On 11/10/2013 10:51 PM, Tim Starling wrote:
On 08/11/13 03:40, C. Scott Ananian wrote:
Certain people 'own' larger collections of modules -- like there are subsystem owners in the linux kernel dev world.
My concern with this kind of maintainer model is that RFC review would tend to be narrower -- a consensus of members of a single WMF team rather than a consensus of all relevant experts.
I am skeptical about such a narrow maintainer model too.
Architecture should have a broader perspective than one module at a time. An important part of the role of architects is driving a consensus process both in the foundation and also in the larger MediaWiki community about how modules should interact and maybe also which modules we need, especially in the back end. They should also make sure that longer-term global issues are considered before they become pressing.
Like others, I see WMF job titles fairly separate from roles in the wider MediaWiki community. The goals of the foundation are also not always the same as those of each member of the community. Wikia for example might have priorities that differ from somebody running MediaWiki in an intranet. Because of this, I think it would help to separate the issue of MediaWiki governance from that of Wikimedia Foundation roles and architectural leadership within the Wikimedia Foundation.
Within the Foundation I can see advantages to holding more people responsible for looking out for architectural issues, just to make sure it happens and scales. I don't think that it matters much *internally* whether those are called 'principal engineer' or 'architect'. Lets use the title whose common definition fits the actual role most accurately.
Gabriel