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From: Gianugo Rabellino <g.rabellino@sourcesense.com>
Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 18:52:34 +0200
Message-ID: <3d89f1770905020952s343cb7f0yee0973837ba295f9@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Nobody from the ASF is helping (ESME) sustain or build momentum
	or community
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On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 4:51 PM, Bertrand Delacretaz
<bdelacretaz@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