Vladimir Bossicard wrote:
>
> > Apache is and has always been selective for a reason: we value
> > communities more than software and it takes a lot of energy to build a
> > community solid enough to build good enough software to pay back Apache
> > for the risk of diluting the brand each time a new effort is added.
>
> The question is: what comes first? Do you first need a good software
> and then build a community around it or the opposite?
In my experience, OSS communities never develop without software and
without one individual to step to the plate and make things happening.
> Apache.org value communities and that's fine. But how do you build such
> a strong community when you just start a new project? You have no
> functional application, no developers and no users.
Ask Linus, ask Larry, ask Guido, ask every single individual who was
able to create a community out of its own energy.
And look at Log4j, look at POI, look at BCEL, look at Lucene, look at
FOP, look at XIndice, just to name a few: they were all able to build a
community on their own, thus they were entitled to get in.
Apache is not an ivory tower, Paul, is just seriously concerned about
the balance between energy that goes *to* a project and energy that
comes *back*.
In order cross-pollinate between communities and in order for them to
scale (in size and number), we must be *very* concerned about this
balance, between social energy that we have to give to the project to
bootstrap and how much of this comes back, possibly amplified.
Sourceforge (and GNU, for what matters) don't care if projects die, we
do. In fact, it's a rare event that a software project hosted under
Apache dies out.
> I think that SourceForge is a real great tool if you want to start
> something new without knowing if it's a good idea, if it will be used
> and supported by other developers. If it fails... well you have at
> least tried. But SourceForge is not a community where people can
> exchange advises and experiences. It's basically "do all mistakes
> yourself".
>
> You cannot start a serious project without having CVS, ML, bug tracking
> and release directory and SourceForge offers that for free, without
> having to ask for an Apache account (it will be rejected due to the lack
> of developers/users anyway).
>
> If Apache wants to attract more projects/developers, I think that it can
> use SourceForge's ressources (CVS...) and play more a mentoring/advisor
> role.
Using Jon's terms: thansk for volunteering.
In case you didn't notice, mentoring/advising is a very time-intensive
role.
What you say is perfect: there is room for something in between Apache
and SourceForge and ApacheForge would fit that role.
But the lack of *resources*, expecially human resources (even if the
technical ones will be very hard to find too, believe me!), will destroy
the issue from day one.
So:
*if* we had the human resources
*if* we had a way to protect the brand (with a different domain name so
that people have @apacheforge.org accounts and not @apache.org which are
a different thing)
*if* we had the technical resources
*if* we had a serious rating system that would indicate when a project
is *healthy* enough to be brought to apache.org
*if* we thought this was valuable to the entire ASF effort
then apacheforge.org would be a good idea.
Unfortunately, not a single of those *if* is satisfied.
> If you're a hockey team, you need farm teams to let young players make
> their experiences. But young players need coaches.
And coaches have families, need to eat, sleep and have a life.
And a few coaches can't mentor a thousand projects effectively.
So, we choose to stay at the window and do recruiting as the big teams
do, instead of using our scarce resources to build our 'incubating'
teams.
Painting this as an ivory tower is, IMHO, a clear misunderstanding of
the Apache spirit.
--
Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be
able to give birth to a dancing star.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Friedrich Nietzsche
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