Hi Jim, On 2011-08-10, Jim Scott wrote:
> On 8/8/2011 8:34 PM, Curt Arnold wrote: >> I'd be happy to perform the release build or reencrypt the strong >> signing key to another PMC member who wants to help. However, to get >> to that point, it will take people who are motivated to pitch in and >> get things ready for release. Further discussion should be on >> log4net-dev. > Curt, I am more than interested in helping this project move > forward. This sounds great. > However I am not 100% confident that I would be able to do things > exactly to the standard expected so would need some guidance in > providing help if you are interested in having me participate. Don't worry. Most people around here won't know me as I'm just a user of log4net myself and haven't contributed much to it. In 2000 I became involved with the Apache Software Foundation as a committer to Apache Ant - some small build tool nobody knew back then that initially was used to build Tomcat and was later spun out as a separate project. Those familiar with the Java space will know what has grown out of it. After that I've helped out here and there and still am a committer and PMC member at Ant (and a few other places). But when I started I was sure I could never meet the standards of the ASF. One of my first contributions to Ant was some helper code that allowed me to use the small - by then - unknown testing library from inside my builds, the <junit> task. The initial code was quite limited and even a bit hackish in places, it did what I needed and others expanded upon it. What I'm trying to say here is that it is better to have some start, even if not perfect, than nothing at all. A bad implementation may even be a good way to get the community involved. I think Cocoon's founder Stefano Mazzocci once coined "great ideas and crappy code" as the best fertilizer for open source communities. When I wrote the initial version of the code that maps XML elements and attributes to Java objects in Ant using lots of reflection this was the first time I used any class from the Java reflection package. I learned a lot from it and I learned even more from the improvements others made to my code. There is a lot of value in developing in the open. Each time anybody provides a patch to code you've written you learn something new and become a better developer. And the discussions in most communities are very very fruitful, there are very few jerks around the ASF. Again, don't worry, just jump in, the water is fine. Stefan
