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Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:47:16 +0100
From: Matthias Friedrich <matt@mafr.de>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: Vote on personal matters: majority vote vs consensus
Message-ID: <20130329084714.GA13072@mafr.de>
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References: <CD79BA87.C394C%chris.a.mattmann@jpl.nasa.gov>
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User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15)

On Thursday, 2013-03-28, Chris Douglas wrote:
[...] 
> Is this a question of standing, where material harm needs to be demonstrated?
 
> The IPMC is needlessly inefficient and abusive of its podlings. Novel
> "compliance" mechanisms are literally invented and argued about on
> general@ during podlings' release votes.[1] The cultural clashes that
> Chris's proposal refers to generate huge amounts of traffic on
> general@ and private@, as ASF members argue the semantics of core
> concepts. And it's not just edge-case legal issues; some are as basic
> as the definition of "veto".
 
> These discussions create needless confusion and deeply resented churn
> for podlings. The asymmetry in power teaches submissiveness to ASF
> members, rather than independence and self-sufficiency. There are, in
> truth, *many* active interpretations of the Apache Way practiced
> across the ASF. Reconciling them is not the mission of the incubator.
> Putting esoteric debates on the critical path of new projects is
> absurd and harmful.

> [1] http://s.apache.org/lFI

As someone who is relatively new to the ASF and who's first behind the
scenes contact with Apache was the incubation process, I can tell that
this is absolutely true. Podlings find themselves in a kafkaesque
world where many rules are undocumented or can only be found in
old mailing list discussions.

Apache and this list especially can feel like a really hostile place
for newbies.

Regards,
  Matthias

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