On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Greg Stein wrote:
> "But it works -- we have committers" "But it works -- Jakarta has produced > some great code" "But it works -- ..." Well, yes to all of those. Sure it > did. My concern is about the impact on the community, not the ability to get > work done. And measuring the health of a community is quite a bit less > objective. I never had the opportunity to interact or really view or hear > about the ins-and-outs of the Jakarta community until these past two or > three weeks. And you know what? I think it *is* fractured, and that is sad. > I witnessed some straight-on personal attacks on the reorg@ list, and been > privy to others due to my Board role. People actively stating they don't > want to work with somebody or interact with them. I've never seen the like > in the httpd and apr communities where we avoid talking about people > publicly. Is there a causal link? Probably not, or if so, then very minor. > But I don't want to test the hypothesis. I don't want to give any foothold > for community fractures; it just isn't worth the risk. I'm no expert on community-science [I assume there is one. anthropology?sociology?] but it would seem to be an assumption to think that a healthy community has to be a unified community. Jakarta could be made up of sub-communities [there's enough cross-pollination that it's hard to see this a bit, but there are also obvious tribes] which can quite happily be at odds with each other from time to time and yet still improve the surrounding communities well-being. Another example of the same thing is this list. There has been a lot of debate/argument, largely between two communities, but the result has been positive. In terms of community fractures, I think the proposal to promote Jakarta projects out of Jakarta [something I'm not against] is the one that is a danger to the community. I think this is why that community was originally defensive and still hedgy. That said, I am attacking your words from the wrong side. I agree with the closed member-discussion lists. Hen
