[Cryptech Core] process violation!

[Peter Stuge]

Leif Johansson wrote:
> > The protocol must be changed if the project is incapable of following it.

Does anyone actually disagree with this?


> > I received some very good advice once; to not apologize. Think about it.
> 
> not sure if you were arguing for or against, left or right, or up or
> down :-)

I'll explain it then. An apology is neither adequate nor useful, so
think ahead instead, so that no apology is needed.


> mistakes happen and as mistakes go this was not a very big one imo

I don't think that attitude helps the project's credibility.

Protocol and processes exist to minimize errors. They can't catch all
errors, but many, maybe even most.

I don't think different breaches of protocol/process have different
severity.

I am not even remotely suggesting that including Heather (hi!) in the
core group is a mistake - I have no opinion about that - and I wish
that everyone understands that this is not the issue at all.


> lets move on

Again not helpful for project credibility. To me this sounds like you
are suggesting that it doesn't matter that protocol/process was ignored
and things can continue as they were. I disagree with that. As I wrote,
I think the project needs to re-evaluate what promises it is capable
of making, and be open about that internally as well as externally.


> >> crunch time
> > 
> > That's even more ridiculous. If the project can not sustain itself
> > without "crunch time before make-or-break deadline" then I think
> 
> fwiw the project was never meant to be a long-term self-sustaining
> thing and was meant to go away as a concerted effort after 2-3 years

2-3 years is unrealistic, but regardless of project runtime I think
it's important for the project to be sustainable. Not in the sense
that it will be able to sell what it produces - but in the sense that
sufficient funding is secured to achieve what was originally planned.
With sufficient funding there's no need for crunch time, so if there's
crunch time, then the project is underfunded. :\


> to me it makes perfect sense for a start-up to have multiple crunch times

If a project is underfunded then I think it's very important not to
push responsibility onto individuals (neither in the funding nor in
the engineering departments!) but for the project as a whole to own
the problem, and restructure itself so that it can either continue in
a different shape, or be terminated because the original goal turned
out too difficult to achieve.


That said - let's stay with the more important topic. There are no
good reasons to ignore protocol/process, but "crunch time" is a
particularly reason because it is very easy to make a project
constantly crunch, and then protocol/process is suddenly constantly
less important - in fact, protocol/process becomes irrelevant.

At the very least, the project needs to be honest with itself about
what it can and can not do and which protocol/process it can and
can not stick to and also communicate that outwards, to uphold credibility.


//Peter