Dalibor Topic wrote: > Stefano Mazzocchi <stefano <at> apache.org> writes: > >> Sometimes some climbers manage to get to the other side to find that >> some people are very welcoming and appreciative of cultural differences >> while others not so much. > > What killed Harmony as the project it was planned to be wasn't people, in my > opinion. Everyone put a lot of effort into it. > > It was stuck in time for months, betwen a non-existent GPLv3, and a > non-existant > ASF third party license policy, without either the ASF having the ability to > accept code under anything other then the apache license, and the FSF having > the > ability to relicense Classpath to apache license exclusively, without screwing > developers of GPLd VMs out of a class library. Everyone was running in > circles. > > Both the ASF and FSF have learned from that failure. ASF figured out that > having > a third party license policy would work greatly in their favour, the FSF > figured > out that they'd better listen to ASF's ideas and make sure GPLv3 and all that > stuff is actually fine. > > Structurally, I'd say that the ASF was not the right place at the right time > to > pull such a project off, since we got stuck so hard on apparently > insurmountable > issues of policy. Same would have most likely happened with the FSF, though, > so > with the hindsight, I think a third party, neutral ground without policies > already cast in stone would have worked out much better. I guess Sun figured > that out, too, and I hope they are successful. > > After the Harmony experience, I don't think that ASF or FSF are the perfect > place for a project that goes wildly beyond their respective constituencies > (i.e. the people who really, really like the one true apache way or the one > true > FSF way). On the other hand, the split has worked in each project's favor, to > some degree. It has also left a lot of people who put their heart in it rather > bitter about the failure to make it all work as planned. > > Maybe one day we'll all meet together and exchange those war stories over > beverages in bar. It's been a great pleasure to help get all of this rolling > with you, Geir, Leo, Davanum, and the other guys, and watch Geir and the team > make Harmony rock.
+100! But there is one thing to be said: I still believe that both the ASF and the FSF have much stronger community nurturing skills than Sun. Sun going GPL is not going to change that *and* will allow "free java" to get to certification faster. So, pretty soon, there will be three, not one, certified FOSS java virtual machines. Don't know about you, I would call that a resounding success for those like us who wanted the ability to see the results of the FOSS development and innovation model applied to the inner workings of a Java virtual machine. And, if in doing so, a more compatible GPLv3 comes along, helped by those like us who would enjoy more license compatibility between the ASF and the FSF, I call that a success as well. So, yes, maybe we could have done it differently, in a more neutral ground. But even so, it wasn't so bad after all :-) -- Stefano.
