Hi, I'm not planning to reread in detail all the long threads that I missed last week (feel free to point to what's relevant in what I missed) but it's obvious that there's some tension in this project.
Here are a few thoughts about this that will hopefully help, in random order, based on my experience in other similar situations. Disagreeing happens all the time in open source projects. More modularity often helps to agree on a common core (*) while allowing people to work independently on their own ideas in non-core modules. For DeviceMap the core is clearly the device data set, so APIs and client come second and if we have to agree only on the data set that's much easier. Contrary to other similar organizations, the Apache Software Foundation doesn't have a technical strategy for its projects and doesn't care for example about which APIs a project releases or doesn't. That's up to each PMC. Invoking your customer who's paying millions of dollars or the Dalai Lama or another well-known person as good reasons to do things never works here. For things that require PMC agreement we want your own opinion, based on concrete technical facts. The longer your email the lower the chances that people will read and understand it - sticking to a single topic per thread, branching off new threads with new subject lines as needed and being as concise as possible helps. http://www.apache.org/foundation/voting.html explains how to build consensus at the PMC level, including commit vetoes, but if consensus can be built without this, by discussing things and coming to an obvious agreement that's much better. Voting can be useful to confirm the result of those discussions but it's not required in principle. Off-list discussions are usually not helpful. Discussing here (or on the PMC private list if *really* needed) is harder but it's worth it. Important discussions on public list always rank higher than off-list stuff in my own email processing list, so don't be surprised if any direct email to me takes time. Things that require consensus (roadmap etc) need to be in a single place, not scattered around various emails. Wiki or website pages are best for that IMO, maybe after discussing drafts on list. I like Greg Stein's "don't use people's names" thing - personal attacks don't help. I don't like boring politically correct discussions either, but respect and focusing on what's right instead of who's wrong helps. Let's fix this community and move forward, I'm willing to help. -Bertrand (*) The Apache HTTP server is my favorite example: minimal core and lots of modules, I suspect in large part because people couldn't agree on what to include or not.
