Maurice Gittens wrote:
On Thursday 09 March 2006 20:32, you wrote:
I wrote a long and details reply to this, but have decided not to post
it. The issue is too volatile and has the makings of an argument rather
than a discussion. Maurice has made some very valuable observations,
along with some misunderstanding of my intent.
Let me try and be clear about the "inventor" tagline:
I have an issue with any claim of ownership of ASF code, not with the
recognition of contributions.
I am a strong believer in the meritocracy of the ASF and how it awards
credit to individuals.
A claim of being the "inventor" of community code implies ownership. I
do not believe this was the intent of the original commit message, only
an unfortunate side effect of that particular word. Thorsten has been
around the ASF long enough to know how it works.
For the record I'm happy with Tims observations, as is Thorsten. Since
this specific instance only concerns Thorsten that can be the end of it,
I hope.
However, there are more general community issues here as well, and I
would like to look at them. Here are three community observations (and
as far as I am concerned the really important part of this):
1) Some people seem to feel that the normal ASF meritocracy is not
sufficient credit within Forrest. Why should Forrest be different from
other ASF projects? Do we need to do something different?
2) We see occasional mails that seem to imply "hidden agendas" on the
part of others, yet never say anything directly. This is extremely
damaging to our community. If someone has a genuine concern it should be
raised in the open (or the semi-open of the PMC list if more appropriate).
3) For a while now this community has had periodic eruptions. Why is
this happening? Is it related to the above observations, or is there
something else?
Ross
