[Scummvm-devel] Understaffing (Was: What is happening to the ScummVM team?)

[Eugene Sandulenko]

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 12:47:31 -0500
Max Horn <max at quendi.de> wrote:
> Am 13.02.2009 um 11:06 schrieb Johannes Schickel:
> 
> > Max Horn schrieb:
> >> For me, a team leader is not just a title, but also a measure of  
> >> your activities. To me, Kirben qualifies in many ways as being a  
> >> team lead. So do you, BTW.
> >
> > I do not really see "team leader" as much more than a title.
...
> > On the other hand seeing that there are people who care less and  
> > others who care more it might make sense to use "team leads" as  
> > position for certain members, but in general I do not feel a real  
> > need to do so.
Basically now I clearly see that some people just have no clue of what
work is required for a ScummVM Team leader. Managing team of 60
distributed developers connected by nothing but common interest isnot
about talking. That is, what makes a team leader THE team leader is not
just "caring", but mainly "doing".

> In *my* opinion, Team leads are people who spend a lot of time and  
> energy to push things forward that would otherwise never happen --
> by constantly annoying people to do it, or just doing it themselves.
> Team leads take responsibility.
Indeed. As I explained to LordHoto today, preparing a release is not
about making a tag and posting a news item. The main work is to beg
developers and porters to do the work in time, and major part of it is
performed via private e-mails, so the poor developers will not get
pissed off when they get reminded about their promises not kept,
e-mails ignored, commits broken.

Frankly, I just not able to CC to scummvm-devel many of the e-mails I'm
sending to my fellow co-developers, because I want them to work as a
team, not as a gathering of offended people. Many of you guys got such
e-mails from me during these years, and many of you supported me in my
work, including recent support after some public attacks. Thank you very
much, guys, for that. I am sure Max can second this wholeheartedly.

> Yet in virtually no situation did that happen. No progress on the T- 
> Shirts (poor timofonic generously offered his help, but nobody took
> it up).
That was my move too. Sorry, timofonic. I specifically asked him to
send a call to -devel, so the people will be "timely informed". No
reaction followed. I'll go and set my decision on his e-mail.

SCI tools was another thing. I specifically offered a plan which is
IMHO good and feasible. No actions. I still plan to do the work, as
nobody seems to care.

> On the positive side, lots of people started contributing to SCI,  
> which is a great thing. Totally blew me away. We really have a ton
> of great developers on this team!
Oh yeah! And that brought us to 10th place in February SF.net report.
Long time not been there :).

> But I feel that without a few people pushing things
> ahead (portability, maintenance of web/forums/wiki, building new  
> infrastructure, GSoC, ...), then we wouldn't be were we are now. Not  
> by far.
I feel the same.

> I got more and more frustrated in the past weeks. I feel that I am  
> being asked to work with a committee instead of just doing my job,
> but the committee doesn't even bother to meet up, let alone "help".  
Committee is a nonsense.

I'd prefer to do things which will please most of the people, than
conduct a lengthy discussions until I satisfy /every/ people. That just
will not work. And I have no time for that.

> Hopefully, "someone else" will step up to help Eugene with this, so  
> that he doesn't have to do all that annoying work alone; he probably  
> has even less spare time to waste on it than I have. Sorry, Eugene.
> I hope you don't feel as pissed as I currently do.
I am sorry to hear that. Though I will support you in this decision, as
it will probably leave more time for application of your excellent
architectural and C++ skills. Also I believe that this year will be more
successive in GSoC if we will get accepted.

To summarize. Folks, if you think ScummVM project is a democracy, that
is not true. And for sure, there is no pluralism. We will get nowhere
with public bashing and accusations. Prove yourself with your coding
skills. Only with this you will bring fun to yourself, other developers
and our user base. _This_ is our goal and should be.


Eugene