Hey all, A discussion has started on the apache community dev list which I believe may be helpful for those wishing to understand the motivation behind some of Apache's policies (1). In particular,
" "communities are expected to be open for new people to flow in" - this is a requirement. A known anti-pattern is when one employer's employees who are committers start doing project work while ignoring other committers, and while freezing out (either in terms of code or new committers being elected) anyone not from that company. That's when the board will get involved, if the PMC can't self-correct." --Shane Curcuru This statement isn't just true about companies, it's also true about "sub-communities" of any sort. No sub-group of committers or PMC members should ever gain control over a project and then shut out the remaining community members. That would strangle the project in the long term, since company's attention to a project, or non-profits funding is fickle and unpredictable. The rest of that thread is interesting and relevant too, as it describes the tension between payed work and volunteer work, and the reasons Apache has taken various decisions and approaches over the years. I'd encourage anyone interested in understanding the Apache Software Foundation better to read that exchange. Best Regards, Myrle 1.) https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/9a0b1c318f3e29e3150217125c6387a511aba35e11e1f9577de331ff@%3Cdev.community.apache.org%3E
