1:25 p.m.
tl;dr -- things are moving quickly in this project in the context of The
World Around Us, and I'm worried they are moving too quickly for our
friends and family out there who haven't found us yet but who may be
available to contribute "soon".
I've been worried about a few things around our schedule:
1. The world around us is shifting literally daily in terms of what we
can all expect life to look like in six weeks, six months, and sixteen
months.
2. With more ramp-up time for people to ponder and commit to writing a
chapter, we would have a better diversity of writers.[1] Yet ...
3. We have momentum that we don't want to lose by dragging out the
schedule too much.
4. Ultimately, we shouldn't force those who are able to act now wait for
others to come along before they can make progress and complete
chapters. Early and late contributors should be welcomed and enabled to
be successful.
One option is to shift the release date out and give us another month or
two of recruiting writers. People are already writing, but they would be
looking at a longer time until the gratification of publication.
Another option is to work with what we have, accepting fewer voices are
involved in the final work. Folks who come along in a month can be
subject matter expert reviewers instead of writers, at least for the 2.0
release.
Today when discussing this with Bryan Behrenshausen, he suggested a
middle road that I really liked. I opened this thread partially to
tee-up his presenting that idea.
What thoughts, feelings, questions, and ideas does this bring up for all
of you?
Best regards,
- Karsten
[1] In that, all the chapters will eventually get written -- there are
several of us from Red Hat who are preparing to write whatever is needed
to get this guide done, but that will mean fewer voices at the writing
level.
--
Karsten Wade [he/him/his]| Senior Community Architect | @quaid
Red Hat Open Source Program Office (OSPO) : @redhatopen
https://community.redhat.com | https://next.redhat.com | https://osci.io
https://theopensourceway.org | https://github.com/theopensourceway/guide
8:43 a.m.
Today when discussing this with Bryan Behrenshausen, he suggested a
middle road that I really liked. I opened this thread partially to
tee-up his presenting that idea.
Thanks, Karsten, for kicking this off. I think these two items from your
list of issues frame our conversation nicely:
3. We have momentum that we don't want to lose by dragging out
the
schedule too much.
4. Ultimately, we shouldn't force those who are able to act now wait for
others to come along before they can make progress and complete
chapters. Early and late contributors should be welcomed and enabled to
be successful.
Our goal is to balance the need for project momentum with the need to be
as inclusive as we can given our extraordinary global circumstances.
Maintaining a project timeline is essential for maintaining forward
movement, but plowing ahead with it unmodified might lead to the same
destructive consequences we'd experience if we lost momentum altogether.
So Karsten and I were discussing this option:
One option is to shift the release date out and give us another month
or
two of recruiting writers. People are already writing, but they would be
looking at a longer time until the gratification of publication.
The idea here would be to extend the overall 2.0 release timeline but
add a new milestone on our path to it (something like a version "1.5,"
etc.). For that milestone, we'd target releasing a kind of guidebook
"preview" or "teaser" that ships two or three chapters already under
heavy development. I think this has several advantages:
- It allows those already writing to maintain their momentum with a
concrete goal in mind (perhaps even with more energy, because we'd be
able to tell them that their chapters are also going to function as
shining examples of what other interested parties could themselves
contribute).
- It allows us to release something earlier and hopefully catalyze
additional project activity (potential contributors would have an
artifact to examine and hopefully "see themselves" in, enticing them to
contribute); contributors would be contributing to a Thing That Exists,
rather than an idea that doesn't *fully* materialize until 2.0.
- It facilitates early experience with our editorial workflow and
publication toolchain, so we can experiment with them on a smaller scale
before we tackle 2.0 (and work out the inevitable kinks).
Two cents from me. Curious how others feel about it.
BB
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Karsten Wade