Dear All, Thank you for both your public and private responses to my offer to mediate. I am replying to you all together in this message.
One thing that is clear is that many of you are beyond frustration with the current situation and find this environment intolerable. So, it is clear that something must be done. The question is what. My suggestion is this... If it is clear that the vast majority have run out of patience to the point where they are no longer willing to give this issue any more time, then my suggestion would be to take the concrete steps to disband the project from the ASF and move on with life. In other words, if the time for a divorce has come (to reuse the analogy that some of you have used), then why prolong the current agony? Let's get this divorce out of the way and get on with life. However, if there is no vast majority (there is no rule to "vast majority"... just common sense), then again I would STRONGLY SUGGEST resolving the current situation through mediation. We may still jointly decide that the best approach is to move the project out of the ASF, but at least we will find peace though some type of conclusion. To be realistic, as some of you have mentioned, there are some serious trust issues. We need to determine if trust can be rebuilt--which seems doubtful at the point we're at now, but I've also seen stranger things happen--or, at least, how can we avoid stepping on each other's toes? Whatever the solution, I very much believe that life would be better for all of you, the ASF in general, and the project's users if we could resolve this situation once and for all. To give some examples of possible scenarios: - the project is moved out of the ASF - the project moves into incubation - any continuation in the ASF is conditional upon the behaviour of the project's more "agressive" members (i.e., as some of you mentioned: "this has to stop", or in other words: any subsequent fault over the next x months would automatically cause the project to be disbanded) Now, these are just suggestions in the attempt to reassure the more sceptical members that their voices will also (at last) be heard in this process. These are not necessarily the solutions that we'll agree on. >From my understanding so far, there appear to be three camps. What I would like to do first is take a quick pulse of the situation to see how many of you belong to each camp. For this, please feel free to respond either publicly or privately. As mentioned above, if there is clearly a vast majority of members who are not willing to invest more time in this project, the theme of our mediation could be "how do we peacefully move the project out of the ASF?" If the parties are more mixed, then the theme should be "how do we bring peace and harmony back to the community?" Please indicate to me, publicly or privately, if your preference is to: [ ] pass on any new attempt to mediate and simply move the project out of the ASF [ ] work out some solution that is acceptable to all [ ] wadeva man, das cool (neutral) [ ] other (please explain) Note: all replies to me privately will be held strictly confidential. Best wishes, Dave --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]