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Message-ID: <3A4046DD.2A1F50A9@collab.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:42:53 -0800
From: Jason Hunter <jhunter@collab.net>
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To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Subject: Re: Analyzing Bessie (Was: Whoa Bessie...)
References: <B6657825.1B5E8%jon@latchkey.com>
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> > This situation with internal forks is hard because who gets to have the
> > fork with the original name?  I think in the situation where such a
> > decision needs to be made it should be decided by the overseeing PMC.
> 
> This is the final real question in your excellent analysis. Therefore it is
> most interesting to me.
> 
> Given that James is not only the President of the PMC, but there are other
> people on it like myself who no one likes at this point so whatever decision
> I make, everyone will hate me for it. :-) There are also people on the PMC
> whom I think might not really care about the future of Ant as much as the
> people on this list do.

Yes, I'm trying to decide what action I would want Apache to follow in
general, beyond this specific case.  I think it's in the PMC's charter
to handle issues such as these.  If the PMC doesn't well represent the
project, that's all the more reason for more dedicated PMCs as has been
discussed by Apache in the past.  A PMC should be capable of solving
issues like this.

Regarding James being President of the PMC, I've been wondering if I
would want him to "bow out" of any vote.  I've decided I don't think a
"bow out" is appropriate.  He was named President of the PMC because
Tomcat and Ant and the other seeds of Jakarta were donated by him and
his company.  As original creator he was given the position of most
power to oversee its direction.  I don't think that's wrong.  

People can of course fork the code, even with the fork living within
Apache, but I believe it's the role of the PMC to manage the existing
project and thus the name.

-jh-