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Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 07:34:07 -0400
Subject: Re: Why solve a problem that doesn't exist?
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From: Geir Magnusson Jr. <geirm@adeptra.com>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
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On Thursday, August 7, 2003, at 02:17 AM, Jochen Wiedmann wrote:

> Quoting Greg Wilkins <gregw@mortbay.com>:
>
>> However, open process is at least as important as open software.
>
> Agreed. But the ASF has just given a bad example on this (IMO).
> Following the discussions on Geronimo in the last days, my
> impression is that a lot of decisions (in particular architecture)
> has already made behind the scenes. I do not even know who took
> those decisions, or how they look like. I just read in some mails,
> that they are "soon to be published".
>
> Not that *I* am the one who could influence that, but there have been
> some prominent names expressing interest in Geronimo on this list,
> who could.

And I think that they will.  Admittedly, we're a bit behind the ball at 
the moment in getting squared away with CVS and site, but that's just 
part of the dependency chain in the incubation process.

This is an ASF project - there have been architectural decisions made 
by the people who are donating code, but that codebase is the tip of 
the iceberg.  There's lots more iceberg :)

>
>
>> The high attrition rate of significant contributors to the JBoss 
>> project
>> over the years indicates that at least for some there is a problem, 
>> that
>> hopefully the open process of apache will address.
>
> That's definitely a point. On the other hand, I still have mixed 
> feelings.
> My impression is that the Apache side behaves very, well, formal.

Why?  The formality here is that given the climate surrounding this, we 
need to be very careful and analytical to ensure that the code we 
distribute under the Apache Software License out of our CVS 
repositories is free and clear of any other claims of ownership.  For 
example, we want to be extremely careful that we don't violate the IP 
rights of JBoss or any other open source copyright owners.  This is a 
principle that the ASF has consistently stood for.

> Right,
> there might be reasons for doing so, but the typical behaviour between
> various open source projects should be different, say friendly 
> competing.
> While I reject words like "controlling every popular, open-source,
> significant project", I still would prefer a public statement like
> "we have attempted to do this and that, but that failed because ...".
> And, very important, followed by a "We are still interested in 
> discussions
> and open for exchange of ideas and possibly even sources, if license 
> and
> copyright allows." What good does it, to close the doors?

I don't follow.  I don't think we want to bring any history into this.  
The ASF wants to do a J2EE project - we aren't the first, and won't be 
the last.

The ASF is a neutral steward in this, providing a good license, good 
infrastructure, and community support.  Everything else is up to us, 
the project community.

geir

>
>
> Jochen
>
>
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-- 
Geir Magnusson Jr                                   203-956-2604(w)
Adeptra, Inc.                                       203-434-2093(m)
geirm@adeptra.com                                   203-247-1713(m)


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