You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to dev@esme.apache.org by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org> on 2009/05/02 16:51:32 UTC
Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum or
community
Hi,
That's what David Pollak says here:
http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?url=archives/93-In-defense-of-DHH-the-Rails-comminity.html
I'm happy to discuss this on this list.
As an incubation mentor I've tried to give advice when it makes sense,
while also staying out of the way. If people want something else,
let's talk about it.
-Bertrand ("kinda" disappointed to read such a blanket statement with
no prior discussion here)
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Erik Engbrecht <er...@gmail.com>.
Basically the sponsoring company starts paying a developer to start hacking
a submit patches. Eventually he should rise through the meritocracy and
become a committer. Given the current level of activity on ESME and
assuming the developer is decent that shouldn't take long.
I don't think ASF does anything special with regards to sponsorship other
than provide a neutral ground for contributions and a framework that I think
can make corporations feel a little more comfortable with the idea of
letting their IP go out the door.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe <yo...@gmail.com>wrote:
> I have a question for Erik.
>
> In a comment on David's post you say:
> "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some other
> sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit with
> other ASF projects."
>
> How does this sponsorship work?
> Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?
>
> /Anne
>
>
> On 3. mai. 2009, at 11.25, Richard Hirsch wrote:
>
> I agree with Vassil in that the main issue deals with the creation of
>> exceptional open-source code and the different ways to build the community
>> to support such code. Much of the debate revolving around the ASF concerns
>> unspoken expectations - what should / can ASF provide emerging projects.
>> As
>> Gianugo puts it
>>
>> The actual community building is however a task for the project itself:
>>> the
>>> ASF isn't Midas and won't be able to
>>> turn an unattractive project into sexy stuff that gathers time and
>>> enthusiasm from volunteers.
>>>
>>
>>
>> IMHO, the ASF provides the structure - based on years of experience - and
>> infrastructure to support such communities. I
>> think all open-source projects want to succeed. There is always some
>> hidden
>> hope that the ASF's Midas touch will lead to a stream of new developers
>> contributing to this success. I think in the ASF the focus is on doing
>> things the "Apache" way as a means of creating this community. Although
>> ASF
>> can provide guidance based upon what has been successful in other Apache
>> projects, it can't be expected to do the grunt work for all its projects.
>> We could expect more "lessons learned" from other ASF projects coming from
>> the mentors but the actual application of these ideas has to come from us.
>>
>> Speaking of grunt work, we should probably be considering what to do about
>> the necessity of rewriting the ESME codebase as David and Erik describe.
>> We
>> can have the best wiki in the ASF but ESME is a software project and
>> without
>> a solid code base we aren't going to get very far.
>>
>> D.
>>
>> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Vassil Dichev <vd...@apache.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Without trying to get into David's mind, I'd like to point out that
>>> David's blog post was more of a reaction to defend the Rails
>>> community. I must say it's possible to get the point across even
>>> without the unfortunate comparison with the ASF. The point is this:
>>> it's hard writing exceptional software. I think you both agree on one
>>> count: even guidance and support don't guarantee a groundbreaking
>>> software project. If success was easy to reproduce, someone would have
>>> discovered a way of generating groundbreaking software projects on a
>>> mass scale.
>>>
>>> Now I don't think that a software project has to be groundbreaking to
>>> be useful. I have no illusions that ESME is destined to be as
>>> groundbreaking as e.g. Rails. I still hope it has the chance to be
>>> useful.
>>>
>>> With that said, I hope that any heated arguments originating from the
>>> Rails scandal are over soon, because there are probably no two people
>>> who agree on which software is useful or groundbreaking. And the time
>>> and effort spent in a discussion like this could be spent creating
>>> software.
>>>
>>> Vassil
>>>
>>>
>
--
http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by David Pollak <fe...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 7:07 PM, David Pollak
> <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
> > g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe
> >> <yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > I have a question for Erik.
> >> >
> >> > In a comment on David's post you say:
> >> > "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some
> >> other
> >> > sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit
> with
> >> > other ASF projects."
> >> >
> >> > How does this sponsorship work?
> >> > Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?
> >>
> >> Anne,
> >>
> >> I'm walking a fine line here, so full disclosure first (and apologies
> >> if it's perceived as spam): my company provides, among others, those
> >> kind of services and we have been, although in a somewhat different
> >> way, doing something very similar to sponsored work on another Apache
> >> project (POI) on behalf of a "sponsor" (Microsoft). I won't abuse any
> >> further of the public list, but feel free to contact me if you want to
> >> know more about what we did over there.
> >
> >
> > ESME is not a corporate sponsored project. It's not a project funded by
> the
> > likes of Microsoft, SAP, etc. It's a community effort.
>
> FTR, neither is POI.
>
> > If I were to choose
> > a firm to help guide ESME, I'd recommend RedMonk. Why? Because the
> RedMonk
> > folks are very good and have already participated in ESME (plus there are
> > good personal relationships.)
>
> RedMonk as in the analyst RedMonk? They can definitely be helpful,
> although that kinda collides with the idea of having more developers.
> Anyway, they are good blokes indeed and I would suggest them to anyone
> who needs analyst help with Open Source stuff..
>
> > If you want to demonstrate that you've got any value to offer other than
> > trying to suck money out of Anne's budget for your services and piss on
> me,
> > perhaps you can be positive about helping to analyze ESME and what this
> > project needs to succeed in the ASF and beyond... without any corporate
> > support.
>
> Whatever, David. I knew my disclaimer could have been read as a plug,
> but I just prefer being over-transparent. Making my point without
> noting that I happen to make a living out of those services Anne was
> inquiring for would have been dodgy. For now, you're getting my free
> time and attention, and I'm still more than happy to help ESME out,
So far, I have seen no value from your time and attention. I have seen some
significant costs associated with your posts.
Are you willing to help with what ESME needs? Are you willing to mentor
Anne and Dick in their leadership role of this project? What value do you
have to help manage the energy and momentum of this project?
>
> assuming we can find a way to move on without throwing insults. I just
> have much better things to do than stay in front of pointless
> mudslinging.
>
> --
> Gianugo Rabellino
> M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
> Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
>
--
Lift, the simply functional web framework http://liftweb.net
Beginning Scala http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430219890
Follow me: http://twitter.com/dpp
Git some: http://github.com/dpp
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <g....@sourcesense.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 7:07 PM, David Pollak
<fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
> g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe
>> <yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I have a question for Erik.
>> >
>> > In a comment on David's post you say:
>> > "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some
>> other
>> > sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit with
>> > other ASF projects."
>> >
>> > How does this sponsorship work?
>> > Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?
>>
>> Anne,
>>
>> I'm walking a fine line here, so full disclosure first (and apologies
>> if it's perceived as spam): my company provides, among others, those
>> kind of services and we have been, although in a somewhat different
>> way, doing something very similar to sponsored work on another Apache
>> project (POI) on behalf of a "sponsor" (Microsoft). I won't abuse any
>> further of the public list, but feel free to contact me if you want to
>> know more about what we did over there.
>
>
> ESME is not a corporate sponsored project. It's not a project funded by the
> likes of Microsoft, SAP, etc. It's a community effort.
FTR, neither is POI.
> If I were to choose
> a firm to help guide ESME, I'd recommend RedMonk. Why? Because the RedMonk
> folks are very good and have already participated in ESME (plus there are
> good personal relationships.)
RedMonk as in the analyst RedMonk? They can definitely be helpful,
although that kinda collides with the idea of having more developers.
Anyway, they are good blokes indeed and I would suggest them to anyone
who needs analyst help with Open Source stuff..
> If you want to demonstrate that you've got any value to offer other than
> trying to suck money out of Anne's budget for your services and piss on me,
> perhaps you can be positive about helping to analyze ESME and what this
> project needs to succeed in the ASF and beyond... without any corporate
> support.
Whatever, David. I knew my disclaimer could have been read as a plug,
but I just prefer being over-transparent. Making my point without
noting that I happen to make a living out of those services Anne was
inquiring for would have been dodgy. For now, you're getting my free
time and attention, and I'm still more than happy to help ESME out,
assuming we can find a way to move on without throwing insults. I just
have much better things to do than stay in front of pointless
mudslinging.
--
Gianugo Rabellino
M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by David Pollak <fe...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe
> <yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have a question for Erik.
> >
> > In a comment on David's post you say:
> > "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some
> other
> > sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit with
> > other ASF projects."
> >
> > How does this sponsorship work?
> > Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?
>
> Anne,
>
> I'm walking a fine line here, so full disclosure first (and apologies
> if it's perceived as spam): my company provides, among others, those
> kind of services and we have been, although in a somewhat different
> way, doing something very similar to sponsored work on another Apache
> project (POI) on behalf of a "sponsor" (Microsoft). I won't abuse any
> further of the public list, but feel free to contact me if you want to
> know more about what we did over there.
ESME is not a corporate sponsored project. It's not a project funded by the
likes of Microsoft, SAP, etc. It's a community effort. If I were to choose
a firm to help guide ESME, I'd recommend RedMonk. Why? Because the RedMonk
folks are very good and have already participated in ESME (plus there are
good personal relationships.)
If you want to demonstrate that you've got any value to offer other than
trying to suck money out of Anne's budget for your services and piss on me,
perhaps you can be positive about helping to analyze ESME and what this
project needs to succeed in the ASF and beyond... without any corporate
support.
Oh, and yes, I do have experience building open source communities.
>
>
> There are loads of issues to be aware of, and Bertrand correctly
> summarized the most relevant, but it's absolutely kosher to hire third
> parties to develop code that might eventually land in Apache (if the
> community agrees, and if the _individuals_ who are writing it manage
> to earn their way into the community). Actually, the Apache license is
> designed with that kind of flexibility in mind, and the Apache
> community is built on top of a great ecosystem which takes all sort of
> collaboration into account, including corporate employees,
> contractors, sponsors, services companies, consultants, students and
> geeks. We know and understand that the vast majority of code that
> lands @ the ASF has someone footing the bill, but the Foundation goes
> at extreme length to make sure that such contributions are handled in
> a community-friendly way with all the Apache magic (meritocracy,
> community over code, etc...) in mind.
>
> So, in short: money can buy development time, and that in turn can buy
> you (indirectly!) community outreach and help in building momentum
> towards a successful project. It's an added bonus for that development
> time to be invested in an Apache-friendly way (i.e. no "code dumps",
> people participating to the discussion, meritocracy and all that), as
> otherwise you would run the risk of seeing contributions being turned
> down. What money will not buy you is any particular ASF love, cut
> corners, graduation or bent rules: actually, doing it right might
> require some additional scrutiny (e.g. the "three indipendent business
> entities backing the project" might require some review if you were to
> hire a third party to actually work on your behalf), but it might also
> help building an open and diverse community which is able to withstand
> the test of time.
>
> HTH,
>
> --
> Gianugo Rabellino
> M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
> Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
>
--
Lift, the simply functional web framework http://liftweb.net
Beginning Scala http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430219890
Follow me: http://twitter.com/dpp
Git some: http://github.com/dpp
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <g....@sourcesense.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe
<yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a question for Erik.
>
> In a comment on David's post you say:
> "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some other
> sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit with
> other ASF projects."
>
> How does this sponsorship work?
> Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?
Anne,
I'm walking a fine line here, so full disclosure first (and apologies
if it's perceived as spam): my company provides, among others, those
kind of services and we have been, although in a somewhat different
way, doing something very similar to sponsored work on another Apache
project (POI) on behalf of a "sponsor" (Microsoft). I won't abuse any
further of the public list, but feel free to contact me if you want to
know more about what we did over there.
There are loads of issues to be aware of, and Bertrand correctly
summarized the most relevant, but it's absolutely kosher to hire third
parties to develop code that might eventually land in Apache (if the
community agrees, and if the _individuals_ who are writing it manage
to earn their way into the community). Actually, the Apache license is
designed with that kind of flexibility in mind, and the Apache
community is built on top of a great ecosystem which takes all sort of
collaboration into account, including corporate employees,
contractors, sponsors, services companies, consultants, students and
geeks. We know and understand that the vast majority of code that
lands @ the ASF has someone footing the bill, but the Foundation goes
at extreme length to make sure that such contributions are handled in
a community-friendly way with all the Apache magic (meritocracy,
community over code, etc...) in mind.
So, in short: money can buy development time, and that in turn can buy
you (indirectly!) community outreach and help in building momentum
towards a successful project. It's an added bonus for that development
time to be invested in an Apache-friendly way (i.e. no "code dumps",
people participating to the discussion, meritocracy and all that), as
otherwise you would run the risk of seeing contributions being turned
down. What money will not buy you is any particular ASF love, cut
corners, graduation or bent rules: actually, doing it right might
require some additional scrutiny (e.g. the "three indipendent business
entities backing the project" might require some review if you were to
hire a third party to actually work on your behalf), but it might also
help building an open and diverse community which is able to withstand
the test of time.
HTH,
--
Gianugo Rabellino
M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe
<yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...I have a question for Erik.
>
> In a comment on David's post you say:
> "I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some other
> sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would fit with
> other ASF projects."
>
> How does this sponsorship work?
> Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?...
It's not uncommon for ASF developers to work on projects in their work
time, and I think in the last few years this has become much more
common.
The important thing is that the ASF is not involved with this in any
way - if a company wants to hire a developer or contractor to work on
ASF software, they are free to do so, but ASF projects involve
individuals, not companies.
>From the ASF's perspective, what is important is that project
decisions are made by individuals and not companies. To graduate from
the incubator, a project needs at least three committers who are
independent from each other in a business sense, i.e. employed by
independent companies or self-employed.
To take a concrete example, if a company were to hire someone to work
on ESME, and that someone is not currently active on the project, that
person would have to prove their merit and follow the usual process to
become a committer - there's no way for someone to "buy a seat" in an
ASF project.
-Bertrand
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum or community
Posted by Anne Kathrine Petteroe <yo...@gmail.com>.
I have a question for Erik.
In a comment on David's post you say:
"I just don't see the path, other than perhaps Siemens, SAP, or some
other sponsor paying people to write the code. Which, of course, would
fit with other ASF projects."
How does this sponsorship work?
Does ASF have projects which are commercial open source?
/Anne
On 3. mai. 2009, at 11.25, Richard Hirsch wrote:
> I agree with Vassil in that the main issue deals with the creation of
> exceptional open-source code and the different ways to build the
> community
> to support such code. Much of the debate revolving around the ASF
> concerns
> unspoken expectations - what should / can ASF provide emerging
> projects. As
> Gianugo puts it
>
>> The actual community building is however a task for the project
>> itself: the
>> ASF isn't Midas and won't be able to
>> turn an unattractive project into sexy stuff that gathers time and
>> enthusiasm from volunteers.
>
>
> IMHO, the ASF provides the structure - based on years of experience
> - and
> infrastructure to support such communities. I
> think all open-source projects want to succeed. There is always some
> hidden
> hope that the ASF's Midas touch will lead to a stream of new
> developers
> contributing to this success. I think in the ASF the focus is on
> doing
> things the "Apache" way as a means of creating this community.
> Although ASF
> can provide guidance based upon what has been successful in other
> Apache
> projects, it can't be expected to do the grunt work for all its
> projects.
> We could expect more "lessons learned" from other ASF projects
> coming from
> the mentors but the actual application of these ideas has to come
> from us.
>
> Speaking of grunt work, we should probably be considering what to do
> about
> the necessity of rewriting the ESME codebase as David and Erik
> describe. We
> can have the best wiki in the ASF but ESME is a software project and
> without
> a solid code base we aren't going to get very far.
>
> D.
>
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Vassil Dichev <vd...@apache.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Without trying to get into David's mind, I'd like to point out that
>> David's blog post was more of a reaction to defend the Rails
>> community. I must say it's possible to get the point across even
>> without the unfortunate comparison with the ASF. The point is this:
>> it's hard writing exceptional software. I think you both agree on one
>> count: even guidance and support don't guarantee a groundbreaking
>> software project. If success was easy to reproduce, someone would
>> have
>> discovered a way of generating groundbreaking software projects on a
>> mass scale.
>>
>> Now I don't think that a software project has to be groundbreaking to
>> be useful. I have no illusions that ESME is destined to be as
>> groundbreaking as e.g. Rails. I still hope it has the chance to be
>> useful.
>>
>> With that said, I hope that any heated arguments originating from the
>> Rails scandal are over soon, because there are probably no two people
>> who agree on which software is useful or groundbreaking. And the time
>> and effort spent in a discussion like this could be spent creating
>> software.
>>
>> Vassil
>>
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by David Pollak <fe...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:25 AM, Richard Hirsch <hi...@gmail.com>wrote:
> I agree with Vassil in that the main issue deals with the creation of
> exceptional open-source code and the different ways to build the community
> to support such code. Much of the debate revolving around the ASF concerns
> unspoken expectations - what should / can ASF provide emerging projects. As
> Gianugo puts it
>
> > The actual community building is however a task for the project itself:
> the
> > ASF isn't Midas and won't be able to
> > turn an unattractive project into sexy stuff that gathers time and
> > enthusiasm from volunteers.
>
>
> IMHO, the ASF provides the structure - based on years of experience - and
> infrastructure to support such communities. I
> think all open-source projects want to succeed. There is always some hidden
> hope that the ASF's Midas touch will lead to a stream of new developers
> contributing to this success. I think in the ASF the focus is on doing
> things the "Apache" way as a means of creating this community. Although
> ASF
> can provide guidance based upon what has been successful in other Apache
> projects, it can't be expected to do the grunt work for all its projects.
> We could expect more "lessons learned" from other ASF projects coming from
> the mentors but the actual application of these ideas has to come from us.
>
> Speaking of grunt work, we should probably be considering what to do about
> the necessity of rewriting the ESME codebase as David and Erik describe.
> We
> can have the best wiki in the ASF but ESME is a software project and
> without
> a solid code base we aren't going to get very far.
Dick,
I'm a fan of burning down code. Code has little value compared to
institutional knowledge. The problem as I see it with ESME is that the
institutional knowledge is slipping away because the momentum is slipping
away. The code is a lot less material to the process. The project momentum
is a lot more valuable.
Put another way, I think about 50% of the Lift code needs to be burned down
and over the next year, I expect that will happen. I also expect that once
that's happened... in a year, another 50% of the Lift code will need to be
burned down. There is no code base that I've ever seen that doesn't need
some substantial re-writing. Doing this while preserving backward
compatibility is always a fun challenge.
As opposed to you, I expect that part of the structural value of the ASF is
the structures that help build community. Please see my prior post.
Thanks,
David
>
> D.
>
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Vassil Dichev <vd...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> > Without trying to get into David's mind, I'd like to point out that
> > David's blog post was more of a reaction to defend the Rails
> > community. I must say it's possible to get the point across even
> > without the unfortunate comparison with the ASF. The point is this:
> > it's hard writing exceptional software. I think you both agree on one
> > count: even guidance and support don't guarantee a groundbreaking
> > software project. If success was easy to reproduce, someone would have
> > discovered a way of generating groundbreaking software projects on a
> > mass scale.
> >
> > Now I don't think that a software project has to be groundbreaking to
> > be useful. I have no illusions that ESME is destined to be as
> > groundbreaking as e.g. Rails. I still hope it has the chance to be
> > useful.
> >
> > With that said, I hope that any heated arguments originating from the
> > Rails scandal are over soon, because there are probably no two people
> > who agree on which software is useful or groundbreaking. And the time
> > and effort spent in a discussion like this could be spent creating
> > software.
> >
> > Vassil
> >
>
--
Lift, the simply functional web framework http://liftweb.net
Beginning Scala http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430219890
Follow me: http://twitter.com/dpp
Git some: http://github.com/dpp
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Richard Hirsch <hi...@gmail.com>.
I agree with Vassil in that the main issue deals with the creation of
exceptional open-source code and the different ways to build the community
to support such code. Much of the debate revolving around the ASF concerns
unspoken expectations - what should / can ASF provide emerging projects. As
Gianugo puts it
> The actual community building is however a task for the project itself: the
> ASF isn't Midas and won't be able to
> turn an unattractive project into sexy stuff that gathers time and
> enthusiasm from volunteers.
IMHO, the ASF provides the structure - based on years of experience - and
infrastructure to support such communities. I
think all open-source projects want to succeed. There is always some hidden
hope that the ASF's Midas touch will lead to a stream of new developers
contributing to this success. I think in the ASF the focus is on doing
things the "Apache" way as a means of creating this community. Although ASF
can provide guidance based upon what has been successful in other Apache
projects, it can't be expected to do the grunt work for all its projects.
We could expect more "lessons learned" from other ASF projects coming from
the mentors but the actual application of these ideas has to come from us.
Speaking of grunt work, we should probably be considering what to do about
the necessity of rewriting the ESME codebase as David and Erik describe. We
can have the best wiki in the ASF but ESME is a software project and without
a solid code base we aren't going to get very far.
D.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Vassil Dichev <vd...@apache.org> wrote:
> Without trying to get into David's mind, I'd like to point out that
> David's blog post was more of a reaction to defend the Rails
> community. I must say it's possible to get the point across even
> without the unfortunate comparison with the ASF. The point is this:
> it's hard writing exceptional software. I think you both agree on one
> count: even guidance and support don't guarantee a groundbreaking
> software project. If success was easy to reproduce, someone would have
> discovered a way of generating groundbreaking software projects on a
> mass scale.
>
> Now I don't think that a software project has to be groundbreaking to
> be useful. I have no illusions that ESME is destined to be as
> groundbreaking as e.g. Rails. I still hope it has the chance to be
> useful.
>
> With that said, I hope that any heated arguments originating from the
> Rails scandal are over soon, because there are probably no two people
> who agree on which software is useful or groundbreaking. And the time
> and effort spent in a discussion like this could be spent creating
> software.
>
> Vassil
>
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Vassil Dichev <vd...@apache.org>.
Without trying to get into David's mind, I'd like to point out that
David's blog post was more of a reaction to defend the Rails
community. I must say it's possible to get the point across even
without the unfortunate comparison with the ASF. The point is this:
it's hard writing exceptional software. I think you both agree on one
count: even guidance and support don't guarantee a groundbreaking
software project. If success was easy to reproduce, someone would have
discovered a way of generating groundbreaking software projects on a
mass scale.
Now I don't think that a software project has to be groundbreaking to
be useful. I have no illusions that ESME is destined to be as
groundbreaking as e.g. Rails. I still hope it has the chance to be
useful.
With that said, I hope that any heated arguments originating from the
Rails scandal are over soon, because there are probably no two people
who agree on which software is useful or groundbreaking. And the time
and effort spent in a discussion like this could be spent creating
software.
Vassil
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <g....@sourcesense.com>.
On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 4:51 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz
<bd...@apache.org> wrote:
> That's what David Pollak says here:
> http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?url=archives/93-In-defense-of-DHH-the-Rails-comminity.html
>
> I'm happy to discuss this on this list.
>
> As an incubation mentor I've tried to give advice when it makes sense,
> while also staying out of the way. If people want something else,
> let's talk about it.
Pfft. Whatever.
As my wife would put it, sometimes if you don't get it there's no
point explaining it. If all you see about the ASF is red tape, then
just consider going somewhere else. It would help if you didn't play
rhetorics on a few lines of reports, but who am I to argue on someone
else's rants?
For the non-David-Pollack out there who might be tempted to buy his
load of crap, let me just rebut the most offensive argument he's
making: the ASF _is_ strongly meritocratic. In the sense that we will
not tolerate any governance model that is not strongly based on
meritocracy. That is as much as we can do, and that's our promise to
the community.
The ASF has no power (or remit) to build a community. All we can do is
provide projects with a nice and welcoming environment, with clearly
defined rules of engagement and a set of rules that over the years
proved effective in being a trustworthy platform for a level playing
field. The trust we have earned over the years turns into visibility
and boost for projects. The actual community building is however a
task for the project itself: the ASF isn't Midas and won't be able to
turn an unattractive project into sexy stuff that gathers time and
enthusiasm from volunteers. I would still contend that if a project is
unable to build a community around Apache, it's got very little chance
to succeed at it elsewhere. But, by all means, don't take my word:
just go for it, fork and give it a shot.
--
Gianugo Rabellino
M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Bertrand Delacretaz <bd...@apache.org>.
Hi David,
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:54 PM, David Pollak
<fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...My expectation is that the ASF has experience building open source
> projects... not just the code, but all the pieces that go into making the
> project a living and thriving thing....
Looking at the list of ESME mentors: yes, those guys all have
experience with the various aspects of an ASF project, not just code.
However, IMHO, there's no "The ASF" here.
The ASF as a whole is not going to help build ESME - that's the
responsibility of the ESME community.
What the ASF does (via the reports that you seem to snicker at in your
blog post) is to keep an oversight on all of its projects, to make
sure they are run according to the ASF principles of meritocracy,
legal oversight, etc.
The technical and community aspects of an ASF project are the
project's responsibility, and the board of directors avoids
interfering with projects unless it is absolutely inevitable. For a
podling like ESME, the Incubator PMC is the entity that keeps
oversight, and acts in the same non-interfering way.
Here is the original mission statement of the foundation, as it stood
on our original home page:
The Apache Software Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal,
and financial support for the Apache open-source software projects.
Formerly known as the Apache Group, the Foundation has been incorporated
as a membership-based, not-for-profit corporation in order to ensure
that the Apache projects continue to exist beyond the participation of
individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property
and funds on a sound basis, and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal
exposure while participating in open-source software projects.
Nothing says "the ASF will create new projects" or "the ASF will build
communities". The ASF exists to "provide organizational, legal, and
financial support", that's it.
Now, the incubation mentors are usually happy to help with the
community building aspects of podlings, but as Gianugo quite rightly
says mentors are usually not proactive in this. It's like coaching a
band that's about to start playing live: it's the band members who are
going to be on stage once the show begins, not the mentors. Unless the
band members actually start playing something (even if that's
initially out of tune and out of style), mentors will just sit here
and wait.
The role of ASF incubation mentors is described at
http://incubator.apache.org/guides/mentor.html, if you have a look
there's nothing about code or community building in there, the
(minimal, I agree) role of mentors is just to allow the ASF to
"provide organizational, legal, and financial support" for the podling
once it graduates.
> ...So, let me enumerate what I would have expected you or other people in the
> ASF to do/not do in order to incubate ESME:
>
> - Do an analysis of the overall needs to the project to succeed in terms
> of user adoption and increased contribution. No, I'm not expecting a
> full-on market research project, but identifying (or at least asking the
> questions to help identify) what it would take to move the project to the
> next one or two levels of user and developer adoption...
Mentors won't do this, unless ESME can grab out attention based on our
personal itches. And ESME could as well grab the attention of any
other experienced ASF members who could help with that, mentors do not
play a special role with respect to those project needs.
Yet, we had a good discussion on this in the "state of ESME" thread
beginning of March (http://markmail.org/message/yryr4ld7mm7friq2)
where me and Robert Burrell Donkin (not a mentor - an ASF member who
became interested in the project, scratching his own itch), among
others, gave advice as to how ESME can progress. People have been
listening, and things have been happening, but just real slow, for
some reason that the mentors can't control and don't really care about
- the speed of progress entirely depends on the people who are
actively involved in the ESME community.
> - Do an analysis of the existing team and the existing project leaders
> and figure out where the strengths are and where the weaknesses are and work
> to help the team leverage the strengths and find folks to augment the
> weaknesses.
The ASF is driven by meritocracy, not by analyzing teams. What people
contribute to the project will show their strengths are weaknesses.
Someone might be a strong coder in one project, take an evangelist
role in another, and just be a time waster in yet another project that
they're not following closely enough.
> - Understand the projects existing interaction patterns and work to meld
> the interaction patterns with the ASF's best practices.
I've been doing this at the beginning of the project, trying to
(gently) steer interactions so that everything happens on the mailing
list, code is committed to the ESME subversion repository, etc.
In the last few weeks I got the feeling that not much was happening in
ESME, so didn't do much. Again, mentors are not proactive, and I'd
prefer the project to fail early if it's not viable, so I switched to
wait-and-see mode.
> - Set milestones for retrospectives with the project's leadership to see
> where things are and how they can be improved, as well as criteria for
> cutting the project loose.
Did I hear you say "monthly incubation reports" ;-)
Podlings report to the Incubator PMC monthly in the first three
months, then every three months. From the podling's point of view, the
(hopefully collaborative) creation of the report is an excellent point
in time to ask the above questions. And that's one thing where mentors
are expected to help, so feel free to grab us.
> ...So, an aside. I think that together, Anne and Dick have a tremendous amount
> of potential. Anne is amazingly charismatic, has a ton of people she knows
> and has a bunch of really good vision about the power of social networking.
> Dick is one of the best process people I've worked with. He has a good
> understanding of technology, but an amazingly deep understanding of process
> and the benefits of applying process to technical projects. He's got
> a phenomenal touch with respect to herding cats along the process path
> (although my experience is that his touch manifests itself better verbally
> than in writing.) Anne and Dick have a great working relationship and
> communicate well with each other. Together, Anne and Dick are a great
> combination and have the potential to deliver a ton of value to ESME and to
> the ASF more broadly. But, it's going to take work on someone's part to
> help guide Anne and Dick through the differences between their world and the
> open source world. It's going to take some investment to unlock the great
> value that Anne and Dick have to deliver....
Teaching those differences to Anne and Dick will happen as the project
progresses - if you guys can get a few coders interested enough so
that something actually starts happening in a collaborative fashion in
ESME, the project will have to do releases, make technical decisions,
bikeshed on names, argue over the project's vision, etc.
That's where the learning happens, but again mentors have no
obligation to teach individuals how open source work - mentors are
here to help the project as a whole.
About Anne and Dick's potential - seen from the project's point of
view, it's all about meritocracy *inside the project*. You'll find
many CTOs, entrepreneurs, CIOs, and geniuses active in the ASF, but
within their projects they are just normal contributors and community
members - until the value that they bring *to the project* makes their
peer recognize them as someone special *for the project*.
That's how it works here - I'm not trying to downplay Anne and Dick's
role or qualities in any way, just using that example to try and
explain how things work here.
>
> So, with that set-up, let me outline what I expect from you and/or the ASF:
>
> - Understand that Anne and Dick are the leaders and drivers for ESME.
That's not the mentor's role, we want a self-sustaining and
self-organizing community.
> - Learn more about the strengths that Anne and Dick have as well as their
> weaknesses (e.g., not a lot of open source experience)
Not the mentor's role either, though personally I'm not *that* thick,
so yes I gathered that from our exchanges within ESME.
No problem with that in general, but how can you want them to be
leaders while saying they have no experience?
> - Understand (as Erik pointed out on my blog) that Anne and Dick are not
> coders and working on what help they need based on that fact.
All the ASF projects that I know of are mostly (95%) about code.
There's space for non-coders to play important roles in projects, but
only if some coding is happening.
> - Understand that ESME is an end-user application and that differentiates
> it from most of the ASF's offerings and work with the ESME team as well as
> the ASF's leadership to figure out what, if anything, needs to be changed in
> ASF process to accommodate this difference.
I'd say the ASF's way of working is more suited for infrastructure
projects than end-user applications. This could be the most important
realization of this thread, that some parts of ESME might be better
off outside of the ASF. Food for thought only though, at this point.
> - Identify that the momentum slow-down ESME has been suffering since
> joining the ASF as a serious problem and help the project leaders deal with
> it.
Can't help if no questions are asked, and in the abstract there are no
"project leaders" in ASF projects, all committers are equal and
decisions are made by consensus and voting. In practice, every
committer can be a leader for some part of the project, that's the
cool thing.
> - Once there's reasonable momentum back in the project, figure out how to
> retain the momentum and enhance it.
"The ASF" will not help for that, ESME has to build a self-sustaining
community if it ever wants to graduate. Mentors can probably help
steer it, but we don't have that magic community wand.
>... I expect real analysis and work on the part of the ASF. This is the kind of
> value that the ESME project needs. Are my expectations way out of line?...
As the above shows, yes, I think they are mostly out of line.
The analysis work can either happen by someone sponsoring analysts to
work on ESME, or by the ESME team getting ASF folks (not necessarily
the mentors) interested, which needs some initial momentum to happen.
Hope this helps.
-Bertrand
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Vassil Dichev <vd...@apache.org>.
> 1. you can nail it to his perch and rattle the cage, but a dead parrot
> is just a dead parrot no matter what. If ESME is a piece of code
> written by at large by one guy who had to leave, with no one else
> taking the lead, there is very little you can do. At the end of the
> day, code matters: community management, outreach, marketing and the
> like is the sizzle - yet the Open Source community is all about "show
> me the beef".
There is still development going on even in the absence of David. It
might be not be as hectic as in the pre-demo days, but it's still
there. A Twitter-compatible API is finished and there's a lot of
progress on access pools. And once the Scala core is stable, there's a
lot of work on the UI, where we have many more experts on the team.
Exactly because it's all about "show me the code", I know there are
developers with a "wait and see" approach. Developers aren't willing
to commit time and resources before ESME gets to a fairly functional
release and there's a quick return on their investments of effort.
I can't tell if ESME will break this vicious circle, but it's a bit
early to write it off. Time will tell if your hunch is right. Let's
wait and see.
Vassil
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <g....@sourcesense.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:30 PM, Anne Kathrine Petteroe
<yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Some of us, me included, might have had expectations on what ASF could do
> for us in terms of building a community.
> The ASF tag hasn't helped me as much as I thought it would, I still meet
> developers/managers who haven't even heard of the Apache Foundation!
> It has taken me three presentations in my company alone just to explain to
> them what we are doing, and why they should free up time and money for me to
> work on ESME. (which they have agreed to) Coming from the enterprise world,
> building an open source community has definitely not been as easy as I
> thought it would be, not quite sure where to start since I cannot start with
> committing code.
My 2c:
1. you can nail it to his perch and rattle the cage, but a dead parrot
is just a dead parrot no matter what. If ESME is a piece of code
written by at large by one guy who had to leave, with no one else
taking the lead, there is very little you can do. At the end of the
day, code matters: community management, outreach, marketing and the
like is the sizzle - yet the Open Source community is all about "show
me the beef".
2. the carrot and stick approach might work, but it's overly difficult
and tends to piss people off. Overhead and planning is even harder
(see the scrum thingy and the "job post" idea that floated around).
The one thing that always work are itches to scratch: the good thing
is that most of the time they come for free, the bad news is that they
are very hard to find if they're not blatantly visible.
3. I have no reason to doubt you and Richard are wonderful and
professional individuals. Still, ESME needs to find a strong (and yes,
even opinionated) technical guidance to thrive, otherwise it will be
just die a slow, painful death.
With my mentor hat on, I'm more than willing to help assess the
current situation, but know that if my hunches are confirmed there is
more than a good chance that I might advise to give incubation up.
--
Gianugo Rabellino
M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum or community
Posted by Anne Kathrine Petteroe <yo...@gmail.com>.
Could we please stop this discussion now and refocus on how we can
build a stronger community around ESME instead?
Some of us, me included, might have had expectations on what ASF could
do for us in terms of building a community.
The ASF tag hasn't helped me as much as I thought it would, I still
meet developers/managers who haven't even heard of the Apache
Foundation!
It has taken me three presentations in my company alone just to
explain to them what we are doing, and why they should free up time
and money for me to work on ESME. (which they have agreed to) Coming
from the enterprise world, building an open source community has
definitely not been as easy as I thought it would be, not quite sure
where to start since I cannot start with committing code.
David told the group some months ago he wouldn't be able to lead ESME
any longer, so his (low) level of contribution was expected.
At the same time I knew leading a project like this without developers
would be tough, so I wanted to take it easy for a while to see if
David would be able to free some time for ESME again once the book was
finished.
Hope there is a way we can all work *together* on this again..
/Anne
On 3. mai. 2009, at 20.25, Gianugo Rabellino wrote:
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:18 PM, David Pollak
> <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
>> g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:54 PM, David Pollak
>>> <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz
>>>> <bd...@apache.org>wrote:
>>>> I expect real analysis and work on the part of the ASF. This is
>>>> the kind
>>> of
>>>> value that the ESME project needs. Are my expectations way out
>>>> of line?
>>>
>>> Yes. What you can expect from the ASF (the project mentors,
>>> actually),
>>> on top of logistics and legal, is pull, not push. Ask questions, get
>>> answers. Mentors' mileage may vary, but we are here to steward and
>>> advise, not to have a (pro)active role. Unless we want, as
>>> volunteers,
>>> do so.
>>>
>>> That's a realistic expectation. Now, if you want to get more, you
>>> might want to show some of you "experience in building open source
>>> communities" and steer clear from bossing us.
>>
>>
>> Okay... this series of posts from you is the first in the ESME
>> community.
>
> Do your homework, next time?
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/esme-dev@incubator.apache.org/
> msg00617.html
>
> I would also note that the role of a mentor is staying out of the way
> as much as possible, jumping in only when there is a chance of lines
> being crossed?
>
>> And... you started off by being rather obnoxious to me. Now you're
>> accusing
>> me of bossing.
>
> Hey - I didn't quite started it. It was you throwing mud on your blog
> first, then asking for this, and that and that again from mentors
>
>> In terms of my experience building communities, I helped
>> build the NextStep community in the early 90's. I build the Mesa
>> community
>> (50K users strong) and Mesa still runs as a code base today and
>> there are
>> still active users. More recently, I helped build the Scala
>> community and I
>> have built the Lift community. I have also participated in the ESME
>> community for going on 10 months now and contributed > 50% of the
>> code in
>> the code base. I was also the one that made the introduction for
>> the ESME
>> community to the ASF.
>
> Good for you. Do you really want this to degenerate into a "mine is
> longer than yours" fight? I couldn't care less about your track record
> - I will still call Bovine Stercus any time I feel the stink, and both
> your blog post and your unrealistic expectations are clearly in that
> direction.
>
> Have fun,
>
> --
> Gianugo Rabellino
> M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
> Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <g....@sourcesense.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 8:18 PM, David Pollak
<fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
> g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:54 PM, David Pollak
>> <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz
>> > <bd...@apache.org>wrote:
>> > I expect real analysis and work on the part of the ASF. This is the kind
>> of
>> > value that the ESME project needs. Are my expectations way out of line?
>>
>> Yes. What you can expect from the ASF (the project mentors, actually),
>> on top of logistics and legal, is pull, not push. Ask questions, get
>> answers. Mentors' mileage may vary, but we are here to steward and
>> advise, not to have a (pro)active role. Unless we want, as volunteers,
>> do so.
>>
>> That's a realistic expectation. Now, if you want to get more, you
>> might want to show some of you "experience in building open source
>> communities" and steer clear from bossing us.
>
>
> Okay... this series of posts from you is the first in the ESME community.
Do your homework, next time?
http://www.mail-archive.com/esme-dev@incubator.apache.org/msg00617.html
I would also note that the role of a mentor is staying out of the way
as much as possible, jumping in only when there is a chance of lines
being crossed?
> And... you started off by being rather obnoxious to me. Now you're accusing
> me of bossing.
Hey - I didn't quite started it. It was you throwing mud on your blog
first, then asking for this, and that and that again from mentors
> In terms of my experience building communities, I helped
> build the NextStep community in the early 90's. I build the Mesa community
> (50K users strong) and Mesa still runs as a code base today and there are
> still active users. More recently, I helped build the Scala community and I
> have built the Lift community. I have also participated in the ESME
> community for going on 10 months now and contributed > 50% of the code in
> the code base. I was also the one that made the introduction for the ESME
> community to the ASF.
Good for you. Do you really want this to degenerate into a "mine is
longer than yours" fight? I couldn't care less about your track record
- I will still call Bovine Stercus any time I feel the stink, and both
your blog post and your unrealistic expectations are clearly in that
direction.
Have fun,
--
Gianugo Rabellino
M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by David Pollak <fe...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Gianugo Rabellino <
g.rabellino@sourcesense.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:54 PM, David Pollak
> <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz
> > <bd...@apache.org>wrote:
> > I expect real analysis and work on the part of the ASF. This is the kind
> of
> > value that the ESME project needs. Are my expectations way out of line?
>
> Yes. What you can expect from the ASF (the project mentors, actually),
> on top of logistics and legal, is pull, not push. Ask questions, get
> answers. Mentors' mileage may vary, but we are here to steward and
> advise, not to have a (pro)active role. Unless we want, as volunteers,
> do so.
>
> That's a realistic expectation. Now, if you want to get more, you
> might want to show some of you "experience in building open source
> communities" and steer clear from bossing us.
Okay... this series of posts from you is the first in the ESME community.
And... you started off by being rather obnoxious to me. Now you're accusing
me of bossing. In terms of my experience building communities, I helped
build the NextStep community in the early 90's. I build the Mesa community
(50K users strong) and Mesa still runs as a code base today and there are
still active users. More recently, I helped build the Scala community and I
have built the Lift community. I have also participated in the ESME
community for going on 10 months now and contributed > 50% of the code in
the code base. I was also the one that made the introduction for the ESME
community to the ASF.
Please tell me what value you have to give to this community or the ASF as a
whole other than trying to sell developers to this project.
>
>
> --
> Gianugo Rabellino
> M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
> Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
>
--
Lift, the simply functional web framework http://liftweb.net
Beginning Scala http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430219890
Follow me: http://twitter.com/dpp
Git some: http://github.com/dpp
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by Gianugo Rabellino <g....@sourcesense.com>.
On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 6:54 PM, David Pollak
<fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz
> <bd...@apache.org>wrote:
> I expect real analysis and work on the part of the ASF. This is the kind of
> value that the ESME project needs. Are my expectations way out of line?
Yes. What you can expect from the ASF (the project mentors, actually),
on top of logistics and legal, is pull, not push. Ask questions, get
answers. Mentors' mileage may vary, but we are here to steward and
advise, not to have a (pro)active role. Unless we want, as volunteers,
do so.
That's a realistic expectation. Now, if you want to get more, you
might want to show some of you "experience in building open source
communities" and steer clear from bossing us.
--
Gianugo Rabellino
M: +44 779 5364 932 / +39 389 44 26 846
Sourcesense - making sense of Open Source: http://www.sourcesense.com
Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
or community
Posted by David Pollak <fe...@gmail.com>.
On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Bertrand Delacretaz
<bd...@apache.org>wrote:
> Hi,
>
> That's what David Pollak says here:
>
> http://blog.lostlake.org/index.php?url=archives/93-In-defense-of-DHH-the-Rails-comminity.html
>
> I'm happy to discuss this on this list.
>
> As an incubation mentor I've tried to give advice when it makes sense,
> while also staying out of the way. If people want something else,
> let's talk about it.
My expectation is that the ASF has experience building open source
projects... not just the code, but all the pieces that go into making the
project a living and thriving thing.
So, let me enumerate what I would have expected you or other people in the
ASF to do/not do in order to incubate ESME:
- Do an analysis of the overall needs to the project to succeed in terms
of user adoption and increased contribution. No, I'm not expecting a
full-on market research project, but identifying (or at least asking the
questions to help identify) what it would take to move the project to the
next one or two levels of user and developer adoption.
- Do an analysis of the existing team and the existing project leaders
and figure out where the strengths are and where the weaknesses are and work
to help the team leverage the strengths and find folks to augment the
weaknesses.
- Understand the projects existing interaction patterns and work to meld
the interaction patterns with the ASF's best practices.
- Set milestones for retrospectives with the project's leadership to see
where things are and how they can be improved, as well as criteria for
cutting the project loose.
What the ASF has provided to ESME so far that I think is positive:
- Coding infrastructure (subversion, a mailing list)
- Process infrastructure (the CLA, iCLA, etc.)
- The ASF brand (aka a safe place for big companies to allow their
employee contributions to)
On that list, the brand value of the ASF is what we can't obtain elsewhere.
There are negatives from my perspective that offset these positives, but if
we can get to the other positives (see below), the negatives associated with
process over substance become less valuable.
So, an aside. I think that together, Anne and Dick have a tremendous amount
of potential. Anne is amazingly charismatic, has a ton of people she knows
and has a bunch of really good vision about the power of social networking.
Dick is one of the best process people I've worked with. He has a good
understanding of technology, but an amazingly deep understanding of process
and the benefits of applying process to technical projects. He's got
a phenomenal touch with respect to herding cats along the process path
(although my experience is that his touch manifests itself better verbally
than in writing.) Anne and Dick have a great working relationship and
communicate well with each other. Together, Anne and Dick are a great
combination and have the potential to deliver a ton of value to ESME and to
the ASF more broadly. But, it's going to take work on someone's part to
help guide Anne and Dick through the differences between their world and the
open source world. It's going to take some investment to unlock the great
value that Anne and Dick have to deliver.
So, with that set-up, let me outline what I expect from you and/or the ASF:
- Understand that Anne and Dick are the leaders and drivers for ESME.
- Learn more about the strengths that Anne and Dick have as well as their
weaknesses (e.g., not a lot of open source experience)
- Understand (as Erik pointed out on my blog) that Anne and Dick are not
coders and working on what help they need based on that fact.
- Understand that ESME is an end-user application and that differentiates
it from most of the ASF's offerings and work with the ESME team as well as
the ASF's leadership to figure out what, if anything, needs to be changed in
ASF process to accommodate this difference.
- Identify that the momentum slow-down ESME has been suffering since
joining the ASF as a serious problem and help the project leaders deal with
it.
- Once there's reasonable momentum back in the project, figure out how to
retain the momentum and enhance it.
I expect real analysis and work on the part of the ASF. This is the kind of
value that the ESME project needs. Are my expectations way out of line?
Thanks,
David
>
> -Bertrand ("kinda" disappointed to read such a blanket statement with
> no prior discussion here)
>
--
Lift, the simply functional web framework http://liftweb.net
Beginning Scala http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430219890
Follow me: http://twitter.com/dpp
Git some: http://github.com/dpp