I'm going to attempt to give the most complete answer I can without posting comments that were said with the expectation of privacy - it's not my place to violate that expectation. Some things discussed here are things I wouldn't typically mention in public (notably the topic of trademark compliance), but since it has already been mentioned by others and posted in the minutes, I'm going to be as open and compete as I can for the sake of the community.
For the record and for context, I'm a member of the PMC, voted into the PMC fairly recently, but neither a Datastax employee nor customer. The ASF has very strict guidelines in the way they expect projects to be run. Some of these guidelines are hard legal requirements (protecting brand trademarks), some are designed to protect the health of the project (ensuring diverse contributors, lack of control by a single corporate entity). For a very long time, the most active committers and PMC members were Datastax employees - as full time sponsored contributors, they drove the vast majority of features. In addition to sponsoring the full time contributors, Datastax also actively tried to grow the community - for their business to grow, they need adoption of Apache Cassandra, so they spent a lot of time and money actively trying to find more contributors and creating opportunities for people to learn about Cassandra. Unfortunately, two unrelated problems arose. First, apparently, folks like Lucasz' frustration and decisions like not wanting to have in-tree drivers are misinterpreted (in my opinion) as inappropriate control. Additionally, the Apache Way calls for decisions to be made In public, where a record exists. Some (many?) decisions were happening in places like IRC (real time collaboration among full time developers) which, while not hidden or private, wasn't logged (it is now) and wasn't necessarily obvious to casual observers. While I'll respond to Lucasz's email directly in a moment (I find many parts of it incorrect), the APPEARANCE for people only barely familiar with the project is that Datastax was likely inappropriately controlling the project, a violation of ASF guidelines. Second, some of what Datastax perceived as well intentioned community building occasionally violated trademark guidelines. I suspect the most likely cause is that marketing materials were written by marketing folks who don't understand trademark law. This isn't subjective. The active members of the PMC (which, at the time, were primarily Datastax employees) ARE responsible for policing trademark and MUST (unambiguously) correct misuse - that didn't happen as often as it should have. My opinion is that it didn't happen because the PMC was heads down on code and focusing on the database, not the marketing, but that's not an acceptable answer. The combination of these two factors causes the ASF to become involved. Apache Cassandra isn't alone here - other big data platforms of various shapes are also having similar interactions with the ASF, likely for similar reasons. There has been (and will continue to be) communication to ensure that ASF trademarks are respected and that Datastax doesn't exert undue control over the project. That communication was not a one time message - it was back and forth communication for quite some time at the PMC level. Factual objective background out of the way, I'll switch to opinion and speculation. Because this isn't an isolated case (ASF has to deal with multiple projects having similar issues) and everyone involved has strong opinions that they're acting in the best interest of the project, I SUSPECT that frustration runs high, tempers are short, and occasionally things are said that shouldn't be said - some of which one may classify as "prematurely inflammatory". This serve[s|d] to drive a wedge between two groups that nominally have the same goal - a strong Apache Cassandra project. Ultimately, Datastax has an obligation to their investors to make money and the ASF has a mission of protecting it's project (where project includes the intellectual property, Apache Cassandra codebase and websites, mailing lists and community as a whole). It's apparent that some of the communication has caused Datastax to re-evaluate it's level of involvement - no committers have been removed by the ASF, no members of the PMC have been removed, though we collectively have been (repeatedly) instructed to follow the Apache Way. While I'm unable to tell you Datastax's exact motivation (again, not a Datastax employee), I suspect it's a combination of limiting liability, anger/frustration at some of the tone/messaging, and deciding not to give away expensive, difficult work for free. And that's what most of us hoped would not happen, but it'll be OK. Supporters on the ASF board and members of the ASF will say that The Apache Way exists to protect the project against exactly this type of divestment. Friends and fans of Datastax will say that this wasn't necessary, point to threads in dev@ that appear needlessly accusatory, argue that everyone was genuinely acting in the software's best interest (though perhaps missing some of the requirements of the PMC), and wish that this could have been handled and remedied differently. I echo your sentiment that Datastax spent a lot of time and money trying to build the community and actively worked to encourage more diverse contributors, and I appreciate their contributions (code and community). At this point, the ship has sailed, and as a project we're left with Jonathan's blog post as the only official public communication on this topic from Datastax. Datastax employees are still actively fixing bugs in core tech (just look at the commit history), so fears that they'll simply disappear should be put aside - they may not contribute all of their improvements, but they're still contributing, and for that I thank them. As a member of the PMC, I encourage people to try to become more involved. It's a complicated piece of software, but it drives many of our businesses, and it will certainly live on. Best, Jeff Jirsa > On Nov 3, 2016, at 8:44 PM, Kelly Sommers <kell.somm...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I think the community needs some clarification about what's going on. > There's a really concerning shift going on and the story about why is > really blurry. I've heard all kinds of wild claims about what's going on. > > I've heard people say the ASF is pushing DataStax out because they don't > like how much control they have over Cassandra. I've heard other people say > DataStax and the ASF aren't getting along. I've heard one person who has > pull with a friend in the ASF complained about a feature not getting > considered (who also didn't go down the correct path of proposing) kicked > and screamed and started the ball rolling for control change. > > I don't know what's going on, and I doubt the truth is in any of those, the > truth is probably somewhere in between. As a former Cassandra MVP and > builder of some of the larger Cassandra clusters in the last 3 years I'm > concerned. > > I've been really happy with Jonathan and DataStax's role in the Cassandra > community. I think they have done a great job at investing time and money > towards the good interest in the project. I think it is unavoidable a > single company bootstraps large projects like this into popularity. It's > those companies investments who give the ability to grow diversity in later > stages. The committer list in my opinion is the most diverse its ever been, > hasn't it? Apple is a big player now. > > I don't think reducing DataStax's role for the sake of diversity is smart. > You grow diversity by opening up new opportunities for others. Grow the > committer list perhaps. Mentor new people to join that list. You don't kick > someone to the curb and hope things improve. You add. > > I may be way off on what I'm seeing but there's not much to go by but > gossip (ahaha :P) and some ASF meeting notes and DataStax blog posts. > > August 17th 2016 ASF changed the Apache Cassandra chair > https://www.apache.org/foundation/records/minutes/2016/board_minutes_2016_08_17.txt > > "The Board expressed continuing concern that the PMC was not acting > independently and that one company had undue influence over the project." > > August 19th 2016 Jonothan Ellis steps down as chair > http://www.datastax.com/2016/08/a-look-back-a-look-forward > > November 2nd 2016 DataStax moves committers to DSE from Cassandra. > http://www.datastax.com/2016/11/serving-customers-serving-the-community > > I'm really concerned if indeed the ASF is trying to change control and > diversity of organizations by reducing DataStax's role. As I said earlier, > I've been really happy at the direction DataStax and Jonathan has taken the > project and I would much prefer see additional opportunities along side > theirs grow instead of subtracting. The ultimate question that's really > important is whether DataStax and Jonathan have been steering the project > in the right direction. If the answer is yes, then is there really anything > broken? Only if the answer is no should change happen, in my opinion. > > Can someone at the ASF please clarify what is going on? The ASF meeting > notes are very concerning. > > Thank you for listening, > Kelly Sommers
