On 4/25/06, Frank W. Zammetti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, April 25, 2006 6:45 am, Ted Husted said: <snip/> > > From an ASF perspective, the "community" is not everyone who > > subscribes to the mailing list and downloads the product. The > > community is the set of individuals who contribute to the project, > > both by making helpful posts to the mailing list *and* by contributing > > useful code and documentation. Downloads don't make the product > > possible. Contributions make the product possible. Our customers are > > the contributors, who pay for the product with posts and patches. > > I guess this is one way that I've never quite "got it", as Craig says :) > I view the community as being larger than just those contributing. While > I have no problem affording something "more" to those that contribute, I > think those simply using the product have a stake in it. They can of > course choose to ignore that stake, but they can exercise interest if they > wish. > > For me, the community would be "anyone who has an active interest in how > the project develops". Those that contribute in some way deserve a louder > voice and a bigger say in things, but I don't think contributing is the > only criteria for being in the community. > > But that is my interpretation, I realize it doesn't jive with the ASF > interpretation :)
it feels like this is really the lynchpin of all this. your understanding of the "Struts community" is not the ASF's. your understanding of what the "community" is appears to be the driving principle behind your proposal. so this proposal contains an implicit subtraction of the current definition of "community" to replace it with a broader one. like it or not, when you widen the scope, you are subtracting an intentional limitation set by the ASF. i know, it seems like a fairly simple and nice proposal to make it the standard practice to let all interested parties weigh in on committer nominations, but as you are probably discovering by the responses, there is a significant ideological shift involved. community is critical to the ASF; changing that from "them that do the work" to "all who are interested in the work" is no small thing. committer status is fundamentally two things: a formal recognition that the person is among "them that do the work" (which should already be obvious) and a labor saving device (so the other committers don't have to deal with the person's patches). so as i see it, nominations and votes ought to be a largely superfluous formality, and the opinion of those "interested in shaping the development of the project" but not among "them that do the work" is irrelevant politics (the unfortunately common penalty for popular projects like Struts). > > Over the years, I think there have been exactly two committer > > nominations here that failed, and both times the failed nominees had > > not submitted a single patch. i.e. it was not at all obvious that those two were among "them that do the work". > Question: does submitting a patch have to mean having the patch accepted? > At first glance, the obvious answer is yes, but I'm not so sure it's > really the obvious answer... if someone has submitted a number of patches > that were not committed for reasons other than purely technical (i.e., the > patch will break X), should those patches be considered? <snip/> forgive me for being blunt, but this is nonsense. who wants a committer whose work breaks X? those patches aren't part of the "work" of the project. that's a bummer for the submitter, but this is not about effort or desire or concern or anything other form of interest in a project. it's about merit. if you don't have it, then you are s.o.l. Oh, and if you do have it but insist on changing this to be more about "interest" than "merit" (i.e. you don't "get it"), then you should not be the least surprised when you find a lot of resistance. :) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
