Folks,
After an early announcement today went out to Committers, I felt some
concern over how recent events might be perceived, and the possible impact
on the Avalon community.
My initial message was private to Greg Stein, whose e-mail as ASF Chairman
inspired my note. With his permission, and suggestion, I am reposting my
message to him and his reply. These messages are included below, with the
sole editing to remove a third party's name that I do not feel I should
reveal.
One thing to take away from this exchange: "Is this a wake-up call? Yes. It
says that the ASF requires people to work well with each other. That
collaboration is expected and that the ASF is not to be used as a personal
playground. The ASF needs to have proper oversight of its codebases, and
management of the people working on that code is implied and expected."
A wakeup call, indeed. My expectation is that all ASF projects will see
more ASF oversight than has been the case lately. This is good. One thing
that we should all keep in mind is that although this is Open Source
software, this is serious Open Source. ASF software is not, as Greg said, a
personal playground. We (the larger ASF community) want our software to be
adopted within corporate environments, and accorded the same respect as our
namesake web server. What happened here recently is not conducive to those
goals.
Hopefully these issues are now clearer to everyone, we can all move forward
productively and collaboratively.
--- Noel
-----Original Message-----
From: Noel J. Bergman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 19:33
To: Greg Stein
Subject: The Avalon Mess
Greg,
I am not privy to private e-mails and telephone discussions, but from an
impartial reading of the mail archives, the Avalon problems were more of a
multi-lateral pissing contest than unilaterally caused by Mr. Donald.
Certainly there were issues in the Avalon community. I would appreciate
your reading my own e-mail to the Avalon community:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg16786.html,
posted earlier today.
My concern over the Board decision is multi-fold:
- it appears that he was unfairly singled out
- he may leave in response, which I would consider bad
- those with whom he was in conflict may feel that they
have won, and that their behavior was justified
All of those send the wrong message to the Avalon community.
I am not saying that action should not have been taken, but I believe that
perhaps it would have been better to take an action that did not single out
one person from an N-way discord. There is no question in my mind that the
board did not act lightly, nor that I am not privy to various information,
but I am still very concerned about the messages being perceived by the
community.
In fact, I asked another Avalon Committer [with] whom I've had contact over
the months what his take was, and his response was that he was afraid that
he's next. That anyone opposed to one faction or another is next to be
brought before the ASF board. This is a terrible situation, and was
apparently not put to rest by the Board's action.
I would appreciate such enlightenment as you feel able to provide, and your
thoughts on the consequences.
--- Noel
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Stein [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 23:58
To: Noel J. Bergman
Subject: Re: The Avalon Mess
On Tue, Nov 19, 2002 at 07:33:11PM -0500, Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> Greg,
>
> I am not privy to private e-mails and telephone discussions, but from an
> impartial reading of the mail archives, the Avalon problems were more of a
> multi-lateral pissing contest than unilaterally caused by Mr. Donald.
There are numerous problems in the Avalon community -- I agree that Peter
was not the sole problem. The Avalon PMC was just created as an attempt to
fix some of those problems. The intent is that the PMC will pull everything
back in, sort it out, and move forward with a more unified approach. Nicola
is the Chair, and is relatively distant from the past infighting in the
Avalon community, so he should be a good moderating influence. In addition,
Sam Ruby, Stefano Mazzochi, and myself are on the PMC mailing list to watch
over and assist where necessary.
> Certainly there were issues in the Avalon community. I would appreciate
> your reading my own e-mail to the Avalon community:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg16786.html,
> posted earlier today.
I saw that already :-) A very nice email, and I appreciate that you took
the time to send it.
> My concern over the Board decision is multi-fold:
>
> - it appears that he was unfairly singled out
Peter was not singled out for his problems within Avalon. I don't really
want to go into details, as that would not be proper, but his suspension was
not related to just Avalon.
> - he may leave in response, which I would consider bad
That would be bad, yes, but it is also unacceptable to "put up" with bad
behaviors simply because a person is a long-time, consistent contributor.
The community is much more important than any single individual. As you
noted in your email, the community *has* been damaged. The Board felt that
the new PMC, with appropriate moderation will be able to restore the health
of the community.
> - those with whom he was in conflict may feel that they
> have won, and that their behavior was justified
The community is going to be watched quite carefully over the next few
months, so I don't think bad behaviors are going to be tolerated. Even if
they think they "won", they will still need to collaborate properly.
> All of those send the wrong message to the Avalon community.
We're working on trying to communicate the right message here. Yes, it is
difficult, and it will cause problems within the community. But I believe
that will be temporary, and will be better for Avalon and for the ASF in the
long run.
> I am not saying that action should not have been taken, but I believe that
> perhaps it would have been better to take an action that did not single
out
> one person from an N-way discord. There is no question in my mind that
the
> board did not act lightly, nor that I am not privy to various information,
> but I am still very concerned about the messages being perceived by the
> community.
Yes, I agree. As I said, it wasn't just Avalon, and we will work with the
community on this.
> In fact, I asked another Avalon Committer [with] whom I've had
> contact over the months what his take was, and his response was that he
was
> afraid that he's next. That anyone opposed to one faction or another is
> next to be brought before the ASF board. This is a terrible situation,
and
> was apparently not put to rest by the Board's action.
[He] has absolutely nothing to worry about. Again, the action was not
related specifically to Avalon, so we aren't looking at other Avalon
committers right now. I've emailed with Stephen McConnell quite a bit,
and I feel comfortable that we won't see further issues with Steve.
Is this a wake-up call? Yes. It says that the ASF requires people to work
well with each other. That collaboration is expected and that the ASF is not
to be used as a personal playground. The ASF needs to have proper oversight
of its codebases, and management of the people working on that code is
implied and expected.
> I would appreciate such enlightenment as you feel able to provide, and
your
> thoughts on the consequences.
I hope the above helps. I did not CC avalon-dev since you sent this
privately, but I am quite comfortable with what I've written, so it is okay
if you would like to forward this and to continue the conversation there.
Cheers,
-g
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ... ASF Chairman ... http://www.apache.org/
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