On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 23:23:56 +0200, Stephen McConnell
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> If you were to get
> the ducks lined up and present a viable proposal that outlines a clean
> sustainable value proposition for Apache, the team, and the Merlin
> end-user community - then you may perhaps capture my attention.
Stephen,
first of all, I don't think anyone made you speaker for the Merlin
team and end-user community, unless that team and community happens to
consist of just you. I also don't think I have to present a value
proposition to you - Apache is based on collaboration, meaning that
you should, to a reasonable degree, help me write that proposition and
not just sit there waiting for people to propose courses of action
which may please you.
Now that we got the preliminaries done, let me turn around and show
you a value proposition.
As Aaron wrote, many people are quite shocked at the utterly
incredible arrogance we met here. The constant "we know what's best
for you, so we'll shove this down your throat, just wait" coupled with
a "we can't do that due to operational requirements" revealed a
massive double-standard when it came to on one hand *my* operational
requirements and yours. In order to pre-empt any pretense of your
operational requirements being those of the Merlin user base I refer
to Aarons mail:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=avalon-dev&m=108965397729686&w=2
Stephen, how about I cut straight to the chase.
Do you have ANY idea just how incredibly hard it has been
to develop for Merlin? I've been trying to get a whole platform
out the door here at Sony and was held up for MONTHS
because of the huge changes between Merlin 3.0 and Merlin
3.3.
As Berin said, people have been talking about forking framework, and
many more have thought about it. It is, after all, a quite natural
reaction. Aaron still has his job - I don't know many who would have
it if they had choosen a platform that held their project up for
months. Delays measured in single-digit hours are *serious*. Days? You
gotta be *joking*!
What this all boils down to is that you've managed to alienate your
users and your fellow developers. Trust me, the "master manipulator"
comment is not something isolated. You've made quite a lot of enemies.
Interestingly, you also managed to annoy the only person that can push
the self-destruct button on Avalon (Aaron). This was not what I
expected you to do when I dropped out of the PMC. I expected you to
raise your game and frankly I see that you didn't.
My value proposition isn't about incubation of Merlin. I'm fed up with
"oh lets move <codebase> to this corner... didn't work, let's move it
here...". The incubation question is left out of this. My value
proposition is this - take a long hard introspective look at yourself,
your leadership, and your relation to the community.
As you read this, thoughts of forking framework and leaving Avalon to
irrelevance are going through the minds of several developers. A major
reason why they are thinking such thoughts happens to be you. Whether
this is because you are the highly visible lead for the Avalon Planet
vision or for some other reason doesn't matter. Thoughts are being
thought. Once they have been thought enough, people will start doing
things instead of just thinking about them. And they won't be stopped
easily then.
Don't worry about me, or my operational requirements. Whatever happens
to Avalon I'll get by, and so will everyone else. Forking framework,
abandoning Avalon, whatever. We'll be OK. But I'd much rather see you
realize Avalon Planet, because while I don't share the dream, I
understand the attraction. And I'd much rather work with you as a
peer. (Held in high esteem or whatever.)
Don't reply to this email. On list or off list. There's no good reply.
Don't worry about my opinion of you. But think about what I wrote. And
check yourself. Don't check yourself against *my* references, I don't
profess to be someone you should look to for ethical or spiritual
guidance. Check yourself against your *own* references. Because you
have power. You're a committer like the rest of us, so you're not
going anywhere. And like it or not, only your actions can save Avalon
now.
And that's my value proposition. Do *something* about this mess. Turn
your enemies into your friends.
/LS
Finally:
As for the incubation of Merlin, I'm abstaining: 0. I have no more
energy to spend on this community now. See you fellas whenever.
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