Open Stack

On 12/13/2016 08:02 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> Ed Leafe wrote:
>> On Dec 12, 2016, at 11:16 AM, Jeffrey Zhang <zhang.lei.fly at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Some contributors in kolla have had unscheduled video meetings. This has
>>> resulted in complaints about inclusiveness. Some contributors can’t even make
>>> the meeting we have, and another scheduled video meeting might produce a
>>> situation in which there is no any record of decisions made during the video
>>> meeting. At least with IRC meetings there is always a log.
>>
>> Occasionally a quick Google hangout is necessary in Nova in order to quickly settle an outstanding issue so we can continue to make progress. When that happens, the link is posted in the #openstack-nova channel, and anyone who is interested can join. So while it’s not logged like an IRC meeting, it’s no excluding anyone, and we can quickly remove roadblocks that are harder to do in IRC.
> 
> Last time I checked, Google Hangouts were not accessible from China...
> So it *is* excluding some contributors ?
> 
> I think it's fine to use Hangouts or phone calls to quickly go through
> an issue. But if those become routine and if contributors express that
> those are making them feel (or be) excluded, then it is important to
> reassess your usage of them before it starts threatening our "open
> development" and "open community" pillars.
> 
> And in all cases, regular team meetings (or decision-making meetings)
> should happen on IRC in logged channels.

There is definitely a reality that there are circumstances where
collaboration happens, and happens quickly, in some setting where not
everyone was around. Be it at a conference, randomly finding people in a
coffee shop, on a google hangout, a telephone call, etc.

I think the most important thing is to take the time to take whatever
happened there and put it out in open memory afterwards. For instance, a
write up to the mailing list with the notes of what about the issue, the
discussion, the resolution. This isn't only helpful for the people not
in the room, it's also really helpful even for those in the room 6 or 12
months later to try to recall why a particular course of action was taken.

	-Sean

-- 
Sean Dague
http://dague.net