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

[Johannes Schickel]

Max Horn schrieb:
> To test this theory, in the past couple of weeks I constantly asked  
> for "someone" to do things, following your stance that team leads are  
> mostly just normal devs. According to that theory, it shouldn't be  
> necessary for Eugene and me to do all the annoying boring tedious  
> work, because "someone else", a guy just like us, should step up and  
> do the work.
>   

I hoped it would be that way, it seems it is not. And I myself did not 
took up any real work there, so I can not say I am any better on this...

> The past weeks supported the following impression I have: If Eugene  
> and me just make decisions and just do things, stuff happens.  
> Progress. OTOH, if we ask and wait for input all the time, as we have  
> been asked to, we just wait, and wait, and wait, and nothing happens.  
> I don't mind asking, but I do mind having to report, or having to ask  
> when I feel I won't get a reply anyway.
>   

I never asked to wait forever if nothing happens, I just thought it 
would be nicer to discuss things like SCI merge etc. first. If the 
discussion would not lead anywhere, I would personally have no problem 
that people working on it take the action and just ignore the rest. 
Maybe I did not express myself clearly about it (or I did not think 
about all connected actions ;-).

> 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".  
> Recently I wonder more and more, "where's the fun in it for me?" It  
> used to be that I was proud because I felt that I helped ScummVM reach  
> new level of portability and extensibility that it couldn't achieve  
> beforehand, that I felt I made a difference by pushing the quality of  
> the project, and by ensuring things just run. But when you have to  
> write reports on that stuff, it suddenly isn't fun anymore.
>
> I feel that I cannot continue work as a team lead under these  
> conditions  -- extending what you wrote above, the position of "team  
> lead" equates to "regular team member who is expected to do all the  
> dirty annoying work and should write reports about it to everybody".  
> If that's the case, then I no longer want this position.
>   

Actually my idea was that everyone would theoretically be possible to 
take up those tasks. As you have shown in the past week(s) it is not the 
case. Just to make myself clear I never said that I just want you to be 
titled "regular team member" and still be doing all the work.

I would just find it sad, that now you do less for ScummVM because of my 
statement :-/. I hope you know that I really appreciate your work.

> As a first consequence, I have decided that I will not act as a GSoC  
> admin this year. I'll be happy to mentor a student, but I will *not*  
> chase after mentors who neglect their job, and push them to ensure  
> their students do any work, in addition to doing the same with  
> students who aren't mine. I feel we really need to improve our  
> mentoring this year, and I'll try to set an example by focusing on my  
> student, and not herding the other mentors and students along.

That really sucks :-/, you did a god job as admin.

// Johannes