[Tinyos-alliance] TinyOS alliance - my point of view.

[Matt Welsh]

In my experience with various open source projects, it is best to start
small and allow the organization to grow organically to meet the
community needs. Putting a lot of structure in place at the beginning
can be too rigid and make it difficult for people to feel welcome to
join in. If our goal is to have a meritocracy where individuals become
affiliated through contributions, the structure needs to invite those
contributions.

Some points of note. The original Debian project got hung up for about a
year with infighting about the internal political structure (membership,
voting, etc.) and didn't get much done in terms of technical work until
those issues were cleared. In contrast, Apache started with an existing
developer community and imposed structure later, only as needed. I
greatly prefer this latter approach as it sustains momentum.

I suggest that we start with a minimal and flexible structure and expand
it as it becomes more clear what its role is and what the community's
needs are. There is a clear need to establish stewardship of the TinyOS
codebase and release cycle. It is less clear (to me) that our initial
plans should necessarily encompass standards and testing, since those
are hot-button topics that can easily become sticking points to
progress. However, such an effort would be an excellent candidate for a
working group within the alliance.

Also, it is worth keeping in mind that whatever structure we design, it
will only work if there are enough people with time and energy to make
it happen. We should be asking ourselves what our expectations are for
the number and roles of the potential members.

Matt