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You that i'm nearly an old man

It seems to me that the following is the situation:

1/ Project Council is currently

phppp
JMorris
tom

This is as defined by phppp. phppp has elected himself as council leader and has also defined that the team leader of the core development team is automatically a member of the XOOPS Council.

2/ Project Council is not functioning correctly because phppp is making decisions on his own without reference to the other council members.

3/ I have been made aware that JMorris was actually invited by Skalpa to be the project leader for XOOPS with phppp as core development leader.

I know that phppp is very busy with the core dev team. I should like to propose that with immediate effect

a - JMorris is given the role as XOOPS Project Manager and chairman of XOOPS Council
b - phppp retains role as core development team leader
c - JMorris invites all XOOPS team leaders to inaugral meeting of XOOPS Council to define constitution of the the council, (i.e. membership, tenure, leadership, role and objectives.) This meeting to take place within the next 2 weeks.

This will leave phppp with the important task of concentrating on getting the XOOPS code kicked into shape, an enormous task in its own right, and leave getting the shape of the XOOPS organisation to JMorris, another onerous task.

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Hasn't Skalpa left?
If he has any suggestions, I would like to see him asking here and not backstage again.

My opinion is that he has no right to drive this project and put who he wants in this project council.

Please don't make the same mistakes again.

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According to DJ the council is not established as yet, only proposed, we're awaiting his confirmation on establishment before we can proceed.

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Yes that's correct, when Skalpa resigned JMorris was left in charge, to find a new lead developer, and to manage XOOPS.

JMorris then approached DJ and asked him to be the lead developer, DJ then took it on himself to do absolutely everything, however James should of still been project manager.

I'd like to see the work being undertaken and started on, however one man cannot do everything with this project, but either way he has both James and my support.

These teams should in my opinion now be communicating and working, I know the Communications Team are.

And well now we're here.............

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Agreed.

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Your observant today.

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No body said he had any suggestions, 10 outta 10 on your imagination though

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Who has a right? do you have right? do I have a right? does any one have a right?

Yes he left. I think he basically 'handed over' responsibility to jmorris so that the XOOPS project could continue, that's all.

Exceptional and serious situations need urgent performances. I understand it and the project state was very dangerous.
But it is necessary to try to return gradually to the normal form of performance.
In order to obtain this I believe that the akitson ´s proposal is very right and useful.
It is necessary to define Constitution of the Council.

akitson wrote:
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I, for one, am against these proposals for the following reasons:

Re (a): There is no need to change the transitory XOOPS Project Manager or transitory Chair of the XOOPS Council as we have one now, phppp. JMorris's position would also be transitory. I believe that phppp must be given a chance to put his ideas before the community as a whole, not just a few of the old guard (who, in my opinion, bear much of the responsibility for the state that XOOPS fell into prior to phppp's stepping up to the line). As far as I know, phppp is not beholden to any of the former movers and shakers here at XOOPS. He was not involved in the political back biting that characterized the previous two regimes here, and as such has my trust.

Re (c): Replace "JMorris" with "phppp" in this sentence, and I'd agree with it.

So, I say that while a slightly revised point (c) is a valid and good idea, I stand firm in my belief that point (a) is the wrong way to go.

I'd like to draw your attention to the later part of this post, where I think I accurately described the situation as stands, and where things are going (arriving at that conclusion by distilling the information in the threads and topics within this forum).

If there is dissatisfaction with phppp's adherence (or lack of) to previously set protocol, I'd first ask if said standards are applicable right now. Further, I'd suggest that the correct course of action would be to directly approach him here and ask him to explain himself.

Excuse me for using the word, but I think that XOOPS is in the midst of a 'revolution' in thinking. I think that the 'top' is not listening to the 'bottom' and that what is most needed right now is clarification of intent from phppp rather than a reflex reaction in the dangerous direction towards cronyism (For non native English speakers: cronyism in this context is the practice of favoring one's close friends, especially in political appointments).

XOOPS is, in my opinion, in desperate need of a fundamental review of it's management systems and structures if it is to remain relevant and meet the challenges it is bound to face it the future. With this in mind, a transitory period under an apparently benign and well intentioned dictator is by and far preferable to yet another provincially minded management team. I believe that, at this moment in time, all coding should be secondary to this basic need.

Finally, I'd like to say that putting forward a vote of no confidence is, of course, your right, but one tends to find that if a no-confidence vote fails, the proposer, having expressed his obvious lack of confidence, is morally obliged to resign all claims to an authoritative voice. Do you really want to go there?

Crip

@ sailjapan I totally agree with you.

PS: I missunderstood "actually" up in the topic which means in french "currently" if heard "actuellement".
Sorry.

@ SailJapan,
I couldn't have said it better, or even half as good.

It appears that we find ourselves in a situation where misunderstandings have created a tangled mess.

Please allow me to clarify a few things...

Prior to Skalpa’s departure from XOOPS, there were 5 members of the Management structure of XOOPS.

Skalpa (Core Development/Project Management)
Rowd (Core Development/WWW site manager)
Ana (Addons/Demo site manager)
Herko (Foundation Chairman/XOOPS Project Treasurer)
JMorris (Community site manager/Server Administrator)

With Skalpa and Rowd’s departure, that left 3 members of the old management structure still in place; Ana, Herko, and me.

Skalpa granted me administrator access to SF.net in order to take the role of Project Manager. My first task was to secure a new Lead Core Developer.

I then approached DJ and asked him to assume the role of Lead Core Developer and stated that after the XOOPS Project was restructured, that I would pass the Project Manager position onto him.

The reason for this is, by nature, the Project Manager oversees the direction of the project. In an OSS Project, the Project Manager should be the Lead Developer; however, in this transient period, the Project Manager role was left to me.

After Ana stepped down from her position, the proper management structure prior to DJ's council nominations was as follows:

JMorris (Project Manager)
Phppp (Core Development)
Herko (Foundation Chairman)

When DJ nominated Tom and me for the XOOPS Council and there were no objections within a reasonable time period, this effectively added Tom to the management structure of XOOPS. Therefore, the current management structure of XOOPS is as follows:

JMorris (Project Manager)
Phppp (Core Development)
Herko (Foundation Chairman)
Tom (Marketing and Communications)

Now, this is where the confusion seems to be. Since this was not publicly announced, the validity of this claim is questioned. However, if you look at SF.net, you will see that DJ and I are co-Project Admins. A current project admin (Skalpa) had to give me that position. I could not assume it on my own.

We are in a transitional period where we are moving from most things being done behind closed doors to having most things in the open. No, it was not publicly announced that I was the new Project Manager. IMHO, there were more important things to handle, like assigning a new Lead Core Dev and doing damage control. Since my role of Project Manager is temporary, I saw no need to announce it. I now see that as a mistake as that was a major contributing factor to the confusion at hand.

DJ recently started many initiatives within the community that are much along the lines of what was originally intended for the restructuring. However, the pace an approach of these initiatives is not what was originally planned and should have been discussed prior to announcement.

So, what was the original plan?

The original plan was to untangle the tangled mess XOOPS is right now and to put its different components in their proper place. Specifically speaking…

XOOPS Foundation – Non-profit organization that acts as financial and legal support structure for the XOOPS Project and community. The XOOPS Foundation does not govern the day to day operations of the XOOPS Project or community. The XOOPS Foundation is to be operated autonomously by volunteers from both the XOOPS Project and community.

XOOPS Project – The Core Development Team and Documentation Team that oversees the development and documentation of the XOOPS Core Application. The only site that would be governed by the Project would be the Official Project Homepage (promotion only, no support forums) and Documentation site. The Project is to be run autonomously by the Lead Developers and Documenters who are selected by merit from the XOOPS Community. The XOOPS Project would have no say over how the community or Foundation is run.

XOOPS Community – Everything else. Community support forums, Local Support Forums, Module Development, Theme Development, Community Communication, etc… The XOOPS Community would have no say over the direction and operation of the XOOPS Foundation or Project and would be operated autonomously by volunteers from the community.

Now, let me clarify a point here. The community would have involvement in all 3 areas, but only through representatives who earn their position based on merit, not popular vote. The community would still have a voice in core development through the SF.net forums, bug trackers and feature request trackers. However, the community would not dictate how the Core Developers and Documenters worked.

By separating XOOPS in such a way, it would place in effect the proper infrastructure for Core Developers and Documenters to focus on the application they are responsible for and it would allow the Community to be self-governing and would enable a greater level of collaboration among the community than ever possible before.

That was the original plan. The management body that was to be built was only to be temporary. Once the restructuring was complete, the centralized management body would transition into an Advisory Council. Meaning that there would be representatives from each branch of XOOPS who would communicate the overall direction each branch was going, but NO global decision making would be done by this Advisory Council, ONLY communication to ensure that each branch understands what is going on with the others.

What has been started in the community since Skalpa’s departure is mostly inline with what was to be Community Teams. The only Official Teams were to be Core Development and Documentation.

Therefore, we are not too far off track from the original plans; however, if we do not clear up this confusion now and start working together, then a bigger mess than what we had before will be created, IMHO.

Now, that is the big picture and it has been announced publicly. I hope we can get past the confusion and move forward in a direction that is best for the XOOPS Project and Community as a whole.

DJ,

I would like to publicly apologize to you as it seems there has been a great deal of misunderstanding. I apologize for my harsh words in the Council forums and I hope that we can work together to get XOOPS going in the right direction.