Christ, I'm going to buy each and every one of you a beer at ApacheCon (you too Jim), and then you will each shut up and forget about this. Deal?
Aaron On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, David Blevins wrote: > On Nov 8, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Jeremy Boynes wrote: > > > Jim Jagielski wrote: > >> Within the ASF, the use of the development mailing list is *the* > >> method > >> of development discussion. That's the reason for it. > >> Wikis are good for "after the fact" documentation. > >> IRC is good when a small subset of developers need to > >> get together quickly to talk about some aspects of > >> development, but it should quickly and completely > >> migrate to email after the "pressing" matters have > >> been dealt with. Same with thinks like "meetings > >> over beer" and stuff like that. The reason, of > >> course, should be obvious: it excludes by its very > >> nature other developers. And you can't have collaborative > >> development when that happens. > >> Also, in-the-open development via Email makes it easy > >> to prevent such claims as "back door" activity. How can it > >> be back door when it's openly discussed in the primary > >> development scheme? > >> In general, however, such things as "we discussed this > >> on IRC and we decided to do this and we'll post a > >> summary on Email when we can" is never a good idea, > >> and can result in kindly words that "development is always > >> done on the mailing list" to fiery words that "people are > >> trying to have their cake and eat it too by riding on > >> the ASF name without adhering to its standard practices." > >> This is an issue that every ASF project has had to deal with > >> in one way or another. > > > > I think you are missing the true issue here. > > > > The off-list discussion between Aaron and myself came about because it > > was pretty darn clear that we were not effectively communicating our > > thoughts in email and that the thread was disintegrating into dispute. > > Rather than indulge in a flame fest we took action to help reach > > consensus in the community. The intent and outcome of the off-list > > discussion was a plan on how to get back to a reasonable discussion > > *on the list* - no technical decisions were made. > > > > The bitter and personal attack that came as a response to this > > achieves the exact opposite of what you desire as it encourages people > > to keep quiet about such discussions; for, like it or not, such > > discussions will happen (ApacheCon anyone?). > > > > But it is more than that. Speculative allegations seed FUD about the > > project and are, in my opinion, deleterious to the project and > > community. We should not encourage or condone such behaviour. > > > > You had two individuals here trying to resolve a technical difference > > by discussing between themselves how to coherently present the issue > > to the community so all could be involved. This is a good thing. > > > > You had two individuals flame them for doing so with accusations of a > > hidden agenda. This is a bad thing. Talk of cake and coat-tails simply > > promulgates that meme. > > Don't throw me into that category. My exact words were, "Motivations, > diffusing, back channels.... Can we turn this back into a technical > discussion?" > > -David > >
