I have drafted a few responses to this. At the core of all of them is one central point. This has nothing to do with our consensus based approach. I find it frustrating that Damien mentioned the Apache consensus based model as a concern, when to the best of my knowledge he has not had any problems getting any feature he wants in to CouchDB. I find it even more frustrating that you've used this as an excuse to trot out your favorite hobby horse. Most people are aware of your problems with Apache, but I don't think it's very helpful to bring them up now, when they are tangental at best.
I do, however, agree that CouchDB could do with a bit more leadership. I think we could do with being a bit more bold. Back in the old days, Jan used to say it was easier to ask forgiveness than it was to ask permission. I think that these days, we're too busy asking for permission most of the time. I agree that there needs to be an attitude change within our ranks. Be bold people! That's what I'll be doing with the website, shortly. On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Mikeal Rogers <[email protected]>wrote: > The title of this reply is "Tough Love". > > On Jan 6, 2012, at January 6, 20129:08 AM, Noah Slater wrote: > > > Dear Community, > > > > As some of you may have already read, Damien Katz, Apache CouchDB’s > > original developer, has publicly announced that he intends to focus his > > time exclusively on developing other products for his company. Damien has > > had very little involvement in the CouchDB project for a year or more > now, > > so, for many people, this is confirmation of what they already knew. > We’re > > sorry to see him go, and wish him all the best in his new direction. We > all > > owe him a huge debt of thanks for all the hard work he has put in over > the > > years, and for his original vision of the project. > > Yes, Damien has been pretty inactive for over a year, and has that gone > unnoticed? How many releases in that time? How much new adoption? > > For the last year CouchDB has suffered a vacuum of leadership. This is a > thriving community, it can survive a loss like this, but only if people(s) > step up and take responsibility. Having a lot of discussions and process > around decisions leaves the flavor of meritocracy in everyones mouth but > the viewable result of this has been a gigantic loss in momentum as the > projects publicly viewable changes and advances have been close to zero. > > > > > Our biggest strength has always been the breadth and depth of our > community > > of developers and users. In the very near future, we’ll be voting in a > new > > committer, appointing a new PMC member, sprucing up the website, > > Sprucing up the website. *sigh* This is a great example, I've been hearing > this for over a year with no noticeable change. > > There have been countless false starts and arguments about direction > ending in a stalemate. Maybe we all think this kind of discussion is just a > healthy bi-product of a consensus based process but to the public it looks > like it's output: nothing. Nothing piled upon nothing, and we've gotten > comfortable with that. > > > and making > > a major new release. We’re happy to confirm that Cloudant has also > publicly > > made a commitment to help contribute BigCouch to the CouchDB project. > > BigCouch, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of using it > > already, is a fault-tolerant, horizontally scalable clustering framework > > purpose-built for CouchDB. > > I challenge the idea that this is a positive development. Not because > BigCouch isn't awesome, it definitely is, but the Couch community is much > larger and more diverse than Apache CouchDB and many of the fringe projects > have thrived without the Apache process to hold them back while CouchDB > struggles to move forward in spite of it. > > > > > Here’s to our future! > > I'm sure I'll get lots of upset emails and some of those people are still > clinging to the idea that this process is more important that being > productive while at the same time in their other projects see frequent > releases and contributions because they take responsibility for them. > > I rely on Apache CouchDB tremendously and the reason I picked it a long > time ago over alternatives was because the community was so great. Other > projects, and even some of my own, have thrived after the loss of their > creator because people were clamoring to step up and take responsibility. > But what's happened here is that the leader has become fed up with the > process, publicly pronounced it and moved on, and not only is everyone > sticking with business as usual and not challenging the process, nobody is > wiling to take responsibility for the projects future either. > > > > > Relax, > > I'm trying, I really am. > > > > > Noah Slater > >
