Sorry for the cross post Lets move this to community.
Think about infrastructure, pr, website content management, etc etc - all things without a real 'project' (only in the technical sense of a CVS module), but still resources our community needs, hence contributors to those resources should be regarded as community@ members.
This is why infrastructure needs to be a formal project.
Rationale: Infrastructure is a resource shared by multiple groups...but no one is really a committer to it. In most areas +1 means yes and I'll contribute. -1 means no and heres why and an alternative. So far as infrastructure goes... -1 means "No you're not doing it my way even if I'm not going to do a dern thing". .
An infrastructure project could be inhabited by people who actually plan on DOING something. And no more -1's from people who just want to say no or are upset because their pet project isn't used.
For instance.. We have on of the worlds most inferior systems for updating non-project (and some project) webpages (okay hand editing HTML with no cvs would be worse but still).. But why does this happen? Storing the HTML in CVS and the XML and having to go do cvs update...not too pretty. Plus some would-be contributers don't have access to the web server to run the update.
Why? Because lets say I offered to do the whole thing and bring it into the new century with a great solution.. . Why didn't I use Maven....or cocoon...or centipede...or forrest...or anakia....or JIFF. So -1 on me right (from someone)? Well time to fix that. Secondly...who even knows how to update the www.apache.org site... I sure don't and couldn't get an answer on where to send the patches...
A committer based project where those who contribute vote is the best thing I can think of... Anyone else?
-Andy
I follow the reasoning that if people know their words will be recorded for later public consumption, they will try and act as respecting citizens. And mutual respect, even when in intellectual disagreeance, is one of the values of that infamous Apache Way (I guess).
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