Avalon, Commons, once again (Re: Commons Validator Packaging/Content)

[Jeff Turner]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 09:29:18PM +1100, Peter Donald wrote:
...
> > To drive this point home, the subject line of this thread identifies
> > exactly one such set of duplication - between Turbine and Struts.  My
> > nagging lead Berin to propose moving the Avalon collections code into
> > commons, to which you responded, and I quote, "+/- 0".
> 
> I was hoping Jeff would do it as he seemed to be involved over there ;)

I saw the "+/- 0", and that Berin hadn't voted, and then thought of how
this would look to Commons people: as a code "dump"; abandoned by it's
authors, singlehandedly maintained by someone who might disappear at any
moment (from their POV; I'm not going anywhere;). Quite a big ask.

Though if you're okay with it (forking is a bit.. impolite:), I'll make
an attempt sometime late Feb (after holidays.. wheee).

> I have no time atm and no real motiviation to do it. Last time I was
> on the list I watched 3 things be proposed to commons - nobody even
> voted !!! There was no response whatsoever. Apparently Jeff has
> similar comments when he offered some of the avalon bits over there.

'twasn't Avalon code, but yes.. it pains me to think of all those XML
doctype decls flying around, unchanged.. ;)

The lack of project-wide sense of responsibility is the biggest problem
for Commons (and jakarta-taglibs, incidentally). It's something I aim to
help solve the old-fashioned way.

> * I no longer care about duplication and wheel reinvention (it will happen 
> anyway)

Yep, to a degree. Though without a simultaneous commitment to document
the resulting forks/duplications and preferably cull the old code, then
Jon's worst predictions will come true and we can kiss Jakarta goodbye
now. 

> > You can say all you want that you predicted how commons would turn out -
> > but lack of participation by people such as yourself have made such
> > predictions self fulfilling prophesies.
> 
> Heres what sucks about commons;
> 
> 1. People who are not associated with codebase nor ever contributed to it get 
> voting rights over codebase (who needs meritocracy anyways)

Has that turned out to be a problem in practice? Say if you think so,
and we can propose a modification to the charter: "The votes of those
who haven't committed to a project are non-binding".

> 2. Stable packages still have to go via sandbox and go through that whole 
> painful voting process (yet more non-contributors getting votes over codebase)
> 3. Im not a committer

You are. 'donaldp' listed for jakarta-commons and
jakarta-commons-sandbox.


--Jeff

> Change (1) and I will migrate the majority of excaalibur across in time (and 
> bitch and moan till (2)/(3) is changed). Change (1), (2) and (3) and I will 
> move stuff across tomorrow (though still take time to actually do releases).
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> 
> Pete
> 
> ---
>  "Remember, your body is a temple; however, it's also your 
>  dancehall and bowling alley"   -- Dharma Montgomery
> ---
> 
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Re: Avalon, Commons, once again (Re: Commons Validator Packaging/Content)

[Sam Ruby]

Paul Hammont wrote:
>
> There is some romance to extending the 'honor system' to the whole of
> Jakarta.  When we became committers we all treaded tentatively until
> we'd fully earned the respect of the seasoned veterans in the project in
> question.  An 'open' Jakarta would be nice, but even with a code of
> conduct , we'd inevitably get problems with
> incorrect/faulty/inappropriate commits.  How about for those that have
> been here for say two years?

First, this is not an issue that I plan to campaign strongly for.  I doubt
that there is a project or subproject under the Apache umbrella that I
could not get committer status in a relatively short order if I were to
demonstrate a sustained interest in that code base.

Second, a personal side note, possibly humorous to some.  What you
described is pretty much the opposite of how I joined this project.  Tomcat
was plain broken unless you ran on Solaris and with the latest JDK.  Same
thing was true for Watchdog.  Ant was barely useable.  And that was pretty
much all that existed on Jakarta at the time (anybody remember moo?).
Seeing as things were not getting done, and the PMC at the time was very
political and contained a number of non-coder types, I simply went about my
business of correcting what needed to be done.  For a while, I was also the
release manager of all things Jakarta - something that is hard to
comprehend today, but one thing that was for sure, when a release was made
- all the latest versions of everything worked together!

Ant was a particular focus of mine.  For a long stretch, I was essentially
the only committer.  Eventually I found capable successors, and let them
take over.  The reason I bring this up is that my current relation with
that team has evolved.  While I am still a committer, unless I am fairly
certain of what the implications of a change are, I may choose to submit a
patch instead and let someone else determine if my proposed change is the
right way to address a problem.

Third, I happen to have cvsroot authority.  There isn't a codebase around
that, given a sufficient emergency, I wouldn't choose to act first and deal
with the ramifications later.  I don't recall ever having exercised this
authority.

 - - -

Note: none of this contradicts anything you said.  In these circles, I
clearly qualify as a seasoned veteran, and it is exactly because I have
demonstrated enough judgement in these areas that people are willing to
give me more latitude.

- Sam Ruby


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Re: Avalon, Commons, once again (Re: Commons Validator Packaging/Content)

[Paul Hammant]

Sam,

>I have quietly stated several times that I would prefer that a Jakarta
>committer is a Jakarta committer.  Gaging by the response I got each time,
>I figured that then was not the time to push the issue.
>

There is some romance to extending the 'honor system' to the whole of 
Jakarta.  When we became committers we all treaded tentatively until 
we'd fully earned the respect of the seasoned veterans in the project in 
question.  An 'open' Jakarta would be nice, but even with a code of 
conduct , we'd inevitably get problems with 
incorrect/faulty/inappropriate commits.  How about for those that have 
been here for say two years?

Regards,

- Paul H


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Re: Avalon, Commons, once again (Re: Commons Validator Packaging/Content)

[Sam Ruby]

Ted Husted wrote:
>
> As it stands, both are simply subprojects, and so a Commons committer is
> a Commons committer. Ditto for Taglibs.

It is also fair to point out that an Avalon committer is a committer to the
framework itself as well as to testlet, logkit, phoenix, cornerstone,
excalibur, and site.  So, one could draw a conclusion that anybody who
choses not to participate in Commons due to this structure would also chose
to withdraw from Avalon until this is corrected.

> In a way, the Commons and Taglibs subproject represent the other
> approach to Jakarta that people sometimes advocate, but so far a strong
> leader has not stepped up to fulfill the other half of that model.

I have quietly stated several times that I would prefer that a Jakarta
committer is a Jakarta committer.  Gaging by the response I got each time,
I figured that then was not the time to push the issue.

- Sam Ruby


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Re: Avalon, Commons, once again (Re: Commons Validator Packaging/Content)

[Ted Husted]

Jeff Turner wrote:
> Has that turned out to be a problem in practice? Say if you think so,
> and we can propose a modification to the charter: "The votes of those
> who haven't committed to a project are non-binding".

That would be a matter to be discussed on the Commons (and/or Tablibs)
lists., 

As it stands, both are simply subprojects, and so a Commons committer is
a Commons committer. Ditto for Taglibs. 

This was discussed at length when the Commons was founded. The consensus
was that since the Commons is trying to build codebases that can safely
interact with each other, then every Commons Comitter has a vested
interest in every Commons codebase. Another point was that the Commons
(and Taglibs) do not require a full community behind each component, and
so other Committers to the subproject need the karma/authority to step
up as needed.

Of course, you do still need to at least be a Committer to either
subproject to have a binding vote. The expectation is that the community
can handle the decision making in the same way it is handled on a larger
codebase, where Committers have binding votes over parts of the codebase
(packages or classes) that they may never have worked on personally. 

In a way, the Commons and Taglibs subproject represent the other
approach to Jakarta that people sometimes advocate, but so far a strong
leader has not stepped up to fulfill the other half of that model.

-- Ted Husted, Husted dot Com, Fairport NY USA.
-- Building Java web applications with Struts.
-- Tel +1 585 737-3463.
-- Web http://www.husted.com/struts/

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Avalon, Commons, once again (Re: Commons Validator Packaging/Content)

[Jeff Turner]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 09:29:18PM +1100, Peter Donald wrote:
...
> > To drive this point home, the subject line of this thread identifies
> > exactly one such set of duplication - between Turbine and Struts.  My
> > nagging lead Berin to propose moving the Avalon collections code into
> > commons, to which you responded, and I quote, "+/- 0".
> 
> I was hoping Jeff would do it as he seemed to be involved over there ;)

I saw the "+/- 0", and that Berin hadn't voted, and then thought of how
this would look to Commons people: as a code "dump"; abandoned by it's
authors, singlehandedly maintained by someone who might disappear at any
moment (from their POV; I'm not going anywhere;). Quite a big ask.

Though if you're okay with it (forking is a bit.. impolite:), I'll make
an attempt sometime late Feb (after holidays.. wheee).

> I have no time atm and no real motiviation to do it. Last time I was
> on the list I watched 3 things be proposed to commons - nobody even
> voted !!! There was no response whatsoever. Apparently Jeff has
> similar comments when he offered some of the avalon bits over there.

'twasn't Avalon code, but yes.. it pains me to think of all those XML
doctype decls flying around, unchanged.. ;)

The lack of project-wide sense of responsibility is the biggest problem
for Commons (and jakarta-taglibs, incidentally). It's something I aim to
help solve the old-fashioned way.

> * I no longer care about duplication and wheel reinvention (it will happen 
> anyway)

Yep, to a degree. Though without a simultaneous commitment to document
the resulting forks/duplications and preferably cull the old code, then
Jon's worst predictions will come true and we can kiss Jakarta goodbye
now. 

> > You can say all you want that you predicted how commons would turn out -
> > but lack of participation by people such as yourself have made such
> > predictions self fulfilling prophesies.
> 
> Heres what sucks about commons;
> 
> 1. People who are not associated with codebase nor ever contributed to it get 
> voting rights over codebase (who needs meritocracy anyways)

Has that turned out to be a problem in practice? Say if you think so,
and we can propose a modification to the charter: "The votes of those
who haven't committed to a project are non-binding".

> 2. Stable packages still have to go via sandbox and go through that whole 
> painful voting process (yet more non-contributors getting votes over codebase)
> 3. Im not a committer

You are. 'donaldp' listed for jakarta-commons and
jakarta-commons-sandbox.


--Jeff

> Change (1) and I will migrate the majority of excaalibur across in time (and 
> bitch and moan till (2)/(3) is changed). Change (1), (2) and (3) and I will 
> move stuff across tomorrow (though still take time to actually do releases).
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> 
> Pete
> 
> ---
>  "Remember, your body is a temple; however, it's also your 
>  dancehall and bowling alley"   -- Dharma Montgomery
> ---
> 
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:   
> For additional commands, e-mail: 

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