Subject: Re: [bug#74736] [PATCH v6] Add Request-for-Comments process.

From: Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 08:44:55 +0100

Ludovic Courtès writes:

Hello,

> As proposed before, here’s a reworked version based on v5.  The intent
> is to keep the spirit and process unchanged compared to v5, while making
> the document a bit more concise (239 lines, v5 was 322), improving
> consistency for key words, hopefully improving wording, fixing
> grammatical issues, and adding Markdown ornaments where appropriate.

[..]

> Thoughts?

> # Motivation

Am I right that the main purpose/intent is (not trying to twist anyone's words)

> Day-to-day work on Guix revolves around informal interactions, peer
> review, and consensus-based decision making.  As the community grows, so
> does the stream of proposed changes, and no single person is able to
> keep track of all of them.

  * to draw more attention to / have important discussions stand out
  more in all the "noise", and guided by

> The RFC process is a mechanism to determine whether a proposed change is
> “significant” enough to require attention from the community at large
> and if so, to provide a documented way to bring about broad community
> discussion and to collectively decide on the proposal.

  * a collective decision on what "important" is?

So, in effect a "noise" filter / focus mechanism for the most important
changes.  That seems like a very good idea to me!

> ## Drawbacks
>
> There is a risk that the additional process will hinder contribution more than
> it would help.  We should stay alert that the process is only a way to help
> contribution, not an end in itself.

I have no personal experience with RFC processes and this seems
lightweight enough to begin with.  A drawback could be that it slows
development down, but for important changes that may be a good thing?
Other than that I see only advantages, well done.

The only things that I could suggest is to see if we should make it even
be more lightweight/nimble as a first version, e.g, require only two
*persons*, so that two authors could start a submission

    The RFC is *submitted* once it has at least one co-author or
    supporter in addition to the initial author(s).

or use shorter periods, e.g.

    submission[label=<Submission Period<br />up to 7 days>]
    comments[label=<Discussion Period<br />15–60 days>]
    deliberation[label=<Deliberation Period<br />8-14 days>]

but I have no strong opinion on these.

[..]

> 2. Copy `0000-template.md` to `00XY-short-name.md` where `short-name`
>    is a short descriptive name long and `XY` is the sequence number.
                                 ^
"long" typo?

Greetings,
Janneke

-- 
Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>  | GNU LilyPond https://LilyPond.org
Freelance IT https://www.JoyOfSource.com | Avatar® https://AvatarAcademy.com