--- Shane Curcuru <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hmmm. A couple of comments.
Very good comments! A few more follow. > Have folks here read > http://www.apache.org/foundation/bylaws.html yet? > If not, you really need to (well, skim it, plus the > opening paras on > the /foundation/ page). > > The ASF (Apache Software Foundation) is an > 'official' non-profit > corporation under Delaware, US laws. It is > membership-based, rather > than share based, and Members of the ASF are > essentially the > stockholders of the corporation itself. Membership > carries a number of > legal responsibilities, along with whatever moral or > technical ones > that Members feel towards both the ASF itself and > towards it's > component projects (or subprojects, etc., or bits of > code, or > communities). > > You should read on the /foundation/ page why the ASF > exists; I can add > my 2cents. Legally, it's there so that committers > don't get sued; > since the ASF owns the code, any suit would be > brought against *it* > instead (this can be important in the US at least > 8-). > > Organizationally it's there to provide the actively > managed framework > that holds this all together. In one way, it's the > thing that > differentiates the ASF from sourceforge: sourceforge > may provide plenty > of project hosting services, but the ASF also > provides a sense of > mission, community, and guidelines that help keep it > more focused. I > believe the very fact that we are more organized (or > at least the > belief or appearance thereof) is what draws both > cool people to > contribute here, as well as draws other > contributions - like servers, > bandwith, and a crack root@ team who keeps it all > running as > volunteers. > > So in my mind membership and committership are > different things : > members think much more strategically about the > whole of the ASF, not > just individual bits of code or communities. > > Some other random notes: > -- While the members can and will decide how the ASF > runs (it's a legal > responsibility to do so), don't worry, we really do > care about what the > committers think! (Many/most/all?) Members believe > that it is the > communities of committers (and regular users) that > make the ASF strong, > and we definitely want to keep them going. I think the members by and large care about what the committers think, but sometimes they do a poor job of soliciting those opinions. I think they're too close to it, and they forget that forums like "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" are closed to many of us. Hopefully the attitude is not, "if you can't vote on it, you don't need to know about it." > -- We all shape the ASF through our contributions. > If you care, then > read up on the existing topics on reorg@ or > community@ and respond - we > have a lot of people doing that already. Just > remember, if you have a > great idea and someone takes you up on it, you need > to follow through > and help out with it - hopefully in an organized > fashion. I think those lists are great and are helping us understand a lot more about the Apache process. > -- There's a lot of stuff that is happening, and > plenty more that may > happen. Lots of people are trying to all share > ideas at the same time. > And we're all volunteering here in some way or > another, so it's hard > to keep up. Unfortunately I've also seen a lot of > miscommunication or > people responding without really reading the rest of > the email chain, > which makes for a lot more worries and bad feelings > than I think are > really due. > > -- Not being a jakarta 'regular', it's a little > difficult to judge the > mood here. But I believe that many of the > jakartaites who are > participating are more worried than they should be. > We'll have plenty > more discussion before we decide on a way to > reorganize how the ASF > works (if we even do make changes), and we'll > definitely want to keep > the jakarta community strong. Great! I think one of the simplest ways to alleviate concerns of Jakarta folks is to foster more proportionate membership in the ASF, as Roy suggested. By the way, a certain PMC member (can I say which? :) has offered to sponsor my application, so hopefully I'll be able to do my part to bring Jakarta into the fold. > The central 'Commons' project is *not* a replacement > for > jakarta-commons; IMO it's quite a different beast > (although > complimentary); likewise the central 'Inbubator' > project should *not* > be a replacement for jakarta-commons-sandbox, but > again, should be > complimentary. And why don't they have much > documentation yet? > Because people haven't had time to write it up yet! > I don't think most > things happen in 'secret', it's just that we don't > always get around to > documenting stuff publicly as soon as we should - > since in an > all-volunteer organization, it takes longer to do > things sometimes. Here I have to disagree. I think a public discussion should be a prerequisite to new project approval. Elements like charter points and PMC members are _much_ more difficult to alter after a project is approved. Especially for projects like Commons, which clearly tie to existing communities. Jakarta Commons is a very active community and our charter was created very deliberately; I think we would have had a lot to offer to the discussion. And I don't think that j-c has a monopoly here; projects like Commons are relevant to all committers. > - Shane > Disclaimers: ASF Member; xml-xalan, xml-commons > committer; IBM > Employee; Massachusetts, USA resident; lover of bad > puns and cats. > > ===== > - Shane > > <eof .sig="'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, > in a very scornful tone, 'it means just what I > choose it to mean - neither more nor less'" > "Oohayu oyod?!"=gis. /> > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site > http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > <mailto:general-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> > For additional commands, e-mail: > <mailto:general-help@;jakarta.apache.org> > ===== Morgan Delagrange http://jakarta.apache.org/taglibs http://jakarta.apache.org/commons http://axion.tigris.org http://jakarta.apache.org/watchdog __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your web site http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:general-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:general-help@;jakarta.apache.org>
