[cdr-devel] Mailing lists, document licences

[Nikodemus Siivola]

Pascal Costanza <pc at p-cos.net> writes:

> Before I comment on specific details of your suggestions, here is
> first a general disclaimer: The idea behind CDR is to be as light- 
> weight as possible. 

--snip--

> So for example, we specifically didn't add any way to "approve"
> documents, or prescribe a format, etc., because this could put us in
> the position of having to judge something that we actually cannot
> judge, which would block the whole process.

...which is indeed one of the reasons why I am so enthusiastic
about its possibilities. ;-)

> So far, the mailing list is only for discussing the CDR process
> itself, not for discussing specific CDRs. There are different ways
> to produce and discuss documents, not only through mailing lists. We
> don't want to require any specific way how people come up with CDRs,
> we don't want to require their public discussion in mailing lists,
> and we don't to give the impression that this is the case. We also
> don't want to give the impression that CDRs are "approved" by the
> participants in mailing lists.
>
> There are several options to create mailing lists, install Wikis, or
> whatever, outside of the CDR process, and we would like to encourage
> authors to use whatever they think is most appropriate. If authors/
> submitters haven't done so, you are still able to contact them
> directly to send them your feedback on specific CDRs.
>
> Maybe there is a middle ground here that I simply don't see at the
> moment. But I think that our encouragement in the CDR manual to have
> documents publicly discussed before they are submitted is sufficient.

I see your point, but I do think there is a middle ground to be found:
while document authors are free to choose any venue of their liking
for discussions about their document, it would be handy if a "sensible
default" existed.

Quoting from the CDR website:

"You are encouraged, but not required to:

  * Discuss your document publicly before you submit it as a CDR
    document, for example in mailing lists, newsgroups, or other
    public forums.

  * Provide an archive of the discussions that influenced the contents
    of the CDR document that we can publish as accompanying material
    alongside the document itself.

  ..."

Frankly, there is no single good forum for most such discussions at
the moment. An increasing number of people find comp.lang.lisp is
horrible drain on with decreasing returns, yet it remains the only
broad forum in existence -- everything else is specific to an
implementation, library, user group, or an application area. 

Even if a CDR is produced by a separate working group using whatever
discussion tools they prefer (eg. coffee breaks) it remains that for
third parties to comment on it, they need to either talk directly to
authors, or pick a bad forum. 

Or so unless the author(s) have provided a separate forum for
discussing the document -- which has yet to happen for any of the 3
CDRs so far. ,)

I naively assume that if a list like cdr-discuss existed, it would get
fairly wide readership, and provide a place for such commentary. Its
existence would be no onus to the authors that I can see, and by
restricting the topic to existing CDRs it should be able to maintain a
good signal/noise ratio (which still leaves budding CDR authors
without a good place to talk about their plans, but admitting "I'm
thinking of a CDR" seems to me like a really bad idea and potentially
disastorous to the quality of correspondence.)

Take CDR-2 for example: Where would you go to talk about writing more
invasive CDR based on it, that would describe an extension to CL that
does the same thing, but with the standard GETHASH &co? Where would
you go to see if there have _already_ been discussions like that?
(Note that these discussions can easily take place long after a CDR
has been finalized and the original authors have moved on.)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see how such a list
would create barriers for authors -- quite the opposite. Of course it
should be made clear that the list has no official standing, but I
would hope that some vestigial reading comprehension still lingers on
both shores of the Atlantic...

> Do you think that cdr-level is appropriate for gmane when it is only
> about the CDR process? (That's not a rhetorical question. ;)

Appropriate yes (Gmane is a really nice way to read mailing lists you
don't want to clutter your inbox), strictly necessary no. Announce
list at least would be good to have there, though.

> and we also don't want to favor open source approaches over,
> say, commercial software vendors. Any specific recommendation could
> give the wrong impression here.

I'll take your word for it, but I don't really see how saying "we
believe licence XYZ to be a good match for the needs of most CDR
documents, but you are free to use any licence you want" can be
interpreted as favoring open source over commercial vendors -- but
clearly I am not the most unbiased person to think about this.

In any case, CDR is a damn fine idea, and I believe it will benefit
the mythical beast known as the lisp community immensely in the long
run.

Cheers,

  -- Nikodemus              Schemer: "Buddha is small, clean, and serious."
                   Lispnik: "Buddha is big, has hairy armpits, and laughs."