There are a lot of differences between how Apache projects are managed
and how OOo services have been managed in the past. This is one where
the actual policies seem to be very similar; however the normal practice
is very different.
----
At Apache, anyone who signs an iCLA [1] must provide the ASF with their
real name. This is to ensure that the ASF knows specifically who is
signing the document. Signing an iCLA is a required before anyone can
become a voted in as a committer.
When you sign an iCLA, you may optionally specify a "Public name", which
is what Apache displays as public information associated with your
Apache id (if/when you get one). Thus by policy, Apache allows
contributors to maintain a public pseudonym, although officially Apache
does need to know (privately) your real name.
In terms of actual practice, please note that very few committers at
Apache use a public pseudonym like this. More than 98% of our
committers use their real name, and most of them sign their real names
in most emails.
In terms of flames and spam, this generally works fine for Apache
committers. In terms of community, this allows your reputation to build
associated to you, as your real name, and not to an alias.
----
I think there are several subtle differences here between the typical
Apache community and what (I think) much of the OOo forum community is:
- The OOo users are typically end-users, and not developers. Thus I can
imagine (but don't know; I'm just guessing) that the users more
frequently resort to flames and ad hominem attacks.
- OOo forum users and admins prefer forums. I'd guess (but again; I
don't know) that as a whole they don't have as efficient spam traps and
mail filters as most Apache committers do. Thus I could see how it
would be more difficult to manage flames coming to your personal account
there, whereas in the majority of Apache communities it's not a
significant issue (in part, because the community as a whole works to
correct this kind of behavior).
- The OOo end-user community seems less tightly coupled with the project
future than a typical Apache user community is. Many Apache users could
and might submit a bugzilla entry after seeking help for a while on a
users@ list. It seems that most OOo end-users would not do this, they
really only want the answer to their question and no more.
It would be helpful to get a better understanding here, on ooo-dev@, of
how the forums really work, and how much information actually does (or
should) come back from the forum to the project developers.
- Shane
[1] Individual Contributor License Agreement, which licenses to the ASF
your contributions under the Apache License. NOTE: No copyright
assignment is asked or needed here!
http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas
On 9/5/2011 6:30 PM, Hagar Delest wrote:
I guess it's for me.
I'd like to keep my real life separated from my OOo activity.
But the forum admins know it.
Hagar
Le mar. 06 sept. 2011 00:23:45 CEST, eric b <eric.bach...@free.fr> a
écrit :
Hi,
Just curious: what is your real name ?
Regards,
Eric Bachard
