I think the community needs some clarification about what's going on. There's a really concerning shift going on and the story about why is really blurry. I've heard all kinds of wild claims about what's going on.
I've heard people say the ASF is pushing DataStax out because they don't like how much control they have over Cassandra. I've heard other people say DataStax and the ASF aren't getting along. I've heard one person who has pull with a friend in the ASF complained about a feature not getting considered (who also didn't go down the correct path of proposing) kicked and screamed and started the ball rolling for control change. I don't know what's going on, and I doubt the truth is in any of those, the truth is probably somewhere in between. As a former Cassandra MVP and builder of some of the larger Cassandra clusters in the last 3 years I'm concerned. I've been really happy with Jonathan and DataStax's role in the Cassandra community. I think they have done a great job at investing time and money towards the good interest in the project. I think it is unavoidable a single company bootstraps large projects like this into popularity. It's those companies investments who give the ability to grow diversity in later stages. The committer list in my opinion is the most diverse its ever been, hasn't it? Apple is a big player now. I don't think reducing DataStax's role for the sake of diversity is smart. You grow diversity by opening up new opportunities for others. Grow the committer list perhaps. Mentor new people to join that list. You don't kick someone to the curb and hope things improve. You add. I may be way off on what I'm seeing but there's not much to go by but gossip (ahaha :P) and some ASF meeting notes and DataStax blog posts. August 17th 2016 ASF changed the Apache Cassandra chair https://www.apache.org/foundation/records/minutes/2016/board_minutes_2016_08_17.txt "The Board expressed continuing concern that the PMC was not acting independently and that one company had undue influence over the project." August 19th 2016 Jonothan Ellis steps down as chair http://www.datastax.com/2016/08/a-look-back-a-look-forward November 2nd 2016 DataStax moves committers to DSE from Cassandra. http://www.datastax.com/2016/11/serving-customers-serving-the-community I'm really concerned if indeed the ASF is trying to change control and diversity of organizations by reducing DataStax's role. As I said earlier, I've been really happy at the direction DataStax and Jonathan has taken the project and I would much prefer see additional opportunities along side theirs grow instead of subtracting. The ultimate question that's really important is whether DataStax and Jonathan have been steering the project in the right direction. If the answer is yes, then is there really anything broken? Only if the answer is no should change happen, in my opinion. Can someone at the ASF please clarify what is going on? The ASF meeting notes are very concerning. Thank you for listening, Kelly Sommers