Re: On unity and coherence [was Re: [Request For Comment] POI @apache]

["Andrew C. Oliver" <ac...@nc.rr.com>]

>"Andrew C. Oliver" wrote:
>> > Not that I should have much of a role in this discussion but I'd
>like to
>> contribute some thoughts stemming from an offline discussion I had.

<snip/>

>These are very thoughtful commnents, Andrew, I hope you post again. 

Thanks.  Perhaps, this list is a little high traffic at the moment for
me to keep up with everything.

>It's my understanding that Apache Projects' unity of purpose is 
>"to encourage a collaborative, consensus-based development process"
>The rest is syntatic sugar.

Thats very high minded and a great mission statement in many respects. 
I still say adding unity-of-purpose to Jakarta and creating some more
user-minded-distributions of things would be helpful from a user
perspective.

>For the record, I do believe the PMC members took the high-road when
>discussing the code conventions. The few posts about things like braces
>looked like jokes to me. Most of the conversation was about whether we
>should keep the conventions we have, and having them, how do we promote
>their use. 

Maybe I missed some of those posts.  I was a bit incensed by one message
where a developer's commit was actually singled out and criticized
publicly for using "_variables" (I don't use that style personally, but
someone I respect greatly does).   Perhaps I missed the joke on that (a
personal public flogging).  I can be dense, but my brain is frozen and
I'm not used to that (SE US got snowed over).

>Personally, I don't think Apache or Jakarta are broken. We create great
>products, and have fun doing it. AFAIK, that's our only mission.

Hopefully, I did not go as far to say they were broken.  My response was
based on previous emails that were saying they've exceeded critical
mass.  If I implied they were "broken" then I misspoke.  I did not mean
to criticize that strongly.  What I meant to get across was that a minor
course correction would be in order.  I meant to suggest bringing
greater unity of purpose as I outlined would alleviate some of the
outside and inside perceived problems.

>We do need more internal documentation, since it does takes some effort
>to get up to speed here, and volunteers to help with this are always
>welcome.

Thats a chicken and the egg problem.  Contributing to the documentation
requires often an understanding that the people most interested in
improving the documentation probably don't have ;-p.  I'll be doing what
I can in the near future.  I need to get up to speed on docbook and the
such and then I'll start sending a harassing flux of patches to the
projects that I find have the most egregious documentation (or lack of)
and jump up and down until committers commit them (and when they flame
me I'll say Ted told me to :-p j/k).  But at the moment I'm drowning in
email from the POI 1.0 release (there is nothing like a release to find
actual bugs and drum up new requirements and ideas) ;-p this should get
better in a few weeks after the initial fury dies down.

>I also think we are more than ready for a POI vote, if someone were to
>post an actual proposal, including the list of committers. 

Okay.  I'd drafted one.  I'll clean it up and post it.  

-Andy



>-Ted.



-- 
www.sourceforge.net/projects/poi - port of Excel format to java
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html 
			- fix java generics!


The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to
vote.
-Ambassador Kosh


--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>

Re: On unity and coherence [was Re: [Request For Comment] POI@apache]

[Ted Husted <hu...@apache.org>]

"Andrew C. Oliver" wrote:
> Thats very high minded and a great mission statement in many respects.
> I still say adding unity-of-purpose to Jakarta and creating some more
> user-minded-distributions of things would be helpful from a user
> perspective.

If creating more user-minded-distributions is something a developer
enjoys, then that's what a developer should do. The developers are
creating software that meets their needs, and freely sharing it with
others. But those others don't drive the development process. The
developers do.

A commercial enterprise may have the goal of winning the most users,
since users contribute to the development process through the payment of
fees. But I do not see that as the goal of Apache Projects. If (in some
impossible way) our software were inferior, and our developers
miserable, then Apache would be a failure no matter how many people used
the software. 

What is amazing is that Apache Projects have so many users, without
spending a single dime on marketing, or payroll, or anything but a
development and distribution infrastructure. 

-- 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/

--
To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>