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From: "Noel J. Bergman" <noel@devtech.com>
To: <general@incubator.apache.org>
Subject: RE: [Summary ]Re: [TEST+VOTE] Lenya 1.2 Release
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 19:14:50 -0400
Message-ID: <NBBBJGEAGJAKLIDBKJOPGEEJKDAB.noel@devtech.com>
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In-Reply-To: <42AEFE34-BBB4-11D8-9332-000A958B684A@outerthought.org>

Steven,

I am having some difficulty reconciling some of your comments, so please
take the time to clarify for my (and judging from Gianugo Rabellino's
comments, that of others) benefit.

Fair warning: this message is likely to come across as harsh.  That is NOT
directed at you.  Nor at any other individual.  Even if I wanted to, which
is neither my intent nor the Apache way, I do not know enough about what has
been going on with Lenya to direct criticisms at individuals.

Steven Noels wrote:
> Noel J. Bergman wrote:
> > What is your take on the readiness of Lenya to leave the Incubator,
> > and on the question of putting out a milestone?  Just as a reminder,
> > the distribution would have to be tagged as an incubator distribution,
> > not an ASF release.

> My take is that - at last, and pushed forward primarily by the group of
> non-Wyona, newbie committers - the urgent need for release and exit has
> been recognized and is in the process of being addressed adequately.
> For one reason or another, this has never been pushed forward by the
> original donators, but now, the momentum has changed to a positive
> effect.

> All this being considered, I'm +1 on release and consecutively exit
> from the incubator.

Leaving aside the fact that Lenya has posted several "RC" distributions to
www.apache.org/dist without proper process or approval, why is there an
"urgent need for release"?  And why release first, exit later?  Why not get
cleaned up, exit and then have a real release?  Personally, I suspect that
the "ability" to do the aforementioned "releases" has been a factor
underlying the lack of impetus within Lenya to get clean and exit.

Thinking on it, we should probably delete those files, which were never
approved by either the Incubator or Cocoon PMCs.  Baring commentary to the
contrary, I will do so within the next day or so (leaving time for
legitimate contrary views).

I do appreciate the desire to exit, and would like to know that if Lenya
does exit to Cocoon that the oversight issues that appear to have previously
marked the Lenya incubation have been corrected.  I am much more concerned
about the Lenya community than the release of its code, and see the former
as gating the latter.  You're also making a similar statement:

> I'll be carefully looking after ASF brand abuse however in the
> forthcoming months. This entire incubation episode has left me with
> dubious feelings: for a long time, I've been thinking that Lenya would
> be a sad example of premature ASF donation. It is good to see that some
> volunteers finally stepped up and managed to create real momentum, and
> I can only hope they will last for a long time. Lenya will still need
> to acquire more external contributors to help them with this effort.

I'm glad to hear about the latter part of that paragraph, but you have to
admit that the first part of the paragraph is enough to give one pause.  So
please explain why we should have a incubator release while there are still
so many questions regarding the viability of the community?  Yes, you are
indicating that there are new members within the Lenya community who are
focused on doing everything properly.  Great, but I'm still trying to
understand why there is a need to put out a distribution rather than put all
of the energy into helping Lenya conclude incubation and then release.

	--- Noel


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