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To: general@incubator.apache.org
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Subject: Re: OpenOffice.org Apache Incubator Proposal:
 Splitting^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HREUNITING
 the Community?
From: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
Message-ID: 
 <OF9262B968.9CF16E36-ON852578A3.006A05BD-852578A3.006B8F8B@lotus.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 15:34:51 -0400
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Florian Effenberger <floeff@documentfoundation.org> wrote on 06/02/2011 
03:01:26 PM:

> 
> Hello,
> 
> as we have a public holiday in Germany, I will reply to the other 
> messages tomorrow. However, I cannot leave this sentence uncommented:
> 
> Noel J. Bergman wrote on 2011-06-02 20.50:
> > If there is a community split, that
> > decision will rest solely on those who choose not to join our 
all-inclusive
> > environment.
> 
> So, if TDF does not join the Apache OOo project, a community split is 
> our (=TDF) fault. However, if the people proposing the Apache incubator 
> project do not join TDF, a community split is not their fault.
> 
> This looks like a rather one-sided view to me.
> 

If I may make a quick observation. We're spinning around on words here. 
That is not useful.  The word "community" is being used in two different 
senses, and this equivocation is wasting a lot of time on this list.  Let 
me just spell it out explicitly and maybe we can avoid wasting more time 
on it:

Community (sense 1):  Any specific existing group of people who are 
members of an actual open source project.

Community (sense 2): An aspirational vision of a group of people whom 
someone thinks ought to be working together on a specific open source 
project.

I don't think that anyone can argue that Apache OpenOffice would, in any 
active sense, "split" an existing community, in sense 1.

Sense 2 is a but more subjective, since each person might have their own 
vision of what the ideal community would look like.  To some Apache 
OpenOffice would be bringing that community together.  To another person, 
with a different vision, it might be splitting it.  But I suggest that 
using a violent term like "split" and to accuse others of doing it, but 
then to have it applied to an idealized vision of a community that does 
not exist today, that is a rhetorical device best omitted.

An alternative way of expressing it, in a more natural fashion, might be: 
(and not to put words in Florian's mouth) "I have a vision of a unified 
community in LibreOffice but this future unity cannot be achieved if there 
exits others who are contributing to a different community". 

-Rob


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