[llvm-dev] LLVM Discourse migration: goals justify means?

[David Chisnall via llvm-dev]

On 27/01/2022 00:47, Philip Reames via llvm-dev wrote:
> I want to chime in to say that Roman is definitely not alone in his 
> impressions here.  I have previously shared my objections to the 
> original proposal, and will not repeat myself.
> 
> I don't have the energy to engage in this discussion, and have already 
> decided to put up with this and deal with the fallout. Given that, 
> please do not expect further response from me on this topic.

I would like to make sure that we separate the two issues here:

  - The decision to move to Discourse.
  - The way in which decisions are made for the project.

There are a lot of problems with LLVM mailing lists.  People don't know 
which lists to post things on, things are cross-posted to cfe-dev and 
llvm-dev (for example) but not all replies go to both, which makes 
following discussions difficult because they essentially end up in two 
forks.  Some things only go to llvm-dev, so you have to subscribe to the 
fire hose and try to skip the 90% of messages that are likely to be 
irrelevant to you.

Given how low the bar is for the starting point, Discourse seems like it 
is definitely a less bad solution.  I'm even willing to accept that it 
is the least-bad solution currently available.

That said, I completely agree with the comments by Roman, Philip, and 
Renato in this thread.  This is not the first decision where my 
perception of the consensus of the broader LLVM community and the 
consensus of the folks that turn up to Silicon Valley socials have been 
in opposite directions and the group in the valley's decision has been 
pushed through with everyone else then having to live with the fallout.

There is a significant need for a more transparent decision process that 
reflects all stakeholders on multiple axes:

  - Industrial, academic, or individual contributors.
  - Contributors to core LLVM libraries, to tightly coupled components 
and to largely independent projects.
  - Direct LLVM contributors and downstream consumers.
  - Groups shipping a complete LLVM toolchain and those shipping some 
LLVM components.

The LLVM Foundation board is heavily skewed in most of these axes and, 
as a self-selecting entity, is not likely to address this without an 
intentional policy of doing so and without a broader effort to 
explicitly engage with the segments of the LLVM community that are not 
directly represented.

David