Frank W. Zammetti wrote:
You are of course right about this. But, much like taking the ideas about
inventory control and order processing and such from Dell and starting
your own business is possible, the likelihood that you would get anything
but a small fraction of the attention and business that Dell gets is slim
to none.
Not to sidle in where I don't really belong but perhaps this last
sentence exemplifies the disconnect with "getting it"? If one wanted to
take the code from an apache project and do something else with it then
all they care about is the something else they want to do. It isn't
really a "business"... the code exists for the code's sake.
I'm not a committer but I've been following this list and the tomcat dev
list since the last millennium... I think before there even was a struts
1.0. I can't speak in an official capacity, I can't even pretend, but
here is my take on the "apache way".
For an open source project to exist you need code. All of apache
projects seem to exist to benefit the code... and by extension the
documentation. Though, even without documentation you still have the
code. All of the other stuff is extraneous or the life support system
depending on how you look at it. I think most of the "apache way" is
partially considering it to be extraneous... in a "if the code goes sour
and you have nothing" sort of way. It's definitely symbiotic but
without the code, you have nothing. You might as well be chatting on
myspace.com.
So, the only reason to be a committer is to contribute to the
codebase... and all other committers have to live with each other. The
only reason to be able to cast a binding vote is if you have a stake in
the code... ie: are a committer.
Which doesn't mean that other votes don't count... that's up to how the
committers want to appeal to the community. But ultimately, they have
to live with what the decide so it makes sense that they have the final
word.
Bottom line: if a person isn't contributing to code and documentation in
a way that the other committers are comfortable with then that person
shouldn't be a committer on the project. There is no other reason for
being a committer.
My personal (and probably unneeded) opinion on the original subject:
From my perspective, nominations don't matter so much... as I recall
someone could nominate themselves. If that person hasn't been
contributing code then there is no reason to think they will become a
committer.
It would be nice if the process were a little more transparent as it
would be interesting to know who was proposed, accepted, rejected, etc.
even if we didn't know why. (Though, even counter to that it was nice
to know that someone who contributed to another apache project and
stomped all over my contributed implementation because they didn't
bother to patch to head was at least a controversial nomination. But
that's sort of personal and isolated reason for wanting to see the dirty
laundry.)
I guess I have trouble seeing how things could be improved much by your
proposal... especially since I understood there to be nothing wrong with
nominations coming from anywhere. It was just explained to be easier
with a committer's support. I don't follow this list too closely, so
maybe I missed someone who has been contributing lots of stuff and still
was overlooked.
-Paul
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