from my count, not all PMC members are even on the  
> PMC's private@ list, so I have *no clue* where project private  
> discussion - like new committer candidates - are even discussed....)
>
> geir
>
> On Feb 5, 2009, at 2:11 AM, Damien Katz wrote:
>
>> Ideally yes, but real time communication with everyone together is  
>> damn useful.
>>
>> -Damien
>>
>> On Feb 5, 2009, at 2:07 AM, Ted Leung wrote:
>>
>>> Uh, project decisions are supposed to be made in the public  
>>> mailing lists...
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>> On Feb 4, 2009, at 6:51 PM, Damien Katz wrote:
>>>
>>>> This decision was discussed and made on IRC.
>>>>
>>>> -Damien
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 4, 2009, at 9:26 PM, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> can you point me to a reference to where the PMC made this  
>>>>> decision?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm interested in the subject for it's own sake, and I'm also  
>>>>> interested in figuring out where decisions are made in this  
>>>>> project, since I didn't see this one go by on a mail list.
>>>>>
>>>>> geir
>>>>>
>>>>> On Feb 4, 2009, at 9:13 PM, Damien Katz wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Geir, there was a decision made by the PMCs to change the  
>>>>>> transaction model to support partitioned databases. It is a  
>>>>>> change I am currently working on.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Damien
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:46 PM, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> and original question #2?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> geir
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Feb 4, 2009, at 8:38 PM, Antony Blakey wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 05/02/2009, at 12:02 PM, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 1) where is this being forwarded from ?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I sent it to the PMC.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Antony Blakey
>>>>>>>> -------------
>>>>>>>> CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
>>>>>>>> Ph: 0438 840 787
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> A Buddhist walks up to a hot-dog stand and says, "Make me one  
>>>>>>>> with everything". He then pays the vendor and asks for  
>>>>>>>> change. The vendor says, "Change comes from within".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>
>